:dream:
The world is silence and darkness and the beat of her own heart.
Darkness presses close around her, reducing the world to her own physical sensations, pressing against her eyes until she can't see, muffling her ears and filling her mouth. Her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her whole face seems plastered with the taste and smell of something sickly sweet and sticky. Something throbs under the skin of her back.
Time passes.
Should she move? She feels sure she could move, but she cannot remember what or how. She has legs; she can feel them lying on top of each other like meat and she stretches them a little, but her skin has stuck to itself where it touches itself, and it makes a little tacky noise when it separates. The wetness all around her is mostly dry. She gives up and lies still again, but a little whimper worms out of her. The beat of her heart is the only movement left in the world.
Consciousness fades in a little, sharpens itself. She has fingers, curled against a wooden floor that she can feel but not see, and she twitches them, peeling them loose from the dried sticky stuff. Her fingertips touch the palm of her hand...
Time passes.
Something aches under her shoulder, and she shifts a little to ease it. It's her arm, twisted under her against the hard floor. She smells old must and cobwebs and decaying wood, and the stink of whatever stuff she's lying in, sweet and cloying and damp again, and the salty tang of her own sweat as it drips down her face. There is no fresh air here to breathe. Her arm is coming to life again with prickles of pins and needles, but her shoulder still aches. Both her shoulders ache. Something under and inside them aches, dully, like a pulled muscle or a cramp.
How long has everything been darkness? It's hot, so hot that it throbs behind her eyes, hot and painful. Her heartbeat hammers dully in her ears. She squeezes her eyes shut and breathes in little gasps, and her own breath feels cold against the steaming inside of her mouth. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in...breathe out...
Under the skin of her back and between her bones, something is burrowing and growing and she can feel it, squirming, twitching...
She can't breathe anymore, it's too hot to breathe or to think. She sucks air into her mouth and spits it out, but this isn't breathing, it brings no relief. The world is burning up around her. Her fingers scrape across the sticky floor and there is sweat in her eyes when she opens them, stinging them, but she hardly notices because the cramps in her back weren't quite pain before, but now...
Her skin is stretching, stretching, straining so thin that she feels it beginning to tear open as something bulges and moves inside her own flesh and--
There is a tiny ripping sound. She screams with the pain, digging her fingers into the splintery boards, and fights to gasp the air into her lungs to scream again. Hot wetness trickles down the skin of her back, and whatever things are inside of her heave and bulge once more and tear themselves free, bursting through her ripping skin and unfurling with a wet slithery splatter. She can hear the patter of drops of her own blood on the floor, and she draws breath to cry out again and chokes on coppery blood from her own bitten tongue; she is coughing and retching, convulsing in agony, and she screams again with tears dripping from her chin, streaking the dried fluid that cakes her skin, but nobody comes.
Nobody comes.
Nobody comes.
She is falling away into the darkness and the pain. Somewhere far away, she can hear voices, faint voices like a dream. They must be a dream.
Nobody is ever going to come.
Darkness presses close around her, reducing the world to her own physical sensations, pressing against her eyes until she can't see, muffling her ears and filling her mouth. Her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her whole face seems plastered with the taste and smell of something sickly sweet and sticky. Something throbs under the skin of her back.
Time passes.
Should she move? She feels sure she could move, but she cannot remember what or how. She has legs; she can feel them lying on top of each other like meat and she stretches them a little, but her skin has stuck to itself where it touches itself, and it makes a little tacky noise when it separates. The wetness all around her is mostly dry. She gives up and lies still again, but a little whimper worms out of her. The beat of her heart is the only movement left in the world.
Consciousness fades in a little, sharpens itself. She has fingers, curled against a wooden floor that she can feel but not see, and she twitches them, peeling them loose from the dried sticky stuff. Her fingertips touch the palm of her hand...
Time passes.
Something aches under her shoulder, and she shifts a little to ease it. It's her arm, twisted under her against the hard floor. She smells old must and cobwebs and decaying wood, and the stink of whatever stuff she's lying in, sweet and cloying and damp again, and the salty tang of her own sweat as it drips down her face. There is no fresh air here to breathe. Her arm is coming to life again with prickles of pins and needles, but her shoulder still aches. Both her shoulders ache. Something under and inside them aches, dully, like a pulled muscle or a cramp.
How long has everything been darkness? It's hot, so hot that it throbs behind her eyes, hot and painful. Her heartbeat hammers dully in her ears. She squeezes her eyes shut and breathes in little gasps, and her own breath feels cold against the steaming inside of her mouth. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in...breathe out...
Under the skin of her back and between her bones, something is burrowing and growing and she can feel it, squirming, twitching...
She can't breathe anymore, it's too hot to breathe or to think. She sucks air into her mouth and spits it out, but this isn't breathing, it brings no relief. The world is burning up around her. Her fingers scrape across the sticky floor and there is sweat in her eyes when she opens them, stinging them, but she hardly notices because the cramps in her back weren't quite pain before, but now...
Her skin is stretching, stretching, straining so thin that she feels it beginning to tear open as something bulges and moves inside her own flesh and--
There is a tiny ripping sound. She screams with the pain, digging her fingers into the splintery boards, and fights to gasp the air into her lungs to scream again. Hot wetness trickles down the skin of her back, and whatever things are inside of her heave and bulge once more and tear themselves free, bursting through her ripping skin and unfurling with a wet slithery splatter. She can hear the patter of drops of her own blood on the floor, and she draws breath to cry out again and chokes on coppery blood from her own bitten tongue; she is coughing and retching, convulsing in agony, and she screams again with tears dripping from her chin, streaking the dried fluid that cakes her skin, but nobody comes.
Nobody comes.
Nobody comes.
She is falling away into the darkness and the pain. Somewhere far away, she can hear voices, faint voices like a dream. They must be a dream.
Nobody is ever going to come.