Insentient

Chapter 2

My eyes struggle to open, the lids heavy and sluggish so I squeeze them shut and take a deep, fortifying breath because I can. I almost expect a feeling of weightlessness, but I can tell instantly that my body is laying on something cool, smooth, and...

Fragmented, I realize quickly as whatever I am laying on gives way into many pieces and I am tumbling end over end down a mountain of ...something. Tinkling sounds surround me as I try desperately to stop my momentum but there is nothing to grasp onto, just the small, hard, moving pile beneath me. My body jolts abruptly as it hits something completely unyielding and my eyes finally pop open. It's dark, but there is a flickering golden light that is causing the small objects around me to shine brilliantly.

Coins, millions of them, maybe even billions of them piled high in a gleaming mountain towering next to me. I blink hard, then squeeze my eyes shut before opening them once again.

I push up cautiously, my eyes roaming around the cavernous room. Sconces line the dark walls casting as much light as shadow between them. I look up, only to see unending darkness above me.

Before my mind can conjure a list of possible reasons why I am seeing what I am seeing, I hear something. It sounds like coins scraping against each other but there is something else, a whisper, a giggle. I swear I heard that.

"Hello?" I ask and there is more movement and it sounds a bit closer this time. My back stiffens, and my eyes scan the area I can see.

"Who's there?" I whisper as I turn my head as far as it can go before repeating the process in the other direction.

All I can see is dark floor, dark walls, flickering light and shiny coins around me.

I swivel back around, and I gasp as my heart stops for a second. My body immediately scoots backward as my body hits the mound of coins and they scatter around me.

There's a...thing in front of me. Its eyes are huge in its brown shriveled head. It's as tall as I am sitting down, this tiny, gnarled creature. My mouth works but no sound comes out, my gaze is glued to this thing, my heart is now pumping wildly. I have no explanation ready for this. He has no nose, only a couple nostrils in the middle of his face and a tiny mouth. He looks like a raisin and a man. A raisin man. I'm looking at a raisin man and I can't get even the slightest of sounds to come out of my mouth.

"He's not going to be happy," I hear a soft feminine voice somewhere beyond raisin man, and my eyes shoot past his shoulder.

A small face peers from behind his back, this one equally strange, yet completely different. This one reminds me of a bird. Small eyes, a protruding gnarled beak of a nose and small black lips. They both have bodies with arms and legs but that's about the only human characteristic I recognize.

"He's never happy," the thing says, and I can tell he's of a masculine persuasion.

"You can talk," I finally manage, and they both peer at me closely.

"Of course, we can talk. Why wouldn't we?" he asks as she steps next to him. They are both clothed in little more than rags.

"I...where am I? Who are you? How did I get here?" I ask in quick succession and they look at each other before looking back at me.

"I don't know," they answer at the same time with matching shrugs.

"But...this is impossible," I say more to myself than them. "I must have been drugged, I'm hallucinating, that's it. This isn't real. You can't be real," I breathe out before squeezing my eyes shut once again.

I will open my eyes and I'll be laying on the dock. I had a dizzy spell, I passed out and this is just some crazy shit I conjured in my brain, I think.