“This one looks good. Any history?”
“Sir. Looks like just another case of Decay. No outstanding Events. Is this the one you want?”
“Mm. Its Potential will serve my purposes well. Let’s check out.”
A strange warmth floods through my body as I learn to feel again. How long was I dead for? Or am I still dead?
It looks like my eyesight hasn’t come back yet, and I can’t hear very clearly. I try to move every part of my body, starting from my toes.
It seems that the parts of my body closest to my head have some range of motion, but from the waist down and my senses, nothing is happening.
Eventually, all of my senses recovered and I tried to move my body. However, I couldn’t see anything, nor feel my right arm or part of my ribs.
‘Those must have gotten torn off while I was dead. That sucks.’
My left arm was fine, so I tried to move it any way I could to see how my body was oriented.
Based on what I was feeling, I must have been lying face down. Lifting my body up, I suddenly was able to see my right arm flopping limply below me.
‘Oh. It was just numb from being under my body.’
I stood shakily on my legs that have gone unused for Gods know how long and took a look around at my surroundings, wiping the mud off of my face.
The landscape was all black, the grass beneath my feet strange tendrils of darkness and small puddles of some sort of bubbling black liquid.
Right next to me was a completely black tree, featuring a man hanged from one of the higher branches, wearing nothing but a rope around his neck – rot already starting to eat away at his flesh.
He looked to be dead, but as I made noise, the man started growling at me, clawing with pale hands, the black foam splattering too close to me to be comfortable.
“This is either a much nicer Hell or a much worse Heaven. Either way, it’s pretty boring.”
“Owie!”
A searing pain started emanating from the top of my head, feeling almost as if part of my skull was ripped off. I reached my hand up to it, and I felt blood. But my fingers are also starting to burn.
I looked at what I thought was blood on my hand, and it was some kind of black liquid. At first I thought the hanged man finally reached me with his saliva, but I was looking at him the whole time and didn't notice any spittle coming my way.
I turned my head to the sky only to find an opaque fog looking back at me. Then, a raindrop hit my eyelid, burning through it into my eyeball.
“AAAAAHHHHH!!” A shriek I didn't even recognize as coming from my own body filled the otherwise quiet air.
‘The rain is acidic?!’
The burning finally stopped as I clawed the melted goop that was now my eyeball out of the socket along with the black rain.
I could feel blood start running down my cheek as I looked frantically around with my remaining eye for some sort of cover, to no avail.
My best chance was to hide underneath the hanged man, and without a second thought I took cover underneath him.
The man continued to flail his pale limbs towards me as I made my 6’1" tall body as small as possible.
The acid rain seemed to have stopped and I slowly stood up, patting the man on the shoulder as I brushed myself off.
“Thanks for the help, bud,” I said without trying to hide the sarcasm in my voice.
Unfortunately, the acid rain hadn’t stopped. This time, I could feel the drops hit all over my body, the pain enough to leave me speechless.
I crumbled to the floor in a writhing mess as the burning rain crawled over my body, taking pieces of me as it rolled off my flesh and onto the ground around me.
##
Restructuring… complete
Establishing connection… complete
##
A monotone and dull voice rang out in my head, but I couldn’t hear anything except the deafening beat of my heart.
The mind-numbing pain finally stopped, but it felt like more than parts of my body were taken away after the damage was done.
I don’t know how I didn’t pass out during the whole time, but now I don’t want anything more than to stay awake and relish the strange feeling of relief across my entire body.
I was exhausted, lying on my back with my limbs spread out beside me, my eyes closed, allowing my body to feel everything I could now that the pain was gone.
**
I woke up to the coldness of the night piercing through my bones. I guess I fell asleep underneath this black tree.
I stood up, looking for somewhere; anywhere I could take shelter for the night. The hanged man was flailing at me once more, his endless energy something I was slightly jealous of.
Strangely, I could see out of both eyes again. Whatever happened to me seems to have healed itself while I was sleeping.
I then spotted what looked like a small tent. It was a strange sight – the whiteness of the cloth blowing in the wind, alone in a landscape of blackness.
Something about it felt familiar to me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was really off about it. Whatever this black stuff was infected anything and everything as far as I could see, so why would this tent be any different?
I didn’t have the time to think about it, as I was on the edge of dying from hypothermia. I raced towards the tent and jumped inside.
The inside of the tent was a lot larger than it looked from the outside, only adding to the discomfort I felt from looking at it before.
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