When I opened my eyes, the pain was excruciating.

I screamed and regained control by numbing myself with magic.

That monster had slammed me against the floor and objects. With its jaws, it tried to tear me apart, and my senses clouded.

I couldn’t have said what had happened to me. I only knew that I had suffered horrible pains and magic had not helped me. Then, I was thrown into the void.

The growling and barking faded away, and silence fell. Only then did I black out.

And now that I was awake?

I tried to get up, but all I felt was pain coming from my limbs. My entire body was burning at the base of my neck, and I was staring at the concrete ceiling, lit by a few green neon lights.

I couldn't move anything but my mouth. I could roll my mouth, dilate my nostrils to inhale the dust, and open and close my eyelids, but the rest of my body was unresponsive.

“Either I am still under Meerarere’s influence, or I am seriously injured.”

The words came out smoothly and showed that I was not under the doll’s control. Therefore, I must have been seriously injured.

A feeling of revulsion accompanied by a nauseating coldness assailed me. With my shadow, I tried to cover myself to see what condition my body was in. But my shadow was divided.

My body was divided.

That toothy horror had torn me to pieces. Perhaps it had incinerated or dissolved parts of my body!

I called forth the fragments of my shadow. Each one pulled at the piece it sprang from while the shadow of my head solidified, forming a spider-legged base.

I spun the base and studied the room. Piles and piles of broken toys, electronics, books, animals, and human limbs filled what looked like an indoor landfill.

There was no blood, and slimy tentacles formed the floor. They spread and twisted like evil tendrils, sifting through the waste and draining the liquids.

After a siren blew, more broken toys fell from above. They came out of a hole in the ceiling, and with them fell electronics and pieces of people and animals.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

A few tentacles shot out from the piles, trying to grab what they could. Then they sank back down, leaving the remaining scraps to roll onto the piles.

“Bad, very bad. Maybe parts of my body were…”

I let the sentence hang. It didn’t matter. I had enough magical knowledge to regenerate any missing parts. It was a good thing that since I was already dead, I couldn’t die.

I located a door on one wall. A green sign read:

EXIT: HELL

Not the best exit, but an exit, nonetheless. Thanks to the magic, I was calm and no longer in pain. I just had to wait for my pieces to reconnect. I would think about hell later.

The first to arrive was the left hand with the arm attached. It snaked like the tail of its shadow and positioned itself, waiting for the chest to arrive.

While I waited, I continued to look around. I tried to rationalize that situation. I was used to searching for coherence in phenomena. All I perceived could be explained. And everything that could be explained could be explained logically.

I just had to understand the mechanisms that operated in that skyscraper. What forces were acting beyond the fog of my understanding?

Could it all be reduced to the words of Meerarere? Was it true? Was the afterlife sorted in childhood actions? The fact that everything related to toys was the most absurd part of the matter.

The tentacles continued their sifting work. They passed close to me but never stopped on me or any part of my body.

I managed to reassemble myself without being disturbed and witnessing another spill of materials.

Luckily, I was almost in one piece and only had to regenerate a few body parts. That monstrous canine had torn me into more than a hundred pieces but in an uneven, random way.

That was just as well. It is easier to regenerate a hundred shreds than one large limb.

Trying not to trip over the piles of unstable waste, I advanced toward the exit.

Walking through the tangle of tentacles proved difficult. In addition to being slippery, they moved, bent, and made the ground as unstable as it was changeable.

At the sound of another siren, the lights became blinding white beacons. I was forced to lower my gaze and glimpsed something between the holes left by the tentacles.

A massive, sharp grinder was slowly turning. The pieces that fell were crushed by that infernal machine. Then, they disappeared.

As the siren stopped, the machine began to accelerate and emit the stench of kerosene. The whiffs rose with dreadful screeching, like the wail of tormented angelic voices.

I put my hands to my ears, careful not to trip. The holes were getting bigger and bigger, and the tentacles were actively working against me. Tripping and grabbing were the two most common attacks. But, using the shadow, I could slice them in time.

The ground began to shake and open as the noise and stench increased. Tons of material poured into the void, and I felt the earth give way beneath my feet.

Luckily, or by skill, I couldn’t say for sure, I managed to throw my shadow at the door, using it as a rope to climb.

As the shadow pulled me up, I watched the shredder emit red and black smoke and devoured among the thousands of wastes I was also a part of.

But I did it.

I was safe.

Now, only hell stood in my way of escape.