The fall of Keith's head lasted an eternity. For Show it was as painful as severing a limb. Keith did not feel an ounce of pain. It was over in the blink of an eye. But glaring dizzily, he could see every details on the bricks constituting the tunnel. His life did not flash in front of his eyes.
On the contrary, it was as if nothing happened. It appeared as a dream to him, something he hadn't had since he encountered Show. The color of the bricks went from shiny red to black as he descended, until there was no light anymore.
Behind him would soon follow hundreds of bodies, burying him in the mass grave. Mister Show moved Keith's body from time to time, he found a corner of the hole where there was a bit of space, the two metric cubes he was in had many neighbours. Lots of skeletons and putrefied flesh.
More corpses fell. And they were now confined in the same space until bodies dried up and left a small space between the wall and the bloody mountain.
Mister Show spoke to Keith. He meticulously attached his head back, he made his heart beat manually. Noting worked. Day and night, the monster would try new experiments in hope to wake up the kid. New rituals, new methods. Nothing occult worked, no curse was created, there was no magic.
When the monster's body withered, he ate, while the kid's skin tightened, his traits stiffened as microscopic amounts of water were naturally expelled out of his dead pores.
A whole bunch of insect would occupy Keith's flesh, as everything around them. The bad wall sealing allowed many things to dug their way into the open burial ground where larvae and flies spread at the top while many crawling living beings eroded the macerating carrion.
The wait lasted too long. Show's hopes had vanished long ago. The monster kept hydrating the body with any liquid he found nearby. But it accelerated Keith's decay. Daily, the shadow would purify the corpse from intruder, it was his boring routine.
And, at last...
Gasp !
Followed by a strong amount of spewing, mostly from the hole's bottom fluids. Keith was alive, unable to move nor speak. His eyes were so dry he wasn't able to open them.
As for his lungs, they almost drowned him because they were kept wet as well.
His awakening was nothing describable with words, it was as hard as forcing a birth. Once able to inhale anew, he moved around his tongue, unsticking it from the bottom of his mouth. He realised he was as flexible as a log. He tried to stretch his head slightly, but it only made him wail in pain.
It had been long since the guards above heard this much noise coming from the death well.
"Boy! I'm here! Don't force yourself, you're in a very bad shape." Said Show. His voice was halfway between rejoice and sadness.
The boy's ears were clean, yet he did not reply, so Show repeated the same sentence in the boy's head, to not get any answer either.
"Are you hungry? I can bring you a lot of things! We've got so much to eat here! There, open wide, this one is fresh." He said, almost getting his fingers bitten off.
Since the Explanation collapsed with the kid's body, Show was outside of it, waiting to enter his portable home again. He was expelled out of it after seeing it fall apart and crumble. His sole home had to be shared with the silence of his room mates.
Few of them were still alive when thrown into the pit. Sometimes they had heavy injuries, sometimes they were condemned to death by being abandoned inside. No one survived more than a day, first because of their fall and the damage they had taken from it, then because of the pungent stench unable to escape the hole.
The first part of Keith's body to heal was his jaw, the left and right joints were the most solicited as he ate without even thinking. It was his sole instinct.
Show brought many bodies closer to the kid. Days passed as the small space were he once was 'stored' grew.
A huge shock was felt once he tried to use the rest of his body. In his neck, the reconnecting nerves and tissues fused, strangling him with heat for about an hour. Show was here to observe the regenerating kid, helpless. Next healed part was Keith's arms, fingers, in order to eat by himself and creep his way above the bodies.
Mister Show felt lonely as they had no dialogue, but he was delighted to see the kid brimming with more and more energy. The kid soon recovered skin elasticity with its previous thickness.
Time passed, but it was impossible to gauge as the sunlight was faked by torches in the slaughterhouse.
Keith's heart pumped more and more blood, pulsing with each beating the fresh and healthy fluid that would stop making his veins appear black.
One day came where someone alive fell.
He was slim and instantly stained from his surroundings. The man broke his arm and a rib in his fall. When he finished whining, he finally heard it, the sound of bones being reduced to crumbs.
"Is someone here?" 'Do I have a chance to escape? To survive the worst death penalty?' He thought while he neared the source of the noise.
He couldn't see much, he barely saw someone curled up between two corpses. "Hey, is there a way out of-" He attempted to ask but a shriek shook the man to his guts. The thing slowly creeped his way toward him.
So he ran off. He had no idea of where he was going until he almost knocked himself off on a wall. Pebbles were stuck to his face as he realised he was stuck in a well type hole. With one step back his foot passed through a corpse's inflated belly. The stink bomb made him despair.
The slaughterhouse had been constructed above a well whom water was bad quality. A river passed nearly through the great city, its rulers decided to expand the city toward the stream rather than exploiting the water under them.
Suddenly, the man's ankle was grabbed and something dragged him toward the freak. He screamed at the top of his lungs.
In the house above them, the workers could clearly hear the desperate shouts coming from where they last saw their prisoner. Raising their eyebrows, they came closer and opened their ears.
"No! LET GO...! Aargh!" The man down the well screamed in between growls the guards couldn't miss. The butchers next to them shrugged. "Well the screams are not unusual, but that was peculiar I must admit."
They were all concerned. But came a flourishing idea. One butcher said. "If we throw one more person alive, what do you think will happen? I'd gladly take bets." And a guard replied. "Maybe the first guy will say 'ouch!' because of the second's landing. That's probably acting! Let it die as per usual."
What a relief, acting to get out of the pit, they never thought about it. But the mysterious cries had a lot of authenticity, they were plain of emotions. The butchers were no part timers, unlike the guards. All of them understood how they'd have fun next.
Their chat reached Show's ear, letting him know most of the people above were aware of living beings under their feet and also giving him sprouting ideas for new plans.
The monster offered the man's life to Keith, hoping to get at least one word from the kid. He said.
"Eat his language! Like I did with your mother, start with the tongue, then go for the contour of the mouth and its contents. Then you go-" He used his many hands to keep the man immobile and explain how to properly steal one's language, but the kid climbed his way to the man and bit his throat, removing a chunk of meat as big as a fist, and the man's main blood supply.
More bites and the man stopped moving. Just an hour later and he was no more. That let Keith re-open his eyes. His black eyes never shut, nor to humidify, nor to remove an inconvenience such as anything exploding in Keith's mouth.
Again, time passed where the kid engulfed about a hundred corpses. He regained the use of his legs and yet Show couldn't communicate with him.
The space the kid made thanks to his stomach made space in the hole. There were not much clothes left on the other bodies as most were cut before thrown down. Later, the boy had slight signs of brain recovery. He scratched where he was itchy, he spat when bones were stuck, before gulping them down anew. Those were lively signs.
But it wasn't enough for Show who became impatient and decided to eat the kid's brain. They were in no imminent danger, moreover they had no pending business.
Many parasites interfered with his brain recovery and their offsprings made it last longer. The insects that entered the kid's head vanished into the monster's mouth.
His stomach mystically full. Keith slept for four days during which he saw himself in the explanation, with Mister Show.