Worse - The Sequel

PROLOGUE

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THERE WAS AN ITCH WITHIN HIM.

Life was clawing at his chest with razor sharp talons, pressuring his breath to exit through his mouth and take his first gasp in more than a decade. Blood pumped through his lungs at speeds that shouldn't be possible, but were. Control returned and it felt like he'd been sleeping for 100 years, just now awoken with a sudden purpose to breathe.

To open his mouth and scream to his hearts content, to lay blinking at a ceiling until he was sure. Until he was one hundred percent sure that he was alive.

Which he wasn't. Not yet.

Every feeling that threw itself at him and every impulsive thought that shot through his brain faster than the speed of sound was stuff he resisted. It was a hard task but he managed it, he did not fling his eyes open and get used to light he hadn't seen in a while, he did not start scratching at his own chest to get this feeling out.

And most of all, he did not open his mouth. Because some part of him knew, some part of him could feel...that he was under water.

Floating lonely in a deep abyss, he could feel his hairs waving slowly, the water on the surface of his skin. His clothes hanging heavy on him, almost dragging him down to the very depths of the water he was submerged in. Sinking down and further down.

Water in his lungs, his nose and his mouth. Small bubbles escaped from it but he refused to make any movement.

Until he was forced to.

A slim, bony hand enclosed his bicep. Nails tore his jacket, his shirt and his skin. So sharp that he could already feel the blood seeping into the water around him, the first instinct was to tug himself away from this grip, but it was just too tight. At first he tried to play it off as a nightmare, a bad dream, but then the nails dug deeper and he was forced to open his eyes.

At once he was attacked by liquid in his vision, a dark and cloudy sight with the faint outline of some sort of person in front of him. Though this person was skinny, almost only bone and it swam in the water like a dementor without its cape, that thought was when he truly realised what danger he was in and what was grasping him.

Inferi. Hundreds of them, grasping at his skin and tugging him further down into the water. Wrapping their skinny arms around his body, strangling him, restricting his breath and bruising his skin. He tried not to freak out, attempted not to flail and instead reached for the stick he knew was wedged in his pants, taunting him by poking his thigh whilst these creatures attacked him.

Fire. Extinguished by the water around him and put out by his own stupidity. He was running out of time, his lungs were screaming for relief and he kicked his legs to swim to the surface. The Inferi didn't want that to happen and kept a hold of him, scratching his skin and letting red seep out into the murky blue surrounding him, dirty water infecting the newly formed cut.