lotus bugs

There are tiny bugs in my room, which research has revealed injects a poison that kills ever so slowly.

These insects are cleverly camouflaged, as they have the ability to change their colour according to their surroundings. As an unsuspecting human lays his or her head at night, it punctures flesh with a half-inch-long needle, injecting its liquid lullaby into the bloodstream.

The victim will not die right away, nor suffer. The clever venom induces sleep at the appropriate hour(s) so that the bug's prey succumbs to an increasingly deeper sleep as days, months, years, pass. The poison works deftly on the body, until death, leaving doctors/coroners to declare the death a natural one.

One case, however, alarmed doctors and caused researchers to turn their bespectacled gaze. A 55-year-old man, in perfect health, was found dead in his bed. His pallid face wore a self-content smile, disconcertingly out of place.

A few more similar cases caused funds to flow into research facilities around North America. Twenty years of research finally revealed traces of the venom in the victims' blood.

Though research is far from conclusive, it has been reported that those who may have been bitten will exhibit most of these symptoms:
- difficulty falling asleep (due to a subconscious memory of being bitten)
- falling asleep easily, for the same reason as above. Those in this category have developed an addiction to the insidious poison.
- difficulty getting up in the morning, characterized by repeated slamming of the snooze button
- a possible caffeine addiction
- scratching of the skin for no apparent reason, and no evidence of a bite (e.g. welts)
- falling asleep while reading
- propensity to nap
- inability to concentrate

These symptoms may, correctly, be attributed to other causes, making the condition difficult to diagnose. Doctors who suspect that patients may have been poisoned should immediately seek a specialist's advice.

The only known method of prevention is applying one's own saliva in a thin layer all over the skin before bedtime. The enzymes contained in the saliva appear to make it difficult for the lotus bug to find suitable entry. Application of the saliva must be done thoroughly, however, as this insatiable bug WILL have its way.