Ink Cursed

Chapter 10

Ink Cursed

Chapter 10

I continue to stare at Chase, studying his face lines. The curves in his forehead read desperation and need of help. What is wrong with him? For a moment, I let myself forget everything about the conflict between Jared and Chase. I rest my hand on Chase’s hand. He’s ice cold, and I can feel something in his veins.

He abruptly hisses and grabs his hand back, as if I caused some sort of pain to it. I widen my eyes, but don’t apologize for my gesture.

“What’s going on?” Jared asks brusquely this time, leaning over me, shaking Chase. Chase narrows his eyes at Jared. My eyes start to slowly widen as Chase whips Jared’s hands off of him.

We are silent.

I find myself staring off into space, wondering about Chase’s previous words. As I fall deeper into thought, a flopping man approaches me, arms short like stubs. His mouth is ajar, and his eyes sink into his pallid skin.

I feel vigilant and quickly stand up, creasing my eyebrows.

The man moves his mouth, moaning, drips of ink dripping from the corner of his lips. My eyes become dry as I realize this is a hallucination.

I can hear Jared’s voice in the background, telling me something. I can’t hear him; my mind is focused on something else. Something so much worse and much more continual.

The abnormal figure of a man saunters towards me, almost like a zombie. I close my eyes and whisper some Latin prayers my dad taught me. Once I stop whispering, I face reality and focus more on the situation of the man.

I close my eyes again, breathing deeply, pushing all polluted from my brain. Wish it all away, wish it all gone.

And on this day, I learn wishes don’t come true.

I open my eyes, but it’s too late. The hallucination grabs me by the shoulders and swallows me whole into the pit of darkness I never knew existed until this horrific point. I open my eyes, seeing only flashes of light. My arms and legs feel weak, and the usual pain in my head commences, beating. I can’t breathe in this tunnel of transportation.

Is this maybe a dream?

I feel hands grabbing me. My hair. My legs. My arms. My face. The nausea comes back, and I can swear someone’s pounding their knuckles on my head.

I open my mouth to scream, to return back to Chase and Jared, but I find myself screaming to myself. My skin crawls at my own cries. I regard them at screams of death.

This is it. This is the end.  

I can’t breathe anymore. I fall deeper and deeper inside the black.

I wake—something like waking—and swoon back and forth out of consciousness, flashing colors and feelings pulsing around and through me. It’s as if I’m paralyzed and blinded. I’m helpless.

Where can I be?

I pray in my mind for several seconds before being released from my paralysis. I open my eyes and study my surroundings.

I’m definitely not in the carnival.

Everything I’d expect in the small gap between Earth and Hell slowly forms around me. On my right there are small bubbles of oozing black, thick liquid. The atmosphere is dense and difficult to breathe in, I realize as I hear my own breathing quickening—either that or I’m dying slowly. I decide it’s both.

What I’d expect to be a sky is a thin black line of God knows what pumping above me.

Worst of all, however, the smell. It’s not something I’ve ever smelt in my whole life. The indescribable smell worsens and makes me feel something I’m always tending to feel in my whole life: nausea.