Shai’ol

Lester stood, unthinking, gasping in the air…

He could breathe! He could breathe!

He did not wonder how it was that he’d been able to survive under a mountain of rotting bodies. He did not wonder how long he had been there. He did not wonder what malevolent force had cast him into this hell.

He simply stood and let the air fill his lungs. To breathe!

Gradually, he began to become aware of his surroundings. He stood, he discovered, in a middle of a vast field of the dead. Bodies stretched off in all directions as far as he could see.

Bodies . . . twisted, mutilated, some partly burned. Here was an eyeless head, the scalp half removed so the skull gleamed in the red light. There was a torso, legless, armless, its genitalia ripped away by some savage force.

They were nude. None seemed to have clothing.

Which reminded him. He glanced down at himself. Oh, fucking hell. He was nude as well, but the problem was his body itself. A vast, gapping, hideous wound stretched from his throat to his groin. Heart, lungs, guts. . . all were on display.

He did not bleed. The wound was dry. No blood flowed. He checked his pulse.

There wasn’t any.