Unspeakably Scary Things Issue #9

I clutched my ears. The sound hurt in a way that was hard to understand. It dug at a wound I didn’t know I had—somewhere in my chest.

A cough hit me suddenly. No tickle, no warning. My throat constricted, and I broke into an intense, shaking cough. I could almost see red for a moment. Then something splashed on my hands, and I did see red. Lots of it. A syrupy mix of my blood, my spit, and something else yellowish. It stung my skin.

Another cough and liquid was churning in my stomach. Moving through my stomach. I didn’t get to really think about what nausea meant. I only had a second before I vomited out a torrent of blood and more. Flecks of more solid things.

A dizzy spell hit me so hard that I was on the ground. The gore I’d just expelled was on my shirt now. The ghost-like thing was still standing there, making that sound.

That horrible sound.

I didn’t know what to do then. My fingernails scraped against my floor, but it was so hard to drag myself. I could manage a few inches at a time. My breath was getting faster and faster—

My airflow was interrupted by another geyser of blood leaving me. A singular thought dimly made it through the pain. I didn’t know how much blood my body could even have left. It was everywhere. It wasn’t in me anymore.

My eyes got so heavy then. Worse than any tiredness I’d ever experienced. I knew that closing them was a horrible idea. That it was dangerous to close them.

They still slipped shut.

A jolt. A drop. The sickening sensation of an elevator plummeting down. I opened my eyes again.

I was floating above my body.

My corpse lay in a pool of blood that was basically as wide as the room. I kicked my side to see if that would somehow reverse my apparent death. I was almost surprised my ghostly foot connected at all—even if I couldn’t feel it.

My form was mostly just translucent, maybe a little glowing. I was floating, but it felt like I was standing on a solid surface above the actual ground. Otherwise, it didn’t feel any different.

“About time.”

My gaze locked onto the weird, cloth-covered figure. The voice had sounded a little high-pitched, a little bored.

“I’ve been meaning to drag you down for so damn long,” the person said. “Your life was pointless, you know. All of it was just a waste—and now you’re going to be stuck in a void for the rest of existence. Maybe longer.”

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