Chapter 2: The iron smell of return
It happened fast.
One moment I was standing, The next… it felt like the ground just disappeared under me, like it was a hungry mouth that swallowed me whole, My stomach twisted, my chest tightened, and then nothing. Not darkness with shapes in it. Not a slow fade. Just… gone.
People always say that right before you die, you see your whole life flash in front of you. You hear voices of the people you loved, you remember the best moments, you maybe even cry about the bad ones.
Me?
No.
No voices, No warm memories, No sad smiles. No good parts.
There was only noise.
Not the kind you hear when someone drops a pan or shouts in your ear. This noise was alive, It was sharp and ugly, like claws scratching against glass, like a thousand angry bees buzzing in my skull.
And under it… something else.
Hatred.
Not the kind you feel when someone annoys you, Not even the kind you feel when someone hurts you. This was a black, boiling, bottomless hatred that didn't end. I didn't know if it was mine, or if it belonged to something else. I only knew it was there, curling around me like smoke.
Maybe I never had anything worth remembering in the first place.
When I opened my eyes again, I wished I hadn't.
The sound didn't go away. In fact, it got worse. The screeching in my ears turned into this horrible static, like a broken radio being turned up louder and louder until it was all I could hear. My skull throbbed with every beat of my heart, and each throb felt like someone hammering nails into my temples.
My body…
It didn't feel like mine anymore.
Every bone ached like they had been snapped and glued back together the wrong way. My muscles twitched without my permission, My fingers wouldn't curl right. My ribs hurt when I breathed, and breathing felt like dragging sandpaper through my lungs.
I realized then that I wasn't standing anymore. I was on the ground. Curled, crumpled, my limbs bent awkwardly like a broken puppet.
My cheek pressed against something hard. Cold. The skin burned, like I had been slapped so hard that the heat stayed behind. My skin prickled as if thousands of tiny ants were crawling over me, biting as they went.
Slowly so slowly it hurt I lifted my hand. My arm trembled like it was trying to lift a mountain. My fingertips brushed my cheek.
It was wet.
I blinked. Pulled my hand back into view.
Dark.
Sticky.
My heart gave a heavy, uneven thump.
I raised my hand closer to my face. The smell hit me first.
That smell.
Sharp, Metallic. The kind of smell that fills your mouth even if you're just breathing it in. It clung to my fingers, seeped into my nose, into my head,it was familiar, Too familiar.
Blood.
I just didn't know if it was mine… or someone else's.
The thought made my stomach twist harder.
My head spun. I forced myself to look around, blinking hard to clear the blur in my vision. The light was dim here barely there at all. Shadows crawled along the walls, shapes that could have been anything. My eyes caught faint smears across the floor. Dark patches that glistened under the thin light.
More blood.
Every breath I took felt heavier, like the air was thick, like I had to chew through it just to get enough into my lungs. My hands trembled, but I pushed against the floor, trying to get up. My elbows locked, my shoulders screamed, and for a second, I thought my arms would just give out completely.
I managed to get on my knees.
That's when I saw them.
Boot prints. Big ones. Pressed deep into the dirt and dust of the floor. The edges of each print were smeared with red, as if whoever had walked here had been stepping through a river of it.
I swallowed hard, My throat was dry, but the metallic taste was still there.
I looked down at my own clothes. The front of my shirt was damp and heavy. The dark patches spread almost to my waist. My hands shook as I touched it. My fingers sank into the wet fabric.
I yanked them back.
Blood again.
I didn't know how much of it was mine. I didn't know if I wanted to know.
Somewhere, far away but maybe not far enough I heard a sound.
A slow, dragging scrape.
Something moving.
I froze. My breathing went shallow. My eyes darted toward the darkness where the sound came from, but I couldn't see anything. My body screamed at me to run, but my legs felt like someone had replaced my bones with jelly.
The sound came again closer.
It was like something was being dragged along the floor, a limp, heavy thing that scraped and thudded in turns.
I tried to stand, but the moment I put weight on my legs, pain shot up from my knees to my hips. My balance wobbled and I had to grab the wall to keep from collapsing. My fingers brushed against rough stone, the texture sharp and uneven.
The air shifted.
The smell got stronger. Not just blood now. Something worse, something rotting, It clung to the back of my tongue and made me want to gag.
I thought maybe I should call out, ask who was there, but my voice I didn't trust it. I didn't trust what would answer me.
The dragging stopped.
The silence was worse.
I could feel it whatever it was, it was watching me.
My skin crawled my heart pounded in my ears, fighting the static that still hissed inside my skull.
I didn't know if I was alive or halfway gone. I didn't know if I'd woken up from death or if I had fallen into something worse.
All I knew was that I needed to move.
real fast.