The cockroach invasion.

I’m cycling through town on my way home, when I come across a small gathering of people looking towards the roof of a large building. We’re in an old part of town, and the building is elegant and majestic. What has drawn peoples attention is a collection of huge leaves sprouting from the roof and down the side of the top part of the building, with one leaf being so big it almost covers one of the top floor windows, which is about 1.5 meters high and 3 meters wide.
Myself and a man from the crowd decide to go up there to see if we can have a closer look. Once inside the building, we take a seat on the velvet-upholstered sofa next to the old elevator. The stairs are made of marble, and the whole place exudes grandness.
The man next to me looks to be around forty, with a thin body, red-blonde hair and nice blue eyes. Although he is not my type at all, (for one thing, he looks way too grown-up), I find myself flirting intensely. I move his wedding ring a couple of centimeters, and begin to draw small circles with my finger on his skin, in the place the ring has been sitting for years. Inside me a voice is screaming ‘Why are you doing this?? You’re not even interested in this guy! Think about the consequences of what you’re doing! Where are your morals? Why do you ALWAYS do this??’) But I don’t listen, and I know for a fact that I’ve already made this man seriously consider leaving his wife and break up his family because of me.

After a while we ride up with the elevator in our quest to see the huge leaf up close. When we get to the apartment on the top floor, I ring the bell, and a woman opens. ‘Good afternoon’ I say. ‘Pestcontrol’. ‘Oh thank god you’re here!’ she says, and I think, what a stroke of luck she was actually expecting someone from pestcontrol. Then she looks behind me at the man I’m with, and says ‘Oh hi honey, I’m glad you’re home.’
So THIS is his wife! Ooops.
We walk inside, and the large diningroom with the leaf-covered window is grey and dark due to the sunlight being kept out. When I walk closer to the window, I see the underside of the leaf is covered with slightly raised welts, grey in colour, and I wonder if it has been attacked by some kind of plant-disease. (I know nothing of plants, so I’ve no idea.) When I look closer, it seems to me some of the largest of the grey spots are moving slightly, but think it must be a trick of the light when the leaf moves in the wind. I turn around, and notice the woman has been talking to me: ‘…thought it was the kittens who had a bad tummy, or was throwing up, but they’re fine, and it just keeps spreading, and I’ve no idea where it comes from.’ She looks at me expectantly, while pointing to the corridor. I walk out there, and notice the floor is covered in places with a red, jelly-like substance. It looks really gross. It crosses my mind that it could have something to do with the strange leafs growing outside, as both things are so unusual. But then again, I know nothing about this sort of thing, and decide it is time for me to get the hell out of there, before she starts asking anymore questions. I turn to leave, while explaining that I’ll send someone with more expertise in this exact area, and get myself out the door and down the elevator. I didn’t realize at the time that I’d be back, getting more involved with this family, and the consequences of the red jellystuff, than I’d ever imagined.

A few days later I return to the flat. The woman I spoke to has moved out, and I am now this mans wife, and stepmother to his three children. The leaf is hanging outside the window, with more following it from the top of the roof, and the red jelly-like substance has multiplied, now covering almost the entire floor of the corridor, and spreading into the other rooms as well. The layer has thickened in places raised up to 10-15 centimeters in some places. It is almost impossible to walk through the apartment without your feet touching it.
Rumour has it that the same thing is happening in other buildings around town. Huge leafs outside, red jelly on the floor. But no-one can say anything about where it comes from, or why.

Then people begin to disappear.

And the cockroaches arrive.

