HAITHEN - The Void That Lies -

Chapter 2 - Fallen Angel

The world takes back what we so rightfully deserve and never gives it back. What can we find to help ease the wound of something we lost?

Madness surrounds the life of love and keeps cracking on the outside until it fully takes over, and it just keeps conquering all other parts of our psyche until it becomes the leader. However, deep inside the conquest, there's one being that lays low until it can save the day. You can only find that by treading through the masses of the infection.

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The smell of rot was the only sense Alex could feel. He could move, but his body felt numb. It felt awkward moving, stiff in some way. He would try to get up on his knees for what felt like hours even though it's just a couple of minutes. He finds trouble, even breathing. His breath is deep yet shallow, heavy, and even quakes in instability

"Is... is this a dumpster? How did I get in a dumpster..." He tried getting up. It was, in fact, a dumpster. Smelled like one, too. He could only get on his knees before violently coughing out blood suddenly. The effort and strain felt too much for the man, but he didn't try to get out. He crawled out the dumpster, only to fall on the floor like a doll.

It was then he found out something had changed. He looked down on his hands, shaking and covered in dirt and blood. It looked mechanical. So did his arms, legs, everything about him seemed to have somehow been replaced, his hands shaking intensely with his body following the same action later on.

"W-What... happened to me?" Distressed, scared, he hoped this was all a nightmare. It does not seem like it's a nightmare. It all felt too real. His whole life felt like that, and so had this. So, I had this whole event.

It felt like multiple things called out to his eyes. He averted his attention to the land around him, and that's when he took in the situation. This was not home. This was not Earth. The sky was a dark blood red and purple mix, and the sun - or moon, he wasn't sure - was a menacingly ominous orange. He swore he could even hear it laugh at him. The clouds had a striking stare to them, and the sun beaming its rays through the clouds made Alex feel like a vermin.

"What is this place... I don't recognize anything here." He started to try to get up, but this body was too... heavy for him. It hurt to move. He winced and groaned for every sudden movement he tried to make. He started to get his focus back to take a real look at his surroundings, and what he found could only be described as what looked like hell.

He approached from the alley he woke up in and actually decided to take in his surroundings. Toned dull red grass with stains of blood covered the fields and dying flowers lay helplessly too as some couldn't even be pulled from the ground and fly to the sky, all they do is crowd the already dead-looking floor. Just as he picked up a flower, he started to inspect it in sheer intrigue. It looked like nothing from where he lived or any other he's researched for art projects. The pistil itself looked like a pulsating mass, like it was alive. The pellets around the flower were a beautiful pink yellow mix, and like the pistil, they looked like they were almost waving at the man who picked it up.

Looking back down at his body and starting to take closer attention to his body, it's mangled and contorted. Alex can't help but tear up at the sight of what he is now. Even if he didn't really understand it, it just felt horrible.

His torso had flesh exposed from the sides of his body with wires dangling out from the top and sides of the said exposed meat being kept in by tight wires with his suit that he wore being torn and shredded for some reason unknown to Alex. The joints in his limbs were stiff and jammed with trash and spilling flesh. He hovers his hand over to his face to find a hole going to the inside of his mouth, with him running his mechanical finger across his visible teeth and gums.