The Comedown
The Comedown
The leaves were abundant, crunchy on the cold, hard ground. Bare trees waved their greetings in the stormy wind, empty limbs cracking together. The sky, an eternity of dark, gray clouds, stretched far above, not a star or sun in sight. The wind carried the smell of rain, and the scent of death followed closely behind. Crows called to each other from their nests overhead, signaling to each other the arrival of another unfortunate, lost soul. I stood up, trying to wipe off the dirt that smeared on my body when I fell to the ground. I was nude and lost, and the land that had received me was all but inviting.
I tried to recognize my surroundings. I'd never been to this place, and have no recollection of why I'd want to travel here. The last I remembered, I'd been walking home late at night after working the late shift at the store. I ran my hands over my bare chest and felt a disruption, a hole, actually, two of them, both just below my heart. That shouldn't be there. How did that get there? I pulled my fingers away quickly as if I'd touched a forbidden tome—they came away with dried blood on them. Why was I bleeding? How did I get hurt? Where am I? Was I shot? No answers came to mind, and the terrified confusion persisted.
A sharp prod in my back alerted me to the behemoth standing behind me. A man, if you could call him that, standing nearly twice my height, stared down at me through eye sockets in the mammoth skull he wore as a helmet. His skin stretched tight over his massive frame, outlining his many scars. He was clad in armor fashioned from the bones of more massive foes, a truly freakish thought. The instrument he'd prodded me with, a scythe that nearly matched his height, rested in his right hand, its butt pointed at me threateningly. Astonished, the only thing I could do was walk. What other choice did I have? Maybe he was taking me away from this foreign land, showing me the way back home. I knew that was wishful thinking at its best. The rough terrain grew worse under my bare feet, which had begun to bleed. Every time I turned around to ask where he was taking me, his answer was the same, a deep grunt followed by a prod from the butt of his weapon. The sky grew darker as we went, almost pitch black. The wind blew harder than it had before, nearly knocking me down a few times, though I earned no sympathy from my escort. Small clumps of movement began dotting the horizon from all angles, and I'd gotten my hopes up, wishing for reinforcements to save me from this place and the armored freak of nature. Unfortunately, men and women both began appearing, closely followed by clones of the man behind me. Like me, they were nude, and also suffered from serious injuries. An auburn-haired woman, covered in deep cuts and stab wounds, walked forward as if she'd suffered nothing more than a paper cut. A man with a scarred, stretched neck, and a tilted head, walked to my left. A boy, no older than ten, appeared to my right with an indented forehead and a gash that revealed a bit of his brain. I wanted to whisper to one of them, ask them what was going on, where we were, but if I talked, I'd no doubt get violated once again, and I doubted any of them had the answers, either.
We eventually formed an assembly line of nude, injured derelicts, with the matching guards following behind each of us. I had an idea where I was, actually. No, I knew exactly where I was; I was dead, probably shot and mugged on the way home, though my mind was still having trouble accepting and processing it. Whoever murdered me for my wallet had done so for nothing—I'd used the last of my cash to buy lunch that day.
The landscape changed, if only slightly. The storm that the clouds had promised earlier hit us all of a sudden, drenching our cold, naked bodies. I shivered as the cold rain dripped down my chest and into the mysterious, gaping wounds. Lighting and thunder threatened our motley crew as it poured harder—the giants escorting us seemed unaffected by such trivial matters. The land slanted beneath us—we were now walking downhill, and as we grew closer to our destination, all traces of grass were replaced by rough, cracked soil. The lightning cast shadows every time it flashed, engulfing the entire party in their immensity. I looked up, and I wish that I hadn't. A swarm of massive, black dragons encircled the skies above, creating large umbrellas for the group, even if it wasn't intentional. Their scales shined in the lighting as the rain bounced off of their enormous bodies. Wings the size of carrier ships beat at the sky, sending strong gusts of winds down, making walking even harder than it'd been before. I was looking up at them for so long that I almost didn't notice the abyss that we were nearing. I would have walked into it if I hadn't seen the little boy next to me stop walking out of the corner of my eye. There had been no warning of it. The ground was there, and then it wasn't. It was as if someone had taken a knife and severed the ground perfectly. A dark wasteland of deep nothingness stretched into the horizon. I looked down and gulped—there truly was no end to its immensity. Just being so close made my heart jump into my throat.
A scream echoed to my right. The boy went sprawling into the abyss with the help of his captor's scythe. Others followed, some by themselves, just so they could have the freedom to make the choice. The more apprehensive were ruthlessly shoved in with no warning. Regardless of how, I didn't want to go over the edge, and I turned to ask the guard just what was down there—he shoved me at the same time.
I slid to the ground, catching myself just before falling into the black gulf. I took the opportunity that presented itself, and I ran—I ran past the guard whose outstretched arms nearly grabbed me, most likely would have if they weren't weighed down with armor, ran past the other guards who quickly caught wind of what was going on, ran past the dragons' massive jaws as they swept their necks down to snatch fleeing prisoners. Swords and scythes rained down from every angle, all of them missing, due to some miraculous intervention that I'd not known about. I ran on feet that had given up on me, but which found new life, invigorated by the chance of freedom. The rain continued to batter me, nearly blinding me, but I kept going, always wary, looking out for anything that would halt my progress. I wanted to yell for help, but couldn't. Where had my voice gone? I could go nowhere for help because I had no idea where I was, or if anyone would even help me. Why was this happening to me?
Don't stop with the chest compressions! We can save him!" I have no idea who's yelling this nonsense, but I keep running from the monsters giving chase behind me. "Give me the defibrillator, now!"
The voice, yelling once again, sounds much closer than before.
" Clear!"
My body spasms while I continue running, though from what, I can't remember.
"Clear!"
Why am I running?
" Clear!"
Who am I running from?
" Clear!"
Where am 1?
" Clear!"