I'm immediately overwhelmed by how intensely the pool area is teeming with life; flies lazily drift and zip through the heavy air, and tall grasses and reeds are bursting out from in between the wooden planks of the deck, along with some of the giant "strawberry" plants, just like the ones in the porch-garden behind me. Glowing neon frogs of varying colors and girth ribbit and hop from oversized lilypad to oversized lilypad, a faint trail of light following behind them as they casually arc through the air. I turn around and close the doors securely before I do anything else.
I turn back around, and before I can even take a step forward, I inhale sharply in surprise as a thin film of algae in the pool is disturbed by something moving in the water in my right-hand peripheral vision. After a moment of stillness, I grab the straps of my backpack and carefully edge my way through the brush towards the far left of the deck, where the gate should be.
Just as I take my eyes off the pool to see how far I have left to go, a sudden splash makes me jump. Faintly, I notice the grass rustling on the opposite side of the pool area as something moves through it, and a trail of water leading directly from the pool to that exact spot. As my brain registers this development, the grass stops moving and a cloud of flies bursts out from where the source of the movement must be.
I get the distinct impression that I should not investigate.
As I'm sneaking away, I can faintly see the source of the noise; a dimly glowing mass has beached itself onto the concrete edge of the water. Curiosity forces me to part the reeds for a moment just to see what's been living in my pool for all this time without my knowledge.
I feel violently nauseous the moment I see it.
Hanging halfway out of the water onto the deck is a grotesque, pulsating creature with a wide, toothless mouth and dull, sightless eyes. It almost looks like it used to be one of the neon frogs, but this one is overgrown and deformed. The quivering pustules that cover it are glowing bright orange, but the rest of its moist skin, while brown at first glance, is actually a dark, muddled mixture of countless other colors running together, like a poorly-made tie-dye shirt. I can occasionally see brightly shining colors flowing through its throbbing veins, as if there's just barely enough neon coloration to keep it alive. The creature convulses and makes a wet noise as a group of flies emerge from its soft, gaping jaw. I now notice little black specks buzzing around within the orange tumors.
I suddenly remember to breathe again. What is that?!
Trying not to make any noise, I continue through the tall grass. My anxiety makes me hyper-aware of each of its individual blades itching and pricking against my skin. I'm almost to the gate now, I can see it.
That's when I hear another splash, closer, and feel water droplets against the back of my neck.
Oh, f-
Startled, I whirl around and see another amphibious hive-monster staring up at me with its dim, lifeless eyes. I can feel its ragged, swampy breath on my face, and see hundreds of tiny black insects flying and crawling around inside its cavernous maw. My eyes widen as the pink walls of the throat contract and undulate, and before I can react, a cloud of bugs is fired directly into my face.
I swing at the air in frenzied self defense and stumble back, falling and then momentarily struggling to correct myself like a turtle flipped on its shell. The old wood beneath my body creaks as I try to pull myself upright. Something is crawling on my hand and I violently wave my arm in response. Several flies take off and that's when I realize that they're all over me, on my skin, in my hair, beneath the deck, in the air around me. I begin to feel something like pinpricks on my exposed skin.
Holy shit, they're biting me.
I cry out in disgust and panic, rolling over and scrambling towards the gate as fast as I can. All I can hear is the deafening drone of the flies swarming around me and the forlorn, sickly croaking of the creatures that have become the unfortunate hosts to these parasitic nightmare flies.
I reach the gate. There's a padlock on the latch, and all the buzzing is making it hard for me to think. I slap my arms in an attempt to clear them of pests, but it's no good. They're under my clothes, trying to crawl into my ears and nose and I scream in frustration. There's a low rumble, and yet another fly-infested frog lurches out of the grasses to my immediate right with a deafening wail.
Time to move.
Without thinking, I jump at the wooden gate and manage to claw my way over the top like a desperate animal, landing in the grass on the other side with a solid thud. One of the zombie-frogs slams against the gate, but the lock holds. A lot of the flies don't follow me, favoring to stay behind and protect their hosts, but I'm not safe yet. Another wail echoes in the dark air, followed by another slam against the gate, which, worryingly, doesn't look like it will last much longer.
