“I’m so hungry,” thinks the man as he falls down. His body starts to tumble in a spiral as he hurtles down towards the deepest recesses of the dungeon, a damp, monster-filled hole in the world.
Admittedly, it is an odd thing to think about as he’s falling to his death. But that’s just the thought that comes to him. He's hungry. Maybe it’s just some crossed wire, as the pain of his eviscerated stomach hasn’t quite reached him yet, despite him having seen it being ripped out of himself. Or, more aptly said, despite him still seeing it happen this very second.
His hand is stretched out, reaching for the bridge in vain. The construction, however, quickly becomes ever more distant with every passing moment.
He had been pushed.
It was one of his party-members. He isn’t really sure why. But he was thrown right into the middle of an attack by a pair of unseen hands, and the giant, swiping claw of the thing that they were fighting cut through him like he was nothing. To it, to the monster, it was like he never existed at all.
That’s fine. They’ve always said that you’re destined to die how you lived, right? He supposes that he isn’t surprised, really.
His sense of time is entirely frozen. His body hangs limply in the air, suspended, flying over the gap, as he is about to fall down into the maw of the world. Nothing seems to move at all. It’s like everything in existence except for his own thoughts has just gotten stuck in place, as if the flow of the pumping blood that courses through the veins of time simply came to a sudden stop. It's as if the heart of God itself had stopped beating, together with his own — if only for a moment.
His vision wanders over towards the members of his group, his party, one last time, so that he can see the expressions on their faces, as the stream of time slowly returns to a normal trickle, as his last cosmic mercy comes to an end, and as the incredible surging pain of the fresh wound shoots through his body like a white-hot fire that burns with incredible intensity. Nobody in their group has ever died before, in or outside of the dungeon. He’s the first one, after all of this time.
“It figures,” thinks the man as he scans the row of faces locked in the middle of the battle for any signs of terror, fear, regret, or sadness. He looks for any crystal tears that could fall down like fresh snow on his behalf, as pristine ornaments that could fall together with him, so that they could too crash down to the world below and to stain it with their wet.
But there’s nothing of note in their eyes, really.
A few unsure looks come his way as he begins to descend, as the streak of red-water starts to leave his body, creating a ruby string that connects him to the bridge for just the briefest of moments. One or two expressions of worry are here and there. But they’re not for him as a person, they’re born out of a more general worry, which implies that their creators just didn’t want anybody to die at all. It’s nothing personal, in any sense of the phrase. Except for whoever pushed him, nobody wanted anyone to die. But if someone has to, then nobody really cares if it’s him.
“Oh.”
He understands now, as the bridge leaves his sight, as time returns to a normal tempo, and as he feels his body descend into the darkness. He understands now, as he begins to plummet downward faster and faster, passing through the gullet of the dungeon, his mutilated gestalt spiraling wildly as he falls into the seemingly endless, hungry emptiness below himself. He understands now with a grimace, showing through a violent clenching of his teeth as his body falls out of itself, that this final moment he was granted wasn’t a mercy or some last divine kindness at all.
It was a final spit goodbye, right into his face.
The universe didn’t want to give him a moment of peaceful departure; it wanted him to see one final time. It wanted to hold his eyes open and make him see like he had never seen before, right as he died, that nobody, not a single soul, cares in the least.
Despite that, the man only has one thought as his eyes close.
“Why am I so hungry?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
There isn’t any particular bitterness to his sadness or any deep sense of regret in his being. He’s just hungry and a little tired, that's all. That's life.
Eventually, he crashes into the stones so far below. His body shatters, and as the darkness of death swallows him in an instant, he is relieved that, if nothing else, at least he isn’t hungry anymore.
There is nothing left for his senses to perceive, save for a cold, wet darkness that then also dissipates, leaving him in a total state of final void.
He sleeps.
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“- Hello?”
He doesn’t open his eyes. But he hears a voice calling out in the empty. It echoes, as if coming from some great distance towards him.
“Is someone there?” asks the chiming voice. The sound calls out in short, sharp, almost mechanical bursts. Like a song playing from a music box, it contains a spirit inside of it, yet there is no song being sung. It is simply a construction made out of clinking metal and feelings. Just like this mechanical artistry, it is the product of a soul, projected out of something entirely inhuman.
The man lays there, listening to the sound. But he feels too tired to respond to it. He isn’t sure where he is, exactly. Is this death? It’s not so bad. It feels like sleeping in on a rainy morning.
As he returns to his rest, he quietly hopes that the voice will just go away on its own and leave him be.
He isn’t sure how long he sleeps for again. But he sleeps in death for a time longer.
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Something new interrupts his slumber once again.
It is a distant clinking sound.
It is a sharp ringing that sounds as if it were coming all the way to him through a very long pipe. It's a melody that's crystal clear and sharp. He rolls around, listening to the gentle sound, to that annoying tone, which is causing him to stir from his vision-less dreams.
