No one will believe me... (short story)

I’m alive, I suppose. Just barely. The raindrops fall on my paralyzed body as I lay in the alley waiting for the end. I can hear the quiet wheeze in my breath each time I struggle to inhale. I want it to be done with. Perhaps I should have paid more attention instead of getting lost in my own world again. The world moves at a snail’s pace, the seconds dragging on to make sure I feel every sharp pain that shoots through me. I feel my eyelids get heavier until the world finally goes dark. God. I wish those muggers had just killed me. To let me suffer this prolonged death is just cruel.

               As I try my hardest to slip into the void, a pair of spindly fingers grip my ankles. The dulling pain is renewed when my body starts getting dragged across the asphalt. To their credit, whoever is moving me is doing slowly to not cause further injury. I think. I struggle to open my eyes just for the world to be a haze of colors and shapes that I can’t make out. I don’t even have the strength to see who my savior—or captor—is. Darkness overtakes me.

               Eventually, the rain stops. I stop hearing the world rushing around me. Just the steady water droplet that echoes each time it hits metal. I think my eyes are open. I can’t really tell as there’s nothing but an impenetrable blackness that surrounds me. I feel the rough metal scratch at my back as I’m being dragged through water that reeks so strongly that I wretch. It’s too much. Vomit ejects from my mouth in a fountain of bile and undigested food. I twist myself to the side to spit out the chunks to avoid having them lodged in my throat. I cough and choke until my throat is burning, and it’s still no use. My stomach continues to do flips as it rejects every rotted scent and foreign texture.

               My vision begins to adjust to the pitch blackness. As shapes start taking form, I see the thing that’s dragging me through the muck. I watch a hunched over silhouette so malnourished that I can see its bones protruding through its leathery skin. Long spindly fingers coil around one of my ankles in a tight grip to make sure that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t escape. I gather what little strength I have, attempt to pull my leg out of its grasp but, to no avail. The creature stops in its tracks. It turns to face me, and I feel my blood run cold. Two glowing white eyes stare down at me, unblinking and waiting to see what I’ll do next. There’s no nose, and no mouth. Just a blank gray slate with skin pulled tightly over its skull.

               A scream bubbles in my throat, but it’s silenced by a swift pull towards the monster and its hand clamping down on my jaw. It squeezes until its fingers sink into my flesh and a drop of blood seeps from my cheek. It moves its jaw, as if attempting to speak to me, but all I can hear is muffled noises behind the film of skin. It turns my head left then right, examining me with its empty eyes.

               I don’t want to die like this. The realization falls on my chest like a heavy stone. It’s sudden, and painful, but I can’t ignore it. I squirm its grasp in a fruitless attempt at escape. With the hand that’s still grasping my ankle, it pulls my leg up towards my torso. The tension from the stretch turns into a sharp pain that shoots through my thigh upwards towards my hips as the joint is pulled from its socket. I can’t cry. All I can do is let the stream of tears spill from my eyes while I endure the pain of my limp leg. It lifts its hand off my mouth, letting an ear-piercing scream echo through these sewers. It’s my last cry to the heavens before it stabs its fingers into my mouth and pulls downwards, yanking my jawbone out of place in a geyser of blood and spit.

               The pain is so intense that I can’t keep conscious. I fade in and out of reality while I feel a fire ignite beneath my skin that spreads to every single fiber of my body. Each nerve ending screaming as I feel around me as if suddenly so sensitive that even the slightest touch is a life ending pain. I don’t know what’s happening. Just that my body will give out soon.

               Then the creature comes into my line of sight. It has…something draped over its skeletal silhouette as it shrinks and contorts itself into shapes trying to fit into the flesh-colored fabric. Its skin melds with the pieces, turning into an almost human-like figure. It struggles to keep control of its new body as if it’s trying to mimic human-like behavior and failing. In its struggle, I feel the droplets of sewage hit my body, sending an unbearable pain rocketing through every single one of my nerves. That’s when I look down, and I realize where it got its new suit from. Large patches of flesh are torn from me, leaving exposed muscle and bone to the elements, and helpless in my freshly skinned state. The creature turns to me.

               To complete its new body, it sinks its talons into my hairline. I feel its nails penetrate through my skin, digging and tightening its hold on the folds before it pulls. Every second of this experience leaves me in excruciating pain. I feel the layer of skin being pulled from face so meticulously as if it’s worried that it might damage its new mask. It sears through my muscles, down to my bones, causing the seconds to extend into an endless song of pain that will follow me for however long I have left.

               It finally finishes its task. It holds my face, examining it carefully like it’s trying to understand what it’s holding. I watch it place my face on its own, holding it taut against its skull and staring down at me with its glowing eyes peering through my eyes.

               It’s the last thing I see before my life is snuffed out.