The rain won't come. Day one brings memories, day two brings desperation, day three brings delirium, and by evening on that third day, you reach the forest's edge with brittle knees and muscles elastic as smoked meat. Even there, as dehydration drops you at the precipice of insanity, you find not a drop of water. For days you walk, only to awaken and discover you've instead slept for minutes. You stumble for a dozen paces before collapsing for hours. You stare at your wounded hand as if something grows inside it.
Come day four, you are dying. The fallen leaves around you—their cupped surfaces shimmering—leave only residue on your lips. They were your last hope. Your legs stopped working eons ago. Awaiting rain, your arm sprawls in front of you with a concave strip of bark that shall never fill. Vision fades. You draw a final breath of the thick, torrid air and slip into nothingness.
YOU ARE READING
The Second Stage
HororA world unseen dies over and over. It shrieks at a pitch that you cannot hear. It rots with a stench that you will never quite know. It isn't a place meant for you and I, it is merely a bank for the dead and dying; a vault of visceral agony. I...
