My head throbbed sharply as I abruptly woke up. A pounding pain shot through my skull, like a hangover after a long night at a club.
My hand reached into a fleshy, slightly warm mass. A shiver ran down my spine. The ground beneath me moved. Not like an ordinary surface, but like something alive.
As if I had been swallowed whole by a gigantic creature.
Slowly, I pushed myself up to my feet. In front of me stretched an endless, black void, threatening to swallow me with its suffocating silence. Every step I took made a disgusting, squelching sound. The stench was indescribable, an overwhelming mix of flesh, blood, and decay, so intense that breathing became difficult.
I felt nauseous.
I gagged and gasped for air, my whole body shaking with disgust, but only a dry cough came out. It was as if I needed to sneeze, but at the final, critical moment, the feeling disappeared, leaving only an unpleasant tingle in my nose.
Carefully, I felt my way forward, corner by corner, through what seemed like an endless labyrinth of pulsating tissue. The walls were breathing, they were alive. This wasn't just a very good imitation. No, something like this couldn't be faked.
I felt their warmth against my fingertips, and with every step, the suffocating feeling of being trapped in a nightmare without awakening grew stronger.
And then I saw it.
One of those corridors I had been wandering through.
It was a little different from all the others. A tunnel, dimly lit, with walls that moved in grotesque ways. And what I saw there made me wish I had never Made the turn.
My stomach twisted, and the sight finally made me throw up.
This corridor was made of the remains of living creatures.
Eyes, hundreds, maybe thousands, embedded in the swirling tissue of the walls, their empty, eerie gazes fixed on me. Hearts beat slowly in the fiber strands, causing the pulse in the walls.
"What... What is this place?" I croaked as I looked Up, only to throw up again.
I trembled, feeling sick and weak. It was as if I had food poisoning, a very Bad food poisoning.
I stared down at the organic mass now covered with my vomit, unable to move even the smallest muscle. I instinctively knew that staying still here would be my doom.
Huddling, helpless, I clutched my body as my mind slowly spiraled into a whirlpool of despair.
"This is so disgusting... Who comes up with this sick shit?"
Slowly, I lifted my gaze.
And there they were again.
Eyes. Countless eyes, embedded in the walls and ceiling. They were staring at me. Only me.
My heart raced, my stomach spun like a carousel, but this time nothing came up. How could it? I was already completely empty. I stood frozen, my arms wrapped protectively around my body, while the color drained from my face, and something inside me broke.
The panic and disgust turned into rage, a desperate, irrational fury. I gasped for air and ripped the torch from the fleshy wall.
A disgusting squelch and a spray of blood accompanied the movement, and I held it with trembling fingers.
Then I started hitting the eyes.
One after another.
I screamed like a madman who had just broken out of an asylum.
Green, slimy goo dripped from the eyes, running in thick strands to the ground as I continued to strike the pulsating optic nerves. It felt like a macabre game, a desperate attempt to gain control over the uncontrollable.
Breathing heavily, I eventually stopped my destructive rage, as exhaustion now took over, and I looked at the chaos I had caused.
The torch in my hand crackled quietly.
"You can forget it, you hear?" My voice echoed dully through the tunnel.
I didn't know who I was saying these words to.
"I'm not dying in this hellhole, do you hear me?" I panted, feeling the exhaustion in my limbs. "I'm getting out of here... And I'll find you!"
A silence followed.
Only the dull throbbing of the tunnel ensured it wasn't total silence.
After a while of calming down, I continued on my way.
The good thing was, breathing was slowly becoming easier. Maybe because I was getting used to the grotesque stench.
But then, another problem emerged.
I was hungry.
My stomach growled. Like a wild animal.
An insatiable hunger began to gnaw at my mind, slowly devouring me more and more.
I began to crouch down. My knees trembled under my own weight, and saliva uncontrollably dripped from the corners of my mouth.
"Food, anything to eat..." I growled.
Then I saw it.
The meat wall.
I paused for a moment.
A conflict raged inside me. a repulsive disgust Desperately tried to fight against a perverse craving.
I didn't want to admit it. Every fiber of my body screamed at me to banish this ridiculous thought from my head, but the meat wall looked more and more appetizing.
Before I realized it, my fingers had already reached for one of the protruding muscle fibers.
I hesitated. My hand lingered heavily and trembling on the tissue.
Then, with a strong pull, I tore a piece from the wall.
The tunnel began to tremble.
"So, you feel pain too, huh?" I grinned. A grin that reflected my joy.
It filled me with pleasure to inflict pain on this place, just as it had inflicted pain on me.
I looked up at the eyes, which were crying, still staring down at me, and my grin twisted further into an almost psychopathic laugh. "Pity that I don't give a damn about that."
Maliciously, I slammed the sharp, unlit end of the torch into the ground.
The tunnel trembled again.
I looked at the piece of flesh in my hand. Disgusted, but my mouth watered. My stomach begged me to drop it, but hunger had long since made my reason its slave.
I held the piece over the flame.
It first turned dark red, then brown, and finally black. A greasy, greenish liquid dripped out, ignited, sizzled softly as it hit the ground and eventually Extinguished.
Despite the repulsive sight, my craving only grew stronger. I swallowed.
My throat dry.
Then I took a bite.
It was like biting into a tough shoe sole, covered with a slimy, moldy layer. A disgusting taste spread across my mouth, metallic, rotten, bitter. I gagged with every bite, fighting the nausea.