Slam.
Keep moving, Jake, I remind myself mentally with an annoyed huff.
I quickly check on Linda in my backpack, and, satisfied, I quickly take in my surroundings. I'm on the edge of the property now; the grass I'm standing in ends by dropping off into the darkness below mere feet away. There, to my left, along the side of the house, a thin strip of the yard is the only thing remaining to keep an air conditioning unit attached to the wall; there's dirt and roots from the strawberry plants to support it underneath, but it's not wide enough to walk safely across.
Slam.
On the other side, against a cliff too tall for me to see the top of, I can see pieces of what used to be the sidewalk wrapped up in vines and plants, forming a kind of hanging path along it to the surface. The concrete slabs are in varying conditions, from completely vertical to broken in half, but most of them look like I could climb on them. None of it looks remotely safe, but it's the only way up I can see anywhere so that's my goal.
Slam.
Knowing what my next step is, I approach the edge and hold my backpack to my side so I can keep my back to the wall and not fall off. It's really more narrow than I thought.
Slam.
I reach the air conditioning unit.
So far so good.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a shadow dart past me.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Oh, hell no.
I hear something above me and look up, only to be greeted by one of my bathroom buckets being pushed off the edge of the roof towards my head.
Shit, shit, shit, shi-
I throw my backpack the rest of the way to the front yard, where it lands safely, and the bucket lands directly on my head. I'm in pain and kind of dazed, but I manage to grab onto the AC unit to steady myself. I touch my head and see blood on my fingers.
Those little fuckers.
Crash.
Behind me, the fly-beasts have broken through the gate and are mindlessly making their way towards me. The parasitic nightmare flies instantly grow in number around me. Just as I'm thinking about how stacked against me this precarious situation is, another stalker darts past me, way closer to my face this time. I recoil, almost losing my footing but somehow managing to stay balanced.
So, I guess they were actually plotting to kill me after all.
I put my leg over the top of the AC unit and climb on top of it. Below me, I notice a few more stalkers flitting around. It's the most I've ever seen in one place. How'd I not notice this many before? I refocus myself. It looks like my best bet is to just jump to solid ground from here. Another bucket falls next to me and clanks against the air conditioning, spinning into the probably-infinite abyss below.
Right. There's still that one up there.
After the bucket is out of sight, more of my things start falling from the sky, like a meteor shower of all the junk I never felt like cleaning up. Clothes and movies and games and dishes start flying past me and into the void as the stalkers step up their offensive game. I can't last much longer in this.
As if things couldn't get worse, a tremulous but powerful cough fires off behind me before I can do anything and I know a fly-swarm was just launched at me. I duck and swat some away, moving to make the jump when something starts to jerk and shift below me. The unit I'm standing on is beginning to slide off the ledge, a few inches at a time. It occurs to me that the stalkers may not have been aiming for me, but the unstable ground this entire time and a chill runs down my spine. It's now or never.
I jump, but not even that goes well. Midair, as if in slow motion, my vision is obscured by an old pair of boxer-briefs I haven't worn in years that fly into my path and wrap around my head, so I can't see where I'm landing. My body hits the edge of the ground and the wind gets knocked out of me like I've been punched in the stomach, but my hands just barely manage to catch onto the grass and I sink my nails into the soil, fighting the need to vomit. I hear the metallic cacophony of the AC unit falling off behind me and hitting several rocks on the way down.
Or maybe it's just more shit being thrown at me.
Preferably, it's the stalkers getting slammed off the edge of the world by a 200 pound cube of metal, like they fucking deserve. Even though my arms are killing me, I'm able to pull myself up onto solid ground (or as close as one can get down here) and lay on my back, removing the underwear from my face and tossing it to the side off the edge. They didn't fit me anymore anyway.
The demon-flies have finally dissipated for the most part, thank god, but their bites left some pretty nasty reddish bumps all over my body and my belongings are still scattered all over the yard by those traitors. I seriously cannot fucking believe those good-for-nothing creepy motherfuckers chose now of all times to make an attempt on my life. Where were they during all my depressive episodes when I didn't eat, when I needed them to kill me? Selfish bastards.
