This chapter is dedicated to JenniferJonnes (AKA: Miss Popcorn)

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Spheksophobia ~ Fear of wasps

A layer of crumbly cheese coated her lips like a golden sheen of lipgloss. She tossed each popped kernel into her mouth like tokens in an arcade, swallowing them never to be seen again. Each bloom of flowery white disappeared into the yellow encrusted cavern which was her mouth as if it were her last meal. Piece by piece the popcorn disappeared, fuelling the one rightly dubbed Miss Popcorn.

Miss Popcorns eyes stared wearily at the silver screen as the advertisements finally drew to a close. She always did hate watching them because by the time they finally ended her hands usually scraped the bottom of the popcorn bucket. She had practised though. Through meticulous rituals, she had earned a best if finishing only half a bucket of popcorn during a movie although realistically that feat was accomplished during the movie trailer and not the movie itself. Who was she kidding? Without popcorn, there was no life!

Pacing herself as best as she could, Miss Popcorn diverted all her attention to the Noir before her. It was an old-school film - a modern take on your casual black and white theatre experience. It wasn't really her genre but the synopsis intrigued her. It was something along the lines of a 'Flying Popcorn Monster, cousin to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and is the High Kernel in the Order of the Poales' or at least it sounded like that. It was directed by a guy named JoeRover2 who got the inspiration whilst reading an action-thriller about a girl named KlaraSofe but that's about all Miss Popcorn knew. What was most important though was that it referenced popcorn and it gained her a step closer to a free bucket of popcorn on her customer loyalty card.

Suddenly a loud buzzing is heard in stereo and unless the cinema had an upgrade recently that shouldn't have been the case. Looking around to find the source whilst shovelling more popcorn in her mouth, Miss Popcorn was only met by a series of gazes wrought with confusion much like her own. The sound only got louder and louder until suddenly Miss Popcorn felt her tongue swell in response to a sharp stinging in her mouth.

In the rows behind her people started to scream and the buzzing all the while as the buzzing became a deafening drone. Even in the dim light, Miss Popcorn could see the havoc; swollen faces, popcorn flying everywhere and of course, asphyxiation. People were going blue in their already pudgy crimson faces but Miss Popcorn's attention was ripped away when she felt her bucket of popcorn start to vibrate. She could feel the uncomforting hum of the paper and it suddenly dawned on her that what she was easting was no longer popcorn.

Throwing the bucket into the air, Miss Popcorn narrowly missed a fountain of wasps pouring out of the mouth of the bucket like the spawn of Hell itself. Fear began to settle in but she knew she had to do something but as her stomach turned she knew it wouldn't be that something.

Miss Popcorn always carried an EpiPen with her in case of emergencies as well as a trusted packet of microwave popcorn but that's beside the point and surprisingly, for the first time in her life, seemed to disgust her more than anything excluding the scene before her. It was a single shot, single dose pen that was only a temporary measure. It could reverse the effects of at most three or four wasp stings but any more than that and she would be dead.

Gulping to settle her stomach, Miss Popcorn slowly touched her swollen tongue to the roof of her mouth. That's one sting and she could already feel her allergies kicking in. Her airway was constricting tightly but she could still breath. Short gasps of nasally breaths but at least she wasn't suffocating... at least, not for now.

Scanning her aisle frantically, Miss Popcorn watched the horror unfold before her. Budget had been tight recently and in hindsight that had been a benefit. The cinema had just released a new style of popcorn - dreamers delight or better known as 'diabetes delight'. Although Miss Popcorn would always be a purist at heart, she had more than one sleepless night, thinking about the newest style.

It was your regular popcorn kernel yet the seeds were soaked in molasses. They were then mixed in with honeycomb and popped not with oil but a cream substitute. To top it off, they glazed on icing sugar, cocoa powder as well as fudge chunks not to mention the rainbow sprinkles and rocky road marshmallows for garnish. All in all, it was a lifetimes worth of sugar in a single serving and as psychopathic as it may seem, Miss Popcorn was glad she got the Chicago mix as it meant she wasn't being swarmed by a horde of beasts with poison stingers.

Miss Popcorn ducked in between people's legs, zigzagging her way towards the exit, below the hovering battle between wasps and sugar. She couldn't count how many loyalty cards she saw scattered across the ground and it pained her not to pick them up especially when so many of them were ripe for redemption. She had to keep her cool though. She couldn't think about popcorn at a time like this no matter how heartstrings it tore apart.

The dangerous trek seemed to take an eternity but Miss Popcorn eventually made it to the exit with only three stings in total. Her skin was blotched and streaked with purple scars yet she wasn't out of the clear yet. She wasn't out of the very very sugary sticky situation. She would be soon but first, there was a loyalty card right in front of her.

As if Karma hated her itself, Miss Popcorn felt a wavelength of pain fish throughout her button as she went to bend for the card. It wasn't long before she found herself choking and she knew it was time to use the epipen.

Fishing around in her bag, Miss Popcorn dug out the pen yet dropping everything else in the process. Thankfully, she also dropped the lid and as she felt her eyelids swell closed she removed the safety mechanism before stabbing herself in the leg.

A second passed as she waited for the antihistamine to kick in but it didn't. Forcing an eyelid open as she turned from purple to black she started at the sight of injection but once again it seemed that Karma had it in for her. She was injected alright but not by an epipen. She was injected by the fifth and last wasp sting before her vision escaped her.