The Unknown: Darkness Among Us #1

4 - The Legend of The Puppeteer

A thick substance dripped from the corners of my mouth. It stung my tongue and tasted rancid. It made me feel sick. I wanted to throw up, spit, do anything to get this vile stuff out of me. But any time I tried to get the taste out of my mouth. A violent cough would be ripped from my throat, making my entire body tremble with excruciating agony.

Every single time I would take a ragged, unsteady breath, which made my chest burn in pain and a sickening rattling would fill my ears.

It was a crackling, wet sound that echoed throughout the air around me. At first, I had tried to look around to figure out where it was coming from, only to realise it was me. The sound had filled me with such dread when I first heard it... I sound I knew too well and one I hadn't heard since I was a young lad.

The death rattle.

But I'm no fool. I knew what was happening. How could I not know?

I was dying. Slow and painfully.

But hearing this just made it all the more real.

Ironically, there was a story I read not that long ago. In the pages of that book, there was a hero, who had been dealt a deadly blow by the villain. As they laid there in their supposed final moments, they reminisced about the good times, the better days. Their mind became clouded, they seemed to drift in and out of consciousness. But just as they accepted their fate someone swooped in and saved them, so they could save the day later in the book.

But now as I lay on the floor. Bleeding out slowly. I realise that the story has nothing on human emotion. All I can think about is how much I don't want to die. I want to survive this. I desperately want someone to find me before it's too late. I don't want to think of the good times. I'm not even drifting in and out of consciousness, but I desperately wished I was. My mind was cloudy as my thoughts swirled around in a disorganised manner, but it wasn't enough to save me the pain I was currently feeling.

Another cough brought on a coughing fit that left me withering in agony. I so wanted to curl in on myself, but I couldn't. As I lay somewhat paralyzed on the bathroom floor. Forced to stare up at the peeling white paint above me. It didn't help that the glass light shade was smashed, allowing the exposed bulb to burn brightly into my eyes. I tried not to stare at it, to look anywhere, but there. Even try and close my eyes but that was no help either.

I tried to look at the mirror on the wall. I could not see it clearly from where I laid, it was hiding behind the bathroom sink. But I know it's there, somewhere on that wall watching over me. Decorated with my blood and the long thin cracks, creating a spider's web across its reflective surface, where my head smashed into it. I think I also hit the sink as I fell, as I could see droplets of red trailing down the side of its smooth polished surface. Dripping onto the carpet below.

How the fall alone didn't kill me outright, I don't think I will ever understand.

I tried to remember what happened.

What did it feel like to know I wasn't going to save myself? What did it sound like as my head struck the glass? Did it crack? Did it shatter? Did it make the sound glass does when it breaks into a million pieces? Was the vague sound I remember the crack of the mirror or was that the sound of my head as I hit the sink?

A pain burned through my head, as my mind protested at trying to remember the events that happened out of order. Possibly a side effect of being attacked by something that was impossible. My head was still trying to wrap it's head around the attack as well as the injuries I had sustained.

I feel so broken. My bones, my mind, it all just feels like everything has shattered into a hundred fragments. Just like the mirror on the wall.

Closing my eyes. I tried to piece everything together. But as I tried to do so. I could feel everything slipping away from me. My memories, my name, everything that made up a person was slowly dripping straight from my head and onto the bathroom floor.