Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Beneath the Surface
Everything was darkness. The sensation of cold enveloped him, but it wasn't a common cold; it was something that pierced through to his bones, as if it were part of his very being. He tried to move, but his body wouldn't respond. He was trapped in something he couldn't understand, unable to remember how he had gotten there. The last thing that crossed his mind was the storm. Yes, that torrential rain pounding his house with fury, the lightning briefly illuminating the shadows inside his deteriorating home. He had taken a Xanax to sleep. That he remembered well.
"Am I dead?" he thought uncertainly, but there was no pain. Only the cold, the weight that kept him motionless, and a feeling of emptiness. He could sense something strange around him, as if the air was thick, as if... he were underwater. Absolute silence surrounded him, occasionally broken by distant murmurs, words he couldn't decipher. He strained to listen more, but everything faded away like a distant echo.
After an immeasurable amount of time, he managed to open his eyes. At first, he saw nothing, only a dim haze that enveloped him. With monumental effort, he noticed something in the distance: a light, pale and faint, barely breaking the darkness. It was then that he felt the water. He didn't know how he hadn't realized it before. His entire body was submerged in what seemed like a frozen lake. The liquid surrounded him completely, but there was no sensation of drowning. He didn't feel the need to breathe.
He slowly moved one hand, brushing against something soft and cold beside him. Turning his gaze, he saw with horror that it was a body. Lifeless, submerged with him in that place. And it wasn't the only one. Several more bodies lay around, submerged in the darkness as if they were part of the landscape. Maximus froze, trying to process what he was seeing. It was like a nightmare come to life, but everything seemed far too tangible.
Unintentionally, he brushed against one of the bodies again. The corpse's eyes suddenly opened, staring at him coldly, moving frantically, searching for something. The corpse's hands thrashed in the water, trying to grab anything within reach. Maximus quickly pulled away, horrified, but soon the corpse returned to stillness, as if it had never awakened. His breathing—if such a thing still existed in him—quickened. Fear consumed him, but the surroundings remained unchanged. It was like being trapped in an eternal limbo.
It didn't take long for him to notice a pattern: every time he touched one of the bodies, they reacted the same way, opening their eyes, desperately searching for something to grasp. None of them seemed truly alive, but neither were they fully dead. A shiver ran through his body, though he wasn't sure if it was a real physical sensation or simply the desperation growing in his mind.
Carefully, he tried to move as little as possible. The fear of waking those beings paralyzed him, although deep down, he sensed they couldn't harm him. Yet something else troubled him: his own skin. It was pale, almost translucent. It didn't feel like before. He clumsily tried to move his fingers, discovering that his body, too, was changing. What had once been warm, living flesh was now rigid and cold.
"I'm one of them too," he thought, realizing the truth for the first time. There was no escape. His mind tried to deny the reality, but his body left him no choice. He was dead, or something worse. Maybe this place was hell. The idea took root in his mind. What other explanation could there be for a place so grim, so desolate?
Time continued its course, though for Maximus it no longer had meaning. He didn't know how long he had been there, trapped in that strange prison of bodies and water. He could feel that his body was not what he remembered, but he still had his mind, his consciousness, and that terrified him even more. How long would this last? Could he escape this state? And most of all, why was he still conscious when everything around him seemed dead?
He looked once more at the distant light, wondering if it was real or just a reflection of his desire to escape. But he couldn't move. Only the water and the corpses accompanied him. And so, between the silence and the darkness, he began to accept what he had become, though his mind still resisted fully admitting it.
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