Chapter 8: Rhytiphobia
He lunges his arm forward at me which I just barely dodge by pivoting to the side. Bodies close together, he bends his arm to use the spike as a way to block me from escaping followed by a quick knee into my side, which sends a sharp pain as he pulls his leg back, revealing another spike protruding from his leg had jabbed into me.
"Shit!" I duck under his arm and step back, one hand gripping tightly onto the folder and the other placed over the fresh wound. "Calm, the fuck down, dude! I'm sorry!" I wince and toss the folder on the floor in front of him, hoping he'll stop after he gets it back.
Drake stares down at it for a second before advancing again. Shit ass. Before I get a chance to move, he thrusts the spike coming out of his hand into my neck. The bone breaks off and he grabs both ends of it and twists.
Death 15.
I wake up in the hallway. Thankfully after that boring as hell meeting. But wow, did that go absolutely fuckin' horribly. As much as I want to pry, the way Drake kills is usually pretty quick, but at the same time, not quick enough for me to not feel any pain. But hey, finding out his whole deal is always on the table I guess. I need some me time after that whole meeting and everything else. The next thing I need to deal with is that dream.
After making my way into my room, I make sure to lock the door. Sure, it might not be much against Chrissy since her credentials can override the lock, but it eases the mind just a little bit. Who knows? Maybe she'll be just a bit sensible for once and not walk in someone's room while they're sleeping.
I make sure to turn off all of the lights in my room because honestly, I don't get at all how people can sleep with at least a flicker of brightness in the room, and crawl into my covers. My hair falls off my forehead and onto my pillow while I stare into the ceiling. I sigh. So about the dream that I mentioned before. Well, you'll see it in a bit. Or, I guess I'll try to describe it the best I can. The only way I can describe dreams are like A.I. generated videos that you're sorta just sucked into. That's just in terms of how they look though. In the recent dreams I've been having, they all have this one specific setting.
As my eyes flutter to a close and my brain shuts itself down, I don't particularly know when I fall asleep but soon enough I find myself in the dream. The first thing I can make out is the vast redness all around me, like I'm trapped in a football stadium-sized room with bright red lights all around me. And the next thing I see, is me. I lock eyes with a corpse. Her eyes were rolled back into her head and her skin looked pale. Along with that were small green blisters around her neck, and to top it all off, she had a large number 1 hovering above her forehead. I sit up and look down at the body. Even though I'm so used to dying, I'll never get used to seeing my own corpse. And there's no doubt about it. This was my first death. Well, first death that you guys have seen at least.
I'm not sure when it happens, but these dreams keep track of all of my corpses after I die. The thing is, the amount of corpses are usually reset at random intervals for some reason. Again, not like I know everything about this immortality. I'm pretty new to this. Plus, ya know. That shit ain't normal.
I look over to the side and wince to see another one of my bodies with an incredible amount of bullet holes in it. Blood seemed out of its injuries onto the black, almost glass-like floor. A number 2 hovered over this one. Right, that was when Desmond first attacked us. I squat down and poke the corpse in the cheek, causing some blood to splurt out a bullet hole that was near my eye. Yeah, not my proudest moment, I'll be honest.
Number 3 was slumped over number 2's legs and just seemed to be around the same in terms of injuries. Makes sense that a machine gun basically getting sprayed at you would kill you in an instant.
Oh, and there's number 4! I remember that one. That little rip on her shirt sure does tell a big story, huh? Still not regrets on that one.
I decide to avoid looking at number 5 though. Listen! As much as I can handle killing myself, I hate gore as much as the next guy. It's especially worse when you're looking at an exact copy of yourself with your jaw completely ripped off. Fuck! Now look what you made me do! Urgh... Fuck, I feel like I'm gonna throw up.
I also try to look away from numbers 6 to 11, who are all stacked in a pile right next to number 5. They're all killed in pretty gruesome ways, so that's a phat "no" for me.
Number 12 isn't too bad though! Sure, the uh, stabbed eye is a bit yucky, but overall that's not too bad.
All the deaths past that are weirdly the same? They all have similar injuries which is just me having a hole in my head or neck.
