Water! Oh god water!

Zach woke in a panic. He rasped a breath, his throat felt like it was made of sandpaper and his eyes were so dry they could barely open. He scrambled to the side of the bed and grabbed the first thing that looked like a container. Water slid down his gullet, providing enough relief to make his body relax and his spirit to calm. After finishing the water, he slumped back to his original position and gulped down air as avidly he did with the water. After finally calming himself, his thoughts shifted.

Carter

Adrenaline shot into him. He sat up with a start and his eyes shot around the room, scanning his surroundings. He was alone. Yet another instance of panic hit him as his attention went to his abdomen. Zach was stabbed, he was sure of it. But his hand caressed only a long scar, not the deep wound he was sure there had been.

A dream? Suppose I was hit in the head, must have been a hallucination or something. Christ, Carters gonna pay for those glasses! Bet he took the TV too. Where the hell did he leave me?

Looking around the room, this time with a cool head, Zach realised how weird everything was. The walls and floor looked like they were made from dirt and the roof was low, made from branches and straw. The room itself was cramped. He would have thought he was underground if not for a beam of light that passed through the small window at the other end of the room. The bed sheets that covered him were coarse, and the only other furniture in the room consisted of a small table and chair, both made of rough, splintered wood. After studying the room with a puzzled curiosity his brow furrowed and his jumbled thinking all coalesced to a single thought.

“Where the fuck am I?”

He was unsure of what he should do, but he decided it would start with standing up. Zach pulled the sheets off of himself and he noticed he was still wearing trousers. Trousers with a dark red-brown stain plastering the crotch and upper legs.

A visceral dread welled up inside him as he realised the vague memory of a knife hilt protruding from his belly wasn’t a product of his own imagination. He hunched over and heaved a mixture of water and stomach acid onto the floor as he re-lived the feeling of a blade deep in his stomach. Finally summoning the strength to stand, the first thing he saw did nothing to distract him from his trauma. A knife, with a blade at least has long as his hand lay alone on the table. Squinting through blurry eyes, Zach stumbled towards it, and looked closely at its handle.

Ugggh, that’s the same knife. How long has it been for me to have fully healed… from THAT? Unless it somehow healed really quickly… or … this is actually the hallucination…

Before his existential crisis fully formed, Zach’s confused thoughts were interrupted by a scratching noise. He looked at the opposite corner of the room, a lump formed in his throat. The ground near the door shifted and churned, until a pair of crab’s legs? Zach’s initial assumption was contradicted as the rest of the creature emerged out from the earth. Its overall body shape was similar to a termite, except its carapace was a sleek black, its oversized head had jaws open so wide the jagged spikes that tipped them faced opposite directions, but, most notably, it was as large as a dog.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Zach’s face drooped and turned white as a sheet. His body tensed up as he fixed his eyes on the creature that appeared in front of him. To him it felt like an eternity, the termite stood idle, only swaying its antenna back and forth, while Zach stood as an unblinking statue. After the heated standoff, the insect snapped its head round to face him. Without thinking Zach flipped the table towards the creature. The flimsy piece of furniture did little to slow down the monster, even snapping into pieces after hitting the ground. Zach stumbled backwards with a squeal onto the bed, throwing the bedsheets over the creature. Now blinded, it paused it’s advance for long enough for Zach to make a run for the door. The creature thrashed around in attempt to free itself, slamming its body into Zach’s legs as he darted passed. His own momentum carried him to the floor as the creature shook off the sheets and continued its assault. It crawled over his legs, ignoring his lower body, its head raised, aiming for his neck. Zach grabbed the first thing that was next to him, holding both ends of the table leg he braced the middle against the creature’s head.

As soon as the wood made contact, the creatures jaws sprang shut, splintering the table leg. Zach’s hands grabbed the giant jaws. He wrestled the creature as it tried to press its writhing maw down onto him. His eyes were caught by the shine of an object that lay close to him, and he realised the knife was within reach. Zach mustered his strength, pushing the creature as far off of him as he could before releasing a hand and reaching for the knife. In one swift movement Zach grabbed the knife and thrust it with all his strength into the side of the creature’s head. The blade bounced off as if he just tried to stab a stone. The creature pressed its mouth closer to Zach’s face, and he saw the mass of chittering pincers and pulsating tendrils that lined it. The second thrust also failed to pierce its armoured head, but the third landed between its head and thorax. With a desperate cry Zach used the last of his strength to jam the blade all the way into the creature’s neck. It screeched in pain an fell off of him and onto its back, its legs flailing in the air.

Zach crawled away from the spasming creature, finally sitting with his back against the wall as he watched it twitch and then lay still.

“This…” Zach spoke between laboured breaths. “…Doesn’t feel like…” He wiped the creature’s blood from his hand. “… A normal nightmare.”

He sat there, staring at the overturned corpse of the oversized insect.

Its real. My nightmares end with the monster eating me, and I haven’t woken up. Is that thing some fucked up science experiment, or are god-damn monsters actually real now?

Zach’s curiosity eventually overcame his exhaustion and he approached the corpse. Now its legs are all curled up, it doesn’t look as big. How the hell was it that strong when it was only half the size of me?

Zach moved around the corpse and yanked out the knife that was still wedged in its neck. As he did this, the creatures legs twitched, making Zach jump back. Its yellow, oily blood poured from its wound and it returned to its unmoving state. He looked at the knife he held with a half smirk.

“This doesn’t make us friends y’know”