Excerpt: Trapped
I groan in the darkness. I don’t know who I am, or even what. I don’t remember anything. My mind is as black as my prison and my head aches, pounding with each rush of scorching blood through my body.
I shrug my shoulders and twist my body, but cold things press and jab into me on all sides, keeping me prisoner. My head is jammed in tight. I have no idea with what, and the right side of my body is achingly numb.
I feel flesh and cloth against my skin. Something warm and sticky drips on my hand and I flinch. Acrid odors make me gag and my mouth is sour.
With my tongue, I explore the inside of my mouth, it was about the only movement I could control. Broken skin and a metallic taste. I must have bitten the side of my cheek at some point.
The prison shakes and I feel rumbling beneath me. It’s a moving container and I’m inside it.
Where am I being taken? What is in here with me?
There is a grating sound above me and a crack of light enters my shadowy prison. My eyes blink furiously and I look up and scream, and fight to get free of the bodies, and parts of bodies crammed in all around me.
Bones with the flesh seared off. Empty eye-sockets staring and jaws hinged in a lifeless smile. It isn’t a whole skeleton, only the top half of one. I struggle, trying to push them off me and my body is awash in agony. Sharp pains and broken bones I didn’t notice before because I thought I couldn’t move.
An upside-down face stares at me with lifeless eyes and tears dried on its cheek. I scream again but only hear a guttural groan. My throat burns with the strain. Someone has taken my voice.
My heart pounds in my chest, filling my ears with the frantic beat of panic.
Thump. Thump. Something drops inside. A ton of bodies weigh down on me, crushing the air from my lungs. The lid slams closed, plunging me into darkness again.
I am in a garbage bin for useless lives.
I open my mouth and a silent scream tears through my body and roars inside my head, but no one hears and no one cares.
The box rumbles, moving me to the final resting place. I’m too tired to move. Pain robs me of thought. I rest on the broken limbs that cradle me in their lifeless arms.
A jerk shakes the box and I hear the creaking sound of metal cranking. Suddenly the bottom drops out and bodies tumble down. I grab in panic with my good arm, at legs and heads and something hard that yanks me to a stop. I hang on desperately as my deathly companions fall and twist and thump into the yawning pit below like a mound of refuse.
Then there’s a sound, a buzzing sound that stabs my heart with terror. I will never forget that sound as long as I live. Blades of fiery orange light slice through the bodies below me and I scream, my broken right arm reaching out to my unknown companions. Tears course down my cheeks and I gasp in terrified sobs. That could have been me. It still could be me.
I stare up. Metal rungs extended upwards. In my desperation, I had grabbed onto one of them. The blades wink off one by one, plunging me into darkness and silence of a tomb.
I have to get the hell out of here
www.elizabeth-lang.com
www.elizabethlang.blogspot.com
I loved this when I had the privilege a few days back when you were polishing it Elizabeth. Congrats on a brilliant story. :
Chilling tale, well told!
Is it a short story or an excerpt?
Either way: thank you for scaring me witless 🙂
Cheers,
Stellina