His stomach growls, and he hates the sudden feeling of it. It feels so empty. He presses his eyes even tighter shut, determined to sleep off the hunger.
“Hello?” asks the voice again as he stirs. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
The man sighs, giving in to the disturbance, so that it will leave him alone. “Are you God?" Can I just die, please?”
It stays quiet for a while.
“I’m not god,” chimes the ethereal voice, its words slowly growing quieter and quieter as the sentence goes on. Something whirs, like a small crank being turned. A tiny chain can be heard, as if a grandfather clock were being wound up again. “Where are you?” asks the voice.
“Huh?” The man floats, listening to the distant echo reaching him. “I’m dead.”
The mechanism keeps turning as something spins, like the ratcheting of a music-box. “You can’t be dead; I can hear you,” says the voice, resounding around him.
“Uh… are you sure that you aren’t dead? Because I’m sure I am,” says the man, trying to turn over to go back to sleep. The hunger gnawing at his core is starting to hurt, and he doesn’t want to feel it anymore. “Leave me alone, okay?”
“What’s your name?” asks the voice, ignoring his deepest wish. The man turns his head over to look back behind himself towards the source of the voice. The darkness appears to stay the same, however, no matter which direction his gaze floats.
“My name? I’m uh…” He floats in whatever plane it is that he finds himself in. His name? He just knew his name a moment ago, didn’t he, back when he was still alive? It’s uh…
Hmm…
“I don’t remember,” he says, and he closes his eyes again. The pain in his gut is crawling up his bones now. His fingers twitch. But he ignores it. He ignores the feeling of a body. He keeps his eyes closed. He’s dead now. He’s sleeping now. Just a while longer, okay? He doesn’t want to get up just yet. He’s too hungry. He wants to rest a little longer.
“That’s sad,” replies the voice, rather forwardly. The music-box chirps on in the distance and then comes to a stop. The sound of a chain winding itself up again fills the emptiness, as some crank somewhere is turned. “Do you want a new one?”
“Huh?” asks the man, thinking about the awkward question for a while. “That's a weird thing to ask, you know?”
“I can give you a new one,” suggests the voice, ignoring his comment. “But I need your help first. I’m stuck.”
The man floats, thinking about it for a while. But now he’s starting to get annoyed. “Look. I just want to sleep, okay? I don’t want a name. I’m too hungry to get up. I’m sorry that you’re stuck, but find someone else, alright?”
“Please?” asks the voice softly, ignoring his agitation. The winding of the mechanisms continues to play out, as the only thing that breaks the silence between them. “You’re the first person who’s been here.”
He groans, annoyed. “Just go to sleep like me until someone else shows up then. It’s easy.”
“I can’t sleep,” replies the distant voice. The chain winds itself up again. The grinding sound reminds him of the rumbling of his own gut. Why is he so hungry? “Was that your stomach? I heard that all the way over here,” laughs the voice. “Why don’t you eat something if you’re hungry?”
He thinks about that question for a while before he finally realizes that the stranger has a point. He’s been tossing and turning for the entire night, trying to ignore the hunger in his body. Why doesn’t he just get up and eat something first? Then he can go back to sleep and maybe even sleep peacefully if his stomach is full. He sighs.
Maybe it is time to get up?
Something strange lurches in his breast, and it takes a moment for him to understand what the odd sensation is that now moves this body for the first time.
There. There it is again.
A pulse, a wave, courses through him. It’s moving him; it’s filling him with the energy of life. The pulse comes again. His fingers stretch and tingle with a sharp, nibbling pain, as blood courses through them. His heart beats again and his legs spasm, his toes scraping across the rocks that his physical presence is laying on top of.
Fire. Fire burns through his body, and the man wrenches his mouth open. He wrenches his eyes open, as his fingers claw into the muck and the dirt. Fire burns his skin as he flails and tosses and turns, his body cracking and his joints snapping as he rolls over. Frigid, damp air strokes his skin and his hair. The strange, distant current of soft wind whispers into his ears as he pulls himself upright and tears off the strands of muck and mold that leash him to the dirt like the ties holding a tethered animal.
It hurts. He’s hungry. He’s empty.
The wind continues to whisper softly to him as he rises for the first time.
The man claws against his stomach, which is flatter than he recalls it being, tearing and ripping off the film of mold that has grown around his body like a cocoon. He tears and rips off the worms that are crawling in his hole-ridden flesh. The gaps that they leave behind slowly regrow right before his eyes as he rips them out of their fleshy burrows.
There’s a distant voice that he can hear, but its tone is overpowered by his own feral screams as he tears himself free from the grave, as the wind continues to laughingly whisper into his ears, saying only one, single thing.
– 'Good morning. Today is going to be a brand new day'.