Walk Softly

The first thing that hit him was a sweet putrid smell; a mix of sweat, vomit and decomposing flesh. It crept into his nose and burned his nostrils. He slowly opened his eyes, hoping it all had been some sort of vivid nightmare but instead he was greeted by complete darkness. He wanted to gag but quickly covered his mouth with his hand; it offered no freedom from the odour.

Gingerly, he shifted into an upright sitting position. The right side of his body ached and the rough flag stones of the floor cut into his bare shins. His fingers and heels were numb and shredded from his struggle against the unknown entity. Most of all his skull throbbed and, upon further inspection, appeared to be oozing blood.

He lent back against the course wall and tried desperately to ignore the slippery substances on the floor. A shuffling came from the other side of the room. The man stiffened and drew his knees tight to his chest. He couldn’t see it but he was sure that his breath was coming out in small puffs.

He felt around him for any sign of a way out but his search was abruptly cut short as he gripped onto soft but solid surface. His breath caught in his throat as he allowed his hand to climb up it, feeling fabric and, eventually, a head. A sob escaped his throat; his fears had been confirmed. He felt the familiar features of a well known face and his sobs turned in to horrified gasp; he was fondling Mike’s body. He could faintly see the dim white of Mike’s glazed eyes, the blue now very much faded into the background; but they were unmistakeably his.

He trembled. He had expected it, he had even prepared himself for it but yet he found it so hard to bear. A tear slid down his frozen cheek and he swallowed roughly. He jolted backwards away from the corpse and back to his previous sitting position.

Every thought ran into the next; each getting no more than a seconds glance. The darkness seemed to be closing in around him, causing a morbid sense of Claustrophobia. His chest tightened and his breathing steadily increased, the ringing in his ears was the only sound in the room; the sound of cells dying.

On a whim of desperation he struggled to his feet, almost slipping on the fetid floor, and swayed to a small and high window. He toppled over bones, his feet crunched on fragments of skulls and, half way across the room, he found himself roughly taking hold of a head of dead hair. He fought back his heaving stomach.
Trying to reach up to the window was another thing all together and with no light, not even a spark; he slid to the floor, defeated.

He smoothed his finger tips over stray rough bones scattered by his sides, the slime on the flag stones no longer fazed him and the stench was becoming somewhat bearable. Mustering up enough dull energy to weep was his only goal.

It wasn’t until much later, when his body had become numb and stiff from sitting for so long, that he heard the rattle of a lock somewhere at the other side of the room. Candle light flowed into the room as a heavy wooden door was swung open and in trotted the silhouette of a tall and thin being. As he walked, with a mild limb to his left, there was the scraping of steel against stone. The man looked through half lidded eyes down to the being’s right side. A sledgehammer was being dragged along the ground, it’s rusted and blemished head illuminated by the small amount of light.

He swallowed thickly and gazed up to the silhouette.

At last he knew it and felt it in every cell of his body; he was sitting in his own coffin.