Devoured

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He never felt his heart stop. He didn't feel any pain or panic. Just a sinking sensation, as if being swallowed by thick layers of wet earth, drawn down deep into a pervasive darkness, an absence of all.

And there everything was torn from him. Memories were exposed, stripped away and devoured. Everything that made him who he was, dissolved and absorbed by that absence, a great black hole of un-life.

And he was left empty. Hollow.

In darkness. No sound, no sense of time, no feeling.

Eventually, a flicker of awareness stirred within, and pulled itself up out of the dark. Something searching, something needful.

Something hungry. Something desperate to fill the yawning emptiness inside.

His eyes opened. New eyes, seeing the world for the first time. The world was yellow and grey. Bright lights speared down through him.

He stared up at them, unblinking.

Sit up.

He did. He saw red, blue... clothes... shoes. Jeans.

Not important.

Something loud. Something moving.

Important. Look.

A door. Opening. He watched it rise.

Stand.

Slowly, he rose. He needed something. It was important, he needed it now. Something he could... smell. Hungry.

Turn.

There. Two there. Need... want... what they have, what they're hiding inside. Hungry.

Sound builds to a crescendo around him, through him, and he stops.

Music. Someone... singing?

He listens.

Stop.

Beautiful. He listens, and his body starts to move, drawn into the heart of the music.

STOP.

No. He listens.

It feels... I feel... I am. Where am I? Why am I here? Where is this place? I don't...

The music fades away.

I...

Stop.

I... I can smell them, they... have what I need. I'm... hungry.

The smaller one, looking at me. He smells... important. What beats inside him, I want that. Need it. He's... he's...

I know... him?

NO.

Hungry. I need what he has.

TAKE IT.

The older one is here, grabbing the smaller one, shouting at me. Angry. Looking at me.

He's... I feel... Why do I feel? Where am I? Who is he?

I know... him, I know...

Nothing.

I'm hungry.

They are leaving. Leaving me. Why are they leaving me? I need them... I...

The music builds again. Filling his head, filling his body. Rhythms and voices filled with life.

He listens... and feels...

better.

 —-

Something is directing R in a way here, directing all of the dead, pushing them to fill their emptiness with more death. Something that's certainly driving this whole zombie thing. I loved the way way Isaac described it in the book, through Julie, about digging down deep, too far, releasing something dark into the world. Can't find the exact phrase now, but it really struck a chord with me.

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