Anyways, ✨ thank you guys so much for watching my nightmare body pile tour!!!✨ No but seriously, this place is fuckin' off-putting. Another thing I have to mention is the huge number 15 that in the sky. Like, yeah, I get that I died 15 times, no need to remind me. That's like, the last thing I need to remember, but okay, go off, subconsciousness. Like, you could've at least put some kind of music here to, oh, I dunno, make it not filled with silence and the dripping of blood? I can't believe I forgot to put in my earbuds before I went to sleep too. That's the only way I can get any kind of noise in here while I wait. It's honestly pretty nice to listen to a podcast or something while I'm in here, but I guess I'll wait and just hope the bodies don't rise up. Not a joke by the way.
I'm pretty sure it only happens when I'm in a bad headspace, but sometimes the corpses that are more intact will try to attack me. Yeah, pretty freaky, I know(what do you expect at this point?), but it's not too bad. Like, yeah it hurts whenever they land something but it's still a dream. It does hurt a bit in the areas i get hit when I wake up though, which is a weird design addition, but hey. It lets me get a bit of practice and a little bit of action while I'm in here. For now though, I guess I don't have anything else to do but think. Oh, don't worry. You're gonna get a lot of weird, long, intermissions like this. I gotta meet that 2000+ word quota somehow.
Still, I'm pretty sure I've already said my piece about everything so far. So... what the fuck can I do here? I lay back down in the same position I found myself here and stared at my first death. Never actually realized this is what I looked like after swallowing that poison. Weirdly enough, you really only feel that pouch in your mouth when you remember its there. Ugh, maybe I shouldn't have picked a pouch of poison. Wait, yeah. Now that I'm thinking about it, that's pretty dumb, huh? Why didn't I just get an explosive collar or something? Wait, maybe that's worse. Fuck! Why am I thinking of alternatives on how to kill myself now? Whatever, it's not like that's gonna do anything for me. That little bag of arsenic is already stapled into my mouth, so there's no room for alternatives. An explosive collar would be a lot less painful though. A quick an easy death sounds way better than swallowing some dick ass poison.
The corpse's eye twitches.
I flinch and push myself onto my feet. My heartbeat jumps to an all-time high in half a second. The corpse slowly stands up, heaving with shallow and sharp breaths. I try to run away but I can't move. The body with a number 2 on its head has a hand gripping my ankle, blood pouring out of its mouth and the viscera you can call a torso. The complete sullen silence is replaced with the gurgling of blood filling their throats or dry raspy breathing.
Fuck.
I lift my other foot and stamp the head of the corpse grabbing me into the ground, the already "swiss-cheesed" skull splattering. Dead. I could barely dodge number 1 lunging at me but quickly get tackled by another corpse. It looks at me dead in the eyes, its jaw completely torn off the face with loose tendons hanging down and smearing onto my cheeks. I try to shove my corpse off, but the next thing I know, another one piles on top of it. Followed by another, and another, and another until I can't move. All of their combined weights push down on me, crushing my arms and snapping my bones. I let out a scream but get interrupted by a hand starting to choke me. They then begin to tear off my flesh in chunks, the sounds of my muscles tearing off deafening my ears as I try to fight back.
I can't do anything. The only thing I can do is hope that they kill me quick enough so I can wake up. The worse thing about feeling intense pain is that you feel every single second of it. It starts with fingers digging into my skin, then my flesh getting pulled off my body. I bite my lip to try to distract myself but I can already feel my own teeth piercing my skin and drawing blood.
Another hand from some numbered corpse traces my face and pushes its thumb into my eye. I scream again but feel a fist jab my voice box, causing me to jerk and feel even more pain from the corpse thumb-fucking my eye socket. The fingernail stabs my brain and
I wake up.
I blink slowly, slight tingles all around my body but particularly a light, searing pain surrounding my left eye. Ugh. Now I'm kinda glad I didn't put my earbuds in. Can you imagine if I was listening to a comedy podcast while I was getting meat picked off my bones like some barbeque ribs? What a fuckin' joke.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
ConstellCantWrite
ConstellCantWrite Sorry about the hella late episode! Have just been trying to find some motivation to write this. Maybe if you, y'know, rated this story good or voted on it I would get some more motivation wink wink ;)
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