The first person that we’re missing in our circle is my husbands oldest son. At first we think nothing of it. He’s 16, and has often stayed over with friends before and forgotten to tell anyone about it, or gone to hang out downtown with lord knows what types of people, and very deliberately not telling anyone. So although we are worried, it never occurs to us that he will not be returning home in a day or two. It also does not occur to us that his disappearance has anything to do with the arrival of the cockroaches.
The cockroaches have come from the red jelly. One day, it began busting open in the thickest places, spilling huge black cockroaches out on the floor. So many more than would actually have been able to fit inside in the first place. They just keep crawling out. They’re everywhere in the flat, and soon enough everywhere in the entire city. We’ve no idea what to do, and no-one else has either. We follow the news on the radio, but the messages are bleak and gives no hope. Experts from all over the world are working to solve the problem, and locate the origins of this whole thing. There is talk of natures revenge, and of invasions from outer space.
In the meantime, we live with it. It’s all we can do.

When we haven’t heard from our boy for 4 days, we begin to get very worried. Especially as reports come through that a lot of people has gone missing, and nobody knows what’s going on.

As more people disappear, the cockroaches continue to grow in number and size. They’re now an average of 50 centimeters long, and they’re EVERYWHERE. It’s impossible to move without touching them. They crawl on floors, walls, and ceilings, out in the streets and on the sides of buildings.
A phrase is beginning to be heard all around the city. ‘Play dead, they won’t be able to see you.’ It’s like a whisper or a breeze, impossible to catch on to to, or understand the real meaning of.  ‘Play dead, they wont be able to see you.’ My husband and I have both caught it several times, but none of us knows what it means.

One day I go to a storage cupboard on the landing outside the flat, just next to the staircase, to look for a broom or some similar device, which I could use to push away the cockroaches from where I walk.
When I get to the cupboard, I notice the door is slightly ajar, and I hear voices. One is deep and gravelly, speaking in a language I don’t understand, full of clicks and strange noises. The other voice is merely a whimper. I lean towards the crack in the door and peek inside.
And there, I see something. It is something I wish with all my might that I had not seen; a sight I would not wish upon my worst enemy in the world.

In the cupboard I see my husbands son, my stepson, who has been missing for many days. I’m just about to burst through the door to him, when I notice the person standing in front of him.
Or, ‘person’ is the wrong way to describe this. This is not a person, it’s a creature. To be exact, it’s a cockroach. But a cockroach the size of a grown man, standing upright on its hind legs.  It is dark orange in colour, and the most evil and disgusting thing I have ever seen. My stepson is standing before him, with a terrified look in his eyes. He looks like he is in deep pain. ‘Please, no’, he whispers. Then in one swift movement, the cockroach leans forward towards the boy, grabs at his throat with its claws and teeth, rips off his head, and throws it on the floor. I stifle a scream, the chock pulsating through my body, almost making me collapse. Then I see that in the place where there once was a 16 year-old boys head attached to a human body, there is now the head of cockroach. It is a bit smaller in size than the orange one next to it, albino-white in colour, and covered in a see-through layer of slime. The eyes are struggling to open, and it’s antennas are still folded close to its head. At the neck, it disappears into the body of my stepson, which is still standing there, and I realize that this body is nothing more than a shell covering the rest of the cockroach, a vessel which has carried the albino cockroach to life. At any minute, the body will burst open, and the cockroach will shed it like a snake sheds its slough.

I am terrified with fear as I run back into the apartment. I call for my husband, but there is no answer. As I frantically run through the apartment, I realize he is missing, along with his two youngest children.
When I reach the room furthest from the entrance, I realize I will never see them again.
I turn to the corridor, and catch a glimpse of a dark orange cockroach the size of a man. I know they’re coming for me, and I am half paralysed with fear. Only one phrase manages to cut through the panic: ‘Play dead. They wont be able to see you.’ At one side of the room there is an arrangement with a low table, and a pile of Moroccan pillows, and fast as I can I throw myself down in a gap between the pillows and the wall, burrowing as far down as possible. I close my eyes, and lie completely still.
I can hear the door creaking, and the gravelly voice, this time two of them. I hear the clicking sound of huge insects feet on the parquet, coming closer.

I play dead, and hope they wont be able to see me.