She awoke to a dull throbbing pain somewhere behind her eyes, at the back of her skull. And to darkness. Complete darkness. To some putrid stench hanging in the air. It all seemed like a terrible dream. Was it a dream? Some sick joke her mind was playing on her perhaps. At first she couldnt find the will to open her eyes. Maybe if she kept them closed this bad place would disappear. It cant possibly be a good place. Maybe she was dead. Heaven didnt smell like this though. She doesnt even believe in an afterlife, where did that thought come from?
A flash of pain as she tried to move. Tried to sit up. No wait, remaining immobile seems like the best option now. Baby steps. One muscle at a time. Arms seem to be working. Slowly, but in working condition nonetheless. Legs too. Right leg hurts. Hurts terribly now that she focusses her mind on it. In fact, she cant move it at all. Eye lids will have to regain some sense of movement soon so that she could assess the damage. To get over the worst hysteria and get out of here. somehow.
Where is here? Her eyelids must be glued shut. Either that, or she has no eyes anymore... Wait, what?? That won't do! Not at all! A sense of dread washes over her until she musters up the courage, the strength to reach for her face. Wincing in pain as her sore muscles stretch. Why are they so unwilling to move? Biting down hard to stiffle a scream, she tries again to reach for her face. Desperate now to feel her eyelids, to make sure everything feels the way they should.
Her skin feels sticky. Like someone poured a gallon of glue out over head and it dried. Making the skin feel as if its going to crack. The next few minutes, trying to pry the stuff from her face, felt like hours. Relief as she is finally able to open her eyes.
Where is the light? And what is that smell? The stench of a decaying world.
"Where am I?" The words were meant to be a coherent sentence but didnt come out as such. The final effect was more like soft granite being rubbed against a grater. Crumbling into a million bits of broken words and pain filled sounds originating from a very bruised throat.
With her eyes finally open, she could make out some shapes around her. It didn't bother her at first that there was an eerie amber glow hanging in the air. In fact, she barely even noticed it. Just as she didnt noticed that the sky was covered in rumbling black clouds with what seemed like electrical charges lighting it up every few minutes. Instead, her eyes were fixed on all the corpses around her. Bodies everywhere. Men, women, children, even animals. Some appearing peaceful as if they're merely sleeping. Others with deep gashes and wounds covering their bodies. Limbs torn off. All of them covered with the same sticky substance. A substance that appears to glow with an dirty alien hue every time the electrical charges light up.
Taking in the scene around her, other details became clear. There was no direct source of light. But also not complete darkness. Instead it was a mere shimmer. Pulsing. As if the light, the air itself, was alive. pulsing, irratically, but with a weird sense of rhythm to it. Like a heartbeat would. A sick heartbeat. It was hard to distinguish whether the glow hung in the air, or originated from the sticky glue covering every surface around her. And it did cover every surface. Mostly it formed a thin layer on the bodies around here. Over their clothes, hair, exposed skin. On the ground around her.
The black surface around her. The soil was hard and coarse. She can remember from her very young years on her granpa's farm, a toddler of no more than 5 years, how she always thought the soil was alive. Indeed it was alive, crawling with insects and living creatures, yet her memory of the soil itself was alive. She would sit with her granpa for hours while he worked the lands, playing with handfulls of soft brown soil. Alive and soft. Such a pleasant memory. Nothing compared to this soil, this hard packed earth under her. Cold and hard. Dead. What on earth could kill the soil? It even seemed like the orange glow radiated from the very earth she found herself on.
Still, the darkness outweighed the light, and she couldnt see very far off in the horizon. Yet she could determine with a somewhat gruesome certainty that the trail of corpses werent confined to her immediate vacinity. Was there anybody alive out there? she couldnt possibly have been the only one to survived this... What was this? This massacre... She has to look for survivors. The sudden dread of being the only breathing person on this... this murder scene, forced her to get up. Painfully. You know that feeling when you've been sick and confined to bed for days on end, only to get up eventually and feel like your muscles has to learn the basics of movement for the first time? This was nothing compared to that. Nothing.
The pain was excruciating, yet somehow, she didnt cry out. Why, whats the use in crying? It seemed so futile suddenly. It wont go away unless she moves about and grows accustomed to it, and crawling in the foetal positition surely wont provide her with answers. And it definitely wont make this terrifying scene disappear. Her first plan of action was to look for her parents and family. for Josua. But that might bring on a whole slew of emotional reactions now just to think about them, so finding any survivors now would take priority. She glanced down at her left hand, at the ring with the sparkling emerald, and looked away quickly before her silly memories and hopes cloud her vision. No time for that now. Walk, dammit! Walk. One foot in front of the other.
She wandered for what felt like hours on end, trying not to look too closely at the faces around her, yet feeling for a pulse or some sign of life. Some shred of hope that she's not alone. Thats a train of thought she's not even going to board now. Alone. In this nightmare.
So alone. Alone on a dark surface. A dark world. A dead world. She didnt notice at first that the amber glow hangin in the air, radiating from the surfaces around her, grew dimmer. The world suddenly seemed a whole lot darker now. She could still make out the area around her, but it steadily grew darker. Some type of "sunset?" Will it light up again? Being in complete darkness almost seems more terrifying than being alone. Some of the buildings in the distance were burning when she started on her quest to find survivors, but even those flickers of light died out. It seemed like they were the last shimmers of hope in a burnt out city. embers, illuminating the destruction around her in an eerie glow. Now even the scenes of destruction where covered in a cloak of darkness. Evilness.
Movement. Is there someone else there? Another human perhaps? She tries to call out,
but her voice still trembles. It still has that raw broken quality to it. Wait, maybe its the emeny... Silence would probably be the safest option right now. Atleast until she determines who, or what is out there. whatever it is, Its moving towards her now. Or rather, in her general direction. Could it just be strolling around, much like she is doing. Or did it sense her and is making its way in this direction with a purpose? She can see the form approaching, but without the flickering light source its hard to make out what it could be. Human, animal, or something far worse...
Slowly the light fades. The last of the glow that radiated from the cold soil, from the gluey substance covering the dark soul and all the bodies around her. The darkness consumes all now. Not a shred of light to be seen. She's not alone. Definitely not alone in this darkness. And that putrid presence, its still there.
The stench that burned her nose when she first regained consiousness. God, it feels like hours ago. That sick ordour is still there. So much stronger now. Where is it coming from? From the creature approaching her? Creeping ever so closer. She can actually feel it on her skin. Tickling. No, more like scratching. In her nose, on her forearms, her neck. Its as if the substance sticking to her skin like glue is pulsing now too. Alive. Whatever it is, its possibly reacting to whatever is right in front of her now. Yeah trust the alien substance to NOT glow when you need some goddamned light.
So close. She could probably touch it if reaches out. Could more than likely feel the cold, sticky surface beneath her fingertips. Could feel its tentacles, claws, closing around her wrist, around her ankles, her neck...
She wakes with a scream.
What a bad dream...