I look back to where I came and can see that the air conditioning unit is missing just as I suspected, but I'm not convinced it actually killed all of the stalkers, so I pick up my backpack and check in on Linda again, who is taking cover in her shell at the moment. She's so strong. After stroking her shell adoringly and putting a few extra leaves in her pouch I zip her back up and turn to look at the mossy sidewalk tenuously hanging against the cliff face.
The first few concrete squares are fairly easy for me to climb; they're not too vertical and fairly sturdy. Then, I'm faced with a gap; I guess this one fell off, which isn't a good indicator of the overall structural integrity of this path, but I take a deep breath and jump to the next square anyway. I continue climbing the path like that, occasionally having to jump a gap or edge my way across a completely vertical slab, until I come to a gap several squares long. Looking around, I can see a few vines and roots hanging down from the cliff that I might be able to swing across with, but I'm not sure if that's something I can actually pull off, or something my gaming instincts are telling me I can do. I also notice a stream of bubbles rising out of the void below, which is kind of alarming, because I've never seen it do that before, but at this point I'm decently far from the house, so I guess maybe it changes based on where you are or something.
Deciding it doesn't matter, I shake my head and grasp a vine in my hand, tugging on it to see if it's stable. Some dirt falls into the abyss, which isn't optimal, but the second pull seems a lot more solid, so I swallow nervously and position myself to get a running start to swing across the gap.
Why did I think of this Indiana Jones-ass idea and why am I going through with it, I think absently as I leap over the endless pit below.
I let go just in time and roughly land on the chunk of sidewalk on the other side.
Too roughly.
This section of concrete actually appears to be several separate pieces held together by a network of roots, and I immediately break through the fragile structure.
My first thought is: I'm falling.
My second is: Holy fucking shit.
I'm panicking, I think, I need to calm down.
Fucking obviously I'm panicking, comes my own sharp reply, I'm falling off the edge of the goddamn world, you incredible asshole.
Oh shit, I think, as if remembering my predicament, what do I do, what do I do.
Fuck if I know! I'm panicking, I mentally roll my eyes, I literally just said that, we've been over this, dude.
There are bubbles whizzing past me, but none seem to ever touch me, and they're getting bigger and bigger as I fall further and further into the (possibly) infinite blackness below me.
Maybe all of these bubbles will catch me and float me back up, I think to myself like a dumbass, and then, why would that ever happen, idiot?! This is real life, and you’re about to die. Get over it and stop being stupid.
The darkness below is moving around, almost imperceptibly. I can't really focus on the shapes anymore. Am I falling faster? I'm starting to see colors now as the shapes warp and disappear and reappear before my eyes. They're all dark at first, just subtle variations of black, the darkest of every color, but they're slowly getting brighter and brighter as I approach the bottom. Is there a bottom? There doesn't really seem to be any solid matter down here. I can't see where I fell from anymore.
A technicolor static is surrounding me now. I think I'm starting to hear static too. Or is that just because I thought of the word "static?" No, no I definitely hear something. A low, droning sound. Or is it high-pitched? It's giving me a headache. Fuck, what is that noise?! I'm hyperventilating I think, but I'm not sure if there's even air down here. My eyes are rapidly going in and out of focus now, and the colors around me are blurring together into a psychedelic slurry of flashing images I can barely process. I am definitely getting faster. Shouldn't I have stopped accelerating by now? My sister once told me something about humans who fall into a bottomless pit dying of starvation and eventually stretching out like a noodle because of some weird physics rule. I never knew if that was bullshit or not. I wonder if that’s what’s going happen to me. The bubbles are shooting past me at warp speed now. Everything is so bright and so much. Too much. Oh god. Oh god. My eyes are burning and start to close without my permission.
NO, I mentally scream at myself, STAY AWAKE, DAMMIT!
STAY!!!
AWAKE!!!
The last thing I see as my vision cuts away is millions and millions of bubbles.