opening to my story <3

From outside the tank, through crimson red glass framed by dark metals, you could see a face. It was a fair face, one of charm and prominence. The body looks gelatinous, as if the weeks of incubation and chemicals had smoothed it down. From their mouth, a tube reaches up to the dome of the tank. The tube, riveted and black, joins 3 other tubes all winding down to their respective tanks. 

In the 1st of these tanks was a pointed yellow face, with freckles and two elongated ears. To their right was another slender face, but this one had a spider-black complexion matching two distinguished cheekbones. At the end of the row was a more square rough face, with a protrusive scar across their bottom lip. 

The ground which these tanks sat upon was a long hallway, branching off into three other rooms. A high ceiling full of pipes and a red fungus gave the hallway a dim light that barely went beyond the glass of the tanks. 

The face of yellow began to twitch, and so did the others consecutively. Steam rose from the tanks and the glass began to retract. Tons of bubbling water with a nauseating aroma spilled from the tanks, leaving a low level remaining with the bodies. 

Some of them slumped out, with limp arms and a swing to their neck. The last one in the row remained in the tank, their knees and elbows bent in awkward positions.

A hacking cough emerges from the pool of water where one of them has gotten up from the liquid. Their clothes, made of fine silks and expensive dyes have all been soaked in red and turned slimy.

The person coughs one last time, and a mass of flesh comes out of their mouth. Their throat stings with pain and their brain throbs 2 beats. The mass lands in the liquid and begins to squirm. The person, shocked and freaked out, crawls backwards on their hands into their neighbor who begins to cough.

They too regurgitate this ball of meat which becomes lost amongst the liquid and bodies. The two people look at each other and scream, followed by a shriek from one of the tanks where the scarred person has thrown up a particularly long piece of meat. 

The three people look in horror as these pieces of flesh unfold into an unsettling tone of red and reveal a mouth of spiraling teeth stained with blood and hints of green and brown. From the far side of where the three have congregated another joins them, coming from the remaining person who still lies knocked out. 

The one of a yellow skintone tries to speak, but can only cry out in high-amplitude waves of pain. The pain they experience is exotic in a primal sense, for it reaches into the deepest parts of their body and takes a knife to them. 

The one with a scarred lip doubles over, their body erupting with discomfort and a sense of need to move. Their brain begins to shake and they can’t do anything but squirm and move and dance to a macabre tune only they can hear.

The one of fine clothes looks behind them, feeling nonexistent touches and prods from nonexistent evils. The feeling is one of paranoia, from every direction, from every noise, and from every thought. 

Finally, the one of spider black skin and now visible white wisps of hair begins to clasp their head and roll in the liquid. Pieces of their hair fall with thoughts of the deepest pain as their body contracts to timed thrums of a drum deep within their brain.

Amidst this chaos of bodies and madness the creatures begin to contort and elongate simultaneously following the sound of a bell down one of the three hallways, leaving little tracks of direction.

For hours, the bell tolls by the second. The sickening echoes of deep metal rattle and whoop through the hollow walls and bulging veins in the walls.

The bell’s spiked clapper hits its final beat, traveling into the ears of the 4 people. They rise, the fumingly caustic red ooze dripping off their clothes hydrophobically.

The only remaining mark of their time within the tanks are 4 matching shocks of red scattered across each of their bodies. 

From each of their mouths spews a lung's worth of the liquid, gliding off prickly tongues and cracked lips into the pool below. 

Coarse and sharp breaths began to emerge and all of their eyes open to the hallway, still only lit by the fungus above.

As their eyes came into contact with each other, the breaths turned into stillness and a quiet only matched by what they only had experienced within the tanks.

Each of their pains unite as the 4 walk together and link arms and shoulders in solitude. 

“We’re making it out of here,” one says, “together”
 

Rosepathfading

VT

14 years old

More by Rosepathfading

  • future

    i'd like to have thing figured out
    biologist, doctor, xray tech
    will it be too much?
    geo 2, double science, p.e
    i've planned it all out
    school, homework, workout
    but what of my friends
    and the decay of aging
  • Fogged

    I've fogged up the mirror
    Can't see any clearer
    The body that pains me
    When I take a shower

    Might just be my top half
    But it still hurts on my behalf

    Please be more sensible
    Know this is the truth