"Funny… it doesn't taste that bad," I mumbled, as if trying to convince myself. But my stomach turned, rebelling against what I was doing to it.
I tried to swallow. But the meat just wouldn't go down.
"Come on… don't make it worse than it already is..."
With my fingers, I pushed it deeper into my throat, forcing it down.
I gagged, coughed, gasped for air. Tears welled up in my eyes.
Then.. I broke down in tears.
A bitter pain tightened around my throat. It was as if I had shed my humanity, as if I had done something unimaginable.
The faint suspicion that this might very well have been human flesh burned into my conscience.
"I want to die..." I sobbed, curled up into a heap of despair and misery.
The flesh in my stomach felt like it was devouring me from the inside.
"Get me out of here..." I muttered, until the words finally burst out of me in a desperate scream.
"Get me out of here!!!"
I yelled until my throat hurt, and struck the walls with clenched fists, but the desperate rage didn't subside.
I was at the end. The feeling of exhaustion caught up with me, as if it wanted to pull me under forever.
"Why... Why am I here?" I asked, staring into the cold darkness.
I didn't expect an answer.
Then I collapsed like a wet sack of sand. I just sat there like a corpse in the corner.
I felt empty. As if my very soul had left me.
And to make matters worse, this horrific place robbed me of all sense of time.
I had no idea how long I had been here. Maybe a few hours, a few days, or maybe even weeks.
I tried to organize my scattered thoughts.
Desperately pulling together Bits and pieces for a plan, for some solution, but hope was as bleak as the corridors of this tunnel system.
"Whatever..." I muttered finally, sighing heavily. "Sitting around here forever won't get me anywhere."
With a smooth motion, I ran my fingers through my hair, which had become completely disheveled from my previous outburst, and let my gaze sweep through the gloomy corridors.
The green flickering flame of the torch, still stuck in the pulsating flesh, caught my attention. Slowly, but with growing determination, I reached for the dry wood, wobbled it briefly to loosen it from the tissue, and then pulled it out with a strong yank.
A gaping hole was left behind.
Like an open wound, it began to drip, a yellowish, horribly foul-smelling liquid oozing out, pooling in small streams on the floor. An unbearable stench rose to my nose, even worse than everything before.
"Damn, that's disgusting..." I wrinkled my nose and turned away with a slight shudder.
But I couldn't waste time on these details. I had no intention of giving in to this place. Whatever this was, it wouldn't break me.
"Come what may..." I murmured quietly to myself. "I won't let them take my humanity."
Then, I began moving again.
My foot suddenly slipped into something wet. I jumped back and looked down.
"A puddle?" I murmured, frowning, lifting my foot while thick strands of slimy liquid clung to my foot. "Well... it's getting wetter here."
I hadn't even noticed it til now, but the walls around me had changed. They were no longer as tight and oppressive as before. Instead, they were gradually widening into a more spacious corridor.
"Hello?"
The voice froze me.
At first, I thought I had imagined it, a mirage created by my despair. But then I heard it again.
"Is anyone there?" I called back hastily, my heartbeat skipping for a moment.
"Over here!"
Hope coursed through my very being, like an electric shock.
Without thinking further, I ran. My battered body protested, but I forced my legs to move, driven by tiny sparks of hope reignited within me.
When I finally arrived, there was a man standing there.
A completely normal, healthy man.
He smiled at me, and his icy hand settled on my shoulder.
"There you are," he said calmly, almost relieved. "I'm glad you made it here."
His voice was warm, almost comforting.
"It must have been terrible, but now everything is fine, my friend," he whispered into my ear. His breath was foul, a moldy, sweetish smell I knew all too well.
But I ignored it.
After all the time I had spent alone in this nightmare, I had room for only one feeling: relief.
"Where are we going?" I asked as he gently led me onward.
"We call it paradise."
"Paradise?" I frowned. "Here? And... what do you mean by 'we'?"
An uneasy feeling began to spread within me.
Something about him wasn't right. His voice, his movements, the way his cold fingers still rested on my shoulder...
But I pushed my doubts aside. What else could I do?
I followed him further.
With every step, the environment changed. The fleshy walls gradually gave way to a natural landscape, plants growing along the edges, and the sharp stench that had accompanied me for so long grew weaker.
And then...
Then we stood in an oasis.
Before us stretched a paradisiacal landscape.
A crystal-clear waterfall cascaded into a sparkling lake, countless people swam and laughed in it, while the warm sun shone on their happy faces.
Palm trees swayed gently in the breeze. The sand beneath my feet felt soft, almost unreal after everything I had been through.
It was perfect.
It was too perfect.
The man turned to me, his smile widening.
"Come on," he said. "What are you waiting for? Have fun!"
His tone was casual, carefree, as if nothing had ever happened.
But he had made a small, single mistake.
The smell of death hung in the air, stronger than ever before.
With a furious grind of my teeth, I raised the torch high and swung it at him with all my strength, determined to kill.
But he dodged.
Not like a human.
His movements were smooth, fluid, his limbs bending at an angle that shouldn't have been possible.
Like a snake.
He laughed quietly.
"Oh, how sad," he sighed, disappointed. "I suppose there's nothing to eat now."
And then...
Then his body simply collapsed, falling lifelessly to the ground as if someone had abruptly cut the strings.
I stood frozen, the torch clenched tightly in my hand, as cold sweat ran down my back.
What the hell was this?