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 smell of death followed close behind. Crows called to each other from the nests overhead, signaling to each other the arrival of yet 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, failing miserably; I'd never been to this place, let alone have any recollection of why I'd want to travel there. 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, seeing the dried blood that'd come away from my chest. Why was I bleeding? How did I get hurt? Where am I? Was I shot? No answers came to mind, but the terrified confusion persisted.

A sharp prod in my back alerted my attention to the behemoth standing behind me. A man, if you could call him that, that stood nearly twice my height stared down at me through the eyeholes he'd drilled into the mammoth skull he wore. His skin stretched tight over his massive frame, outlining the many scars on his chest like a semen stain under a UV light. He was clad in armor fashioned from the bones of more massive foes, a truly freakish thought. The instrument he'd hit me with, a scythe that nearly matched his height, sat in his right hand, its butt pointed at me threateningly. Astonished, the only thing I could do was to walk. What other choice did I have? Maybe he was taking me away from this foreign land and showing me the way back home? But I knew that was wishful thinking at its best.

The rough terrain grew worse under my bare feet, which had already begun to bleed just a few minutes after setting out. Every time I turned around to ask the man escorting me where he was taking me, his answer was always the same; a deep grunt, followed by a poke to the back from the butt of his weapon. The sky grew darker as we walked further on, 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 got my hopes up, wishing for reinforcements to save me from both this place and this 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 step for step behind 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 at the feeling of the rain falling down my chest into the mysterious, gaping wounds. Lighting and thunder threatened our motley crew as it poured harder, the giants escorting us unaffected by such trivial matters. The land slanted beneath us quickly, and though it looked as if nothing changed, we were walking downhill. As we grew closer to our destination, more grass was dried and dead, and was soon completely replaced by rough, cracked soil. The lightning cast large shadows every time it flashed, engulfing the entire party in their immensity. I looked up.

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 their enormous bodies. Wings the size of carrier ships beat at the sky, sending strong gusts of winds down and 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, then it wasn't. It was as if someone had taken a knife and sliced off a perfectly even amount, going in a straight line. A dark wasteland of deep nothingness stretched into the horizon, and further beyond it. I looked down and gulped; there truly was no depth to its immensity. My heart jumped into my throat just being so close to it.

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 at least that choice by themselves, the more apprehensive of us getting ruthlessly shoved in with no warning. I didn't want to go down, regardless of how I got in there. I turned to ask the guard just what was down there, and he shoved me at the same time.

I caught myself just before slipping into the black gulf, sliding to the ground. I took the small opportunity that presented itself, and I ran, 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 dragon's massive jaws as they swept their massive necks down to snatch the fleeing prisoner. Swords and scythes rained down on me from me 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 during the walk several times, but they'd found life during my sprint, invigorated by the chance of freedom. The rain continued to batter me, nearly blinding me, but I kept my eyes bulged, wary at running into any obstacles that would have halted 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. Surely the guards and the dragons long before then, anyway. What was I to do? Why was this happening to me?

I have no idea who's yelling this nonsense, but I keep running from the monsters giving chase behind me.

The voice, yelling once again, sounding much closer than before.

My body spasms while I continue running, though from what, I can't remember.

Why am I running?

Who am I running from?

Where am I?

THE END

Bio: When Mr. Steven is not reading, writing, or editing, he's either spending time with his wife Stephanie, or working at the grocery store he's an assistant manager at. His publication credits include Beyond Imagination Literary Magazine and and upcoming Voluted Tales.  Connect with Craig personally on any his networks: craigsteven.wordpress.com/ facebook.com/writercraigsteven/ twitter.com/writercraig

E-mail: Craig Steven

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