At first there was silence. No sound. No life. I lay in a hole made of utter emptiness and it spread and spread, grew bigger, filled everything in… until… until I started to breath. Breathed so hard I thought my lungs would explode, burst into little pieces, pop like a balloon. I coughed and coughed, gasped for air but no oxygen seemed to enter my body. In any minute I would faint, I would fall into the endless void again, alone and scared. Maybe next time I wouldn’t wake up.
Then there was sound. I woke up, still alone, still scared, still breathing heavily. This time my pounding heart broke the utter silence that surrounded me before. Unlike my breath it was steady, not to fast, not to slow. Almost too calm. The steadiness of my heart, the rhythmic beat gave me strength, pushed away a bit of the fear and panic that coated my insides in a thin, poisonous film. I took a deep breath, gaining my newly acquired courage. But with this breath, I also took in a stinging, toxic and sweet smell… like burned flesh.. and something else. The distinctive stench of rotten meat. My body cramped. I needed to get up now, needed to get away, needed to… hurl. It hurt to move and with all I had in me, I pushed myself up on my knees and heaved. At least I tried to but my stomach was empty and I could manage to throw up was bitter bile. The taste of it lingered in my mouth, made me heave again though I couldn’t. My body, my mind, everything was hollow as I began to realize. I trembled, wanted to open my eyes however my muscles disobeyed and kept shaking. Fright, pure primeval fright rose within me. I was afraid, afraid of the loneliness, afraid of what I might had to face when I open my eyes. But I knew if I wouldn’t get myself together I would die here between… whatever I lay upon. Death would slowly creep up to me, would surround me and warp its stinging, acid arms around me. It then would grab me, burrow its long sharp nails deep into my skin and rip me apart until everything turns into a blood reeking hot hell of burned flesh and pain. The terrible pictures that now took over my mind couldn’t be worse than what lay under, beside and all around me. I tried to ignore the wet, sticky feeling under my sweaty palms, tried to keep my panic at base or at least tried to suspended it from breaking my sanity. Tears of black despair streamed down my face, leaving biting tracks upon my skin. I had to open my eyes… now!
Then there was sight. I yanked my eyes open and everything was a big blur like I’d used my sight for the first time in my life. The light was dim as if the source was miles away, therefore it took me sometime to focus but when I had I immediately regretted it. Mountains and mountains of decaying corpses surrounded me. Some of them were fresh, some were already rotten so far that the flesh slowly dripped from their bones. Bodies of human beings, children, babies and bodies of what looked like monsters to me. These things had deformed faces, somehow humane and feral at the same time, their expressions pained and desperate. They had fangs instead of teeth, spouts instead of noses, talons and claws instead of fingers or toes. A mixture of normal, hairless skin and furry skin with thick bristles covered their muscles, as if the body couldn’t decide which one to grow. Though I could still see the innocent girls and boys, women and men beneath that mask of horror they were forced wear. I stared, stared at all of this… this nightmare. I think at this point something broke inside me, something vitally important because while I sat there, in this pile of death, I went numb. Even though I felt my body move, felt how it stood up and started waking I hadn’t felt it. My body went, but a piece of my mind remained sitting and staring. Bones cracked and meat squashed under my feet, as I strode mindless towards what I guessed was the exit of this hell-hole. It was huge wall made of cold steel with several small treads mounted on it. The surface was smeared with chunks of flesh and deep red blood. Underneath the gore, pitch black grime covered the stained steel. The numbness made me ignore the decay and the death that surrounded me, it put a shield between myself and everything around. I was walking through a tunnel, a dark, reeking tunnel and at the end I saw bloody steel but also my only way out. As I got near the treads, something slow and shiftless moved behind me, moved towards me. Though I didn’t hear the bodies crumble under its weight, I was still walking through my tunnel, unable to hear or see. As soon as reached the wall, I gripped the first tread and pulled myself up. It hurt, hurt so much to move but I needed to get up and out. I reached for the next tread, grabbed it and… slipped. My strength left me, my arms went limp and just like that I fell and smacked into the gory ground. The impact came fast and hard, air instantly left my lungs and my head started to spin. I tried to breathe in, tried to focus on something else but the pain. Slowly the world around me settled again, the stinging pain in my back faded. I shifted, pushed myself up and winced at the sudden movement. Suddenly a low, humming noise pushed away the silence that had accompanied me and the bed of dead and putridity shock beneath my feet. Legs and arms started twitch and bend in unnatural ways. The head of toddler with haggard, sunken in facial features, transparent skin and milky eyes turned towards me. Its lips parted, wider and wider, until I heard the jaw break and unhook. Dozens of maggots crept out of the grossly distorted mouth and fell onto the rotten bodies. I was paralysed, unable to move, unable to think even as two claws grabbed b my shoulders and slammed me face first into the pile of decay. Death was here and death would take me with it. The claws clutched my waist, slicing my skin open. Warmth flowed down my lower back and along my thighs. Screaming was all I could still do. Therefore, I cried for help, cried for mercy and cried as loud as I could, to cover up the sounds of my own body being ripped apart.239Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6rbu0EhEEL
While I fell into the burning grave of agony… I woke up.
