At first, I thought my skin was crawling. Then I saw it twitch. Alone in the bathroom, under the running water, I froze — heart pounding, mind racing, every worst-case scenario flashing through my head. Was something living under my skin? Was it still inside me? I leaned closer, terrified, as the thin, jointed shape on the tiles kept mov… Continues…

For a while I couldn’t bring myself to touch it again. I just stood there, dripping onto the tiles, trying to convince myself I wasn’t imagining the tiny spasms coming from that thin, segmented thing. Every time it twitched, my stomach turned. I replayed the moment I’d felt it on my shoulder, wondering if it had been there for hours, or longer.

Eventually, curiosity beat fear. I grabbed a tissue, inched closer, and compared it to photos online with shaking hands. The more I looked, the more the truth sank in: it matched almost perfectly with the leg of a large beetle. It hadn’t come from inside me. It hadn’t burrowed into my skin. It was just a broken piece of some unlucky insect — and yet, for a few awful minutes, it had felt like a waking nightmare.