Breathe—
Breathe—
Breathe, goddammit!
This smell!
Pwoh...
I'm alive. What! How?
My head is pounding, beating in a debilitating percussion.
Choking, my lungs swell with panicked gasps. Inhaling, gulping down this force-fed meal of turpentine and rot. Scorching, searing down my esophagus into my lungs, all until I heave it up.
Fuck! It just came out my nose.
Saliva dribbles forth, congealing across my chin. Too weak. Too heavy to wipe away.
My eyes strain, blinded by this pitiful dark.
Why is it so hot?
Move. I said MOVE!
My nails rake against the leathery confines. My body writhes, desperate for escape: wriggling, jerking, kicking, scratching—then, finally… some light!
Come here.
Reaching forward I hurl myself toward the golden clumps, shoving aside each and every obstruction, desperately fighting against this weight that would see me buried.
My lungs summon a guttural heave, then plows forth my left hand. Its nails split, wrists crack, driving my body ahead to leave this ashen mire.
Crawling like a dead bug, wading through the filth, the muck, as I'm blinded by the mud, but, eventually, my hand erupts into the consecrated cool of the air beyond.
HAHAHA! Freedom! Delectable, delectable, just one last push until—Thud!
White-hot pain sears across my crumpled nose. Crippling cartilage screams aloud, crushed against a smooth but unyielding surface…
Bone!
I try yanking back my hands, but my forearms catch on the tight curvature of what seems to be someone's ribs.
YOU DARE DENY ME!
Fine...
Let my mouth do what the hands cannot. Ivory over flesh. Desperation hath no dignity nor shame and nor do I.
My smile turning carnivorous clamps its teeth down on the bone in merciless vise. Chalk‑dust grit grinds across my enamel, working, faltering, then failing hard.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH FUCK. My teeth.
What's left of my jaw trembles, gripping on once more, biting with blunt impact of itself to adhere to the rough surface.
Just try break me. I hiss, froth foaming at the corners of my mouth.
I forbid it.
I bite down, then copper gushes.
Again!
I nibble. I lick. I huff. I curse. I coax. I plead.
Nothing...
Nothing!
Shutting my eyes, a prayer almost wriggles itself from out my mouth.
Byack in there, worm. There is no god for you to please.
Biting back my empty words, I chew on them, raw, mashing back with visceral disgust as I spray them out towards those shadow beings instead.
Come on...
Come on...
A dry laugh rattles from out of my throat, breaking into a wheezing, wet, cough-filled phlegm.
Insanity! How could I even consider tempting those beasts. They don't even speak English.
Damn it.
Damn it all!
Thud.
My forehead slams against the protruding bone.
Again.
Thunk.
My lips quiver. My vision blurs.
Useless.
A sob sticks to the back of my throat.
This smell, the pounding, and now this new rash burrowing into my back. I… I-uh just can't man.
My eyes dim, the world grows lighter.
Entranced by my abyss, I stare. In it, comfort and familiarity settle.
Minutes pass. Hours pass too. Well… that's just what it feels like.
Time passes, or maybe not. I don't really bother to care.
Funny how all your worries melt away when you just, stop, thinking.
My lungs deflate, my body follows. My mind wandering so as it cooks itself reads at some newly carved text etched from within the behinds of my minds eye.
A poem?
Ah yes… one of mine.
'I raised their hearts, yet here I'm chained, Their freedom bought, my soul profaned. I carved their rights with blood and breath, And earned no gift, but living death.'
My final words. How awfully fitting.
Pound. Pu‑Pound. Pound. Pu‑Pound.
SHUT IT. Who scheduled a construction at my burial? I'll end ya.
Picking up a nearby thing, I throw it vaguely, directed at the sound.
Bouncing off some bone, it lands with a faint clack. However, nothing happened and the sound persists again not even a moment later.
Pound. Pu‑Pound. Pound. Again
I just died and now you want to disturb my mangled body. I have nothing but clothes for you pervs to part from my body, do you wish to take the last of my dignity too. Shoo Shoo before you have to smell my shit too.
Lifting my pinkie finger I attempt to wriggle myself around to avert my gaze, but, it doesn't happen.
Fine, continue your stuff then, like I could even care. My eyes close and my neck rests back down completely limp.
…
Pound. Pu‑Pound. Pound. Pu‑Pound.
Digging? huh...
My head swiftly perks up bashing itself against the bone.
FUHK
Letting out a raspy groan I scrunch up my face opening my eyes once more.
I apologise for my ignorance earlier; please, come save me. I will even make your job easier, just call it my deposit, please, please, please. Just get me the fuck outta here! Yes, yes then I will compliment you with my fullest sincerity.
I cast my chin against the rubble to make it pop.
Hahaha…
My jaw hangs loose, hooking around the boney bone.
Gripping, pulling with my spine as a leash, I rein in my most rabid bite.
Woof, Woof, Woof. I've been told I make a good dog. Come over here now.
I wag my butt as my mouth muscles tear, taut with tension, weaving some half-matted expression of phony submission. Compounding this, the rush of being forcefully dragged from my neck then shoulders up scrapes throughout my entire body momentarily causing the bone to crack then crumble away, giving way for my timely escape.
The world spins. Then falls.
Tumbling down around then out, I pound on that bony tail above my arse, for a bout of bad landing.
"My back." I groan, cupping around my injured butt as I straighten myself out and spit out my throat's bone.
Laying still and staring above, the sky of darkness looks back down on me with its empty gaze..
Wiping my eyes of their bloodied tears, I continue watching the above, noting how some of the plumes of smoke are coloured as they rise from the ground beneath. Following their path to their causes origin, more piles then pits reveal themselves over the horizon to be filled by bodies of the dying dead.
Shifting my neck around causes my head to fall over.
My ears, both battered and bruised by the relentless hammering of my own rushing blood, catch something as they listen against the charred ground of black powder.
Footsteps? And Approaching.
Soft, rhythmic or light; What type of person are they?
Too quiet.
Then, as if humbling my collapsing ego, my ears pop with a shattering chime, rending my silence asunder.
Chaos pours in; filtered through the sounds and scents of this worlds morbid plane, between which I catch two barely discernible voices conversing nearby.
Oh great ones, please have mercy on this lamb! Lead them to where the grass is green and food is plentiful.
Bowing down on both knees, my senses grow with increasing clarity. Gradually, those wisps of foreign elements settle down into my weary body; forming the world around with me at its center.
Minutes of this continued penatance is interrupted by a piercing sound that turns my blood instantly cold.
Screaming?