Really Short Fiction: Apple Over Innsmouth

An apple rests inside a paper bag inside my napsack. It's a local variety, so it didn't have to travel far to get into my bag and then my napsack.

It has traveled much farther in my possession, I would guess. Granted, that distance is more of a circuit than an escape trajectory. The thing has been with me for a week.

A week! It is an inconcievable amount of time for an apple to survive.

It has, on successive days, been washed and packed up, secured and carried across state lines, placed in a refrigerator for 8 to 9 hours and then brought back to its origin.

At first it was an oversight. I had an apple and an orange, and for me that choice is always easy and rarely for the apple.

Then the thing was spared due to my waning hunger, a lack of time and then simple forgetfulness.

But today, fear was its benefactor.

I've grown accustomed to the thing, and at times I feel that it calls to me, directing my every effort toward its goals and not my own. It seems as if my hands are made to service the foul thing as it rests within a paper bag inside a napsack, growing more rotten and decayed with each day.

I awoke this morning covered in a rich, brown dirt. It was caked under my nails and filled my mouth. Leaves were clinging to my teeth and ears, and the skin of my buttocks has become red and smooth.

What can this mean?!

My most feverish fears and outlandish hypotheses cannot account for my sympotms.

WHY MUST YOU MOCK ME, APPLE!

Oh, how I wish I had chosen to devour this apple rather than that orange so many days ago, sweet and delicious though it was. But alas, the die is cast and my fate shall be forever entwined with this rosy, wax-covered abomination.

Even as I write these words, I sense that its evil machinations are nearing fruition. What fiendish end awaits me once my part has been played?

I fear that I shall soon find out. Heaven help any others who run afoul of this loathsome, plotting piece of seed-bearing damnation.

I hear something outside my door. What is that smell?

Cider?

OH GOD!