River Of Horrors - A Schlattbur Story

PART 11 - DEJA VU

RIVER OF HORRORS

PART 11

───── ❝ DEJA VU ❞ ─────

WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS GORE!!

 SCHLATT.

The world before me flashes by in transient glimpses of distortion and colours. Hot blood rushes against the pit of my eye socket, pounding at the back of my eyeballs as my vision melts under a red, translucent gauze. Something ticks in my brain. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Growls; it growls, my stomach. The carnivorous hands of starvation claw at my devouring gut. And it keeps clawing, desperately trying to grasp onto something - anything - to assuage the unrelenting hunger, and to keep my own mind sane from full-sent insanity.

Light. There's a bright light, shining in my face and blinding my eyes.

The light flickers for a moment, shining in a different direction. The pulverising starvation tangling my insides subsides for a moment. My vision clears and in front of me out in the distance, I squint.

Is that life? Are those humans?

'You're hungry,'  says my stomach. 'You need to eat. Go, go eat.'

Three men, there are, standing there. One's holding a flashlight in his hand, pointing it at me. Their faces are vaguely familiar, only barely distinguishable amidst the luminescence.

My head pounds, and reality swirls in pulsing hues again. I spin, it spins, swirling, swirling, swirling...

'Food.'

That's what my stomach is telling me. It's been insisting on it for a while, now. But I refuse. I can't let myself give into this... Anything but this. I... I don't...

I don't want to eat. I'm not crazy. I can't go crazy.

'You are hungry for those humans flesh.'

NO I'M NOT. Is what I want to say, but instead all that comes from my mouth is froth and gurgles. I try to talk, I try to speak; but my voice-box collapses on me, and all that comes out from my lips are inaudible, gargled noises.

Ha... Hah...

'You know you want to eat.'

I press my hands to both sides of my head. My mind is trying to tell me I'm still sane. I have to be sane. I can't disappear yet. I don't—

'Stop trying to believe in lies.'

My stomach hisses at me, growling, devouring my own stomach acids. I bite down my tongue so hard I feel blood dribble down my bottom lip. I'm not believing in—

My eye catches the humans once more, and as if entering a new realm, my mind switches off.

I'm right. I have to stop believing in lies.

My legs lunge forward, hurtling across the remnants of the ruins that were left refuge on the ground. I can't control my legs. My stomach has taken over my mind.

I'm so hungry. I can't wait to kill and eat these humans flesh and bones. I've been starving ill for days.

The coursing sensation of the wind hammering at my face as I sprint is adrenaline rushing; I feel every inch of my body tingle and grow numb, as I charge closer and closer to my prey. They start to turn around and shift their direction, also moving in rhythm of my own pacing. I speed up. I haul my legs one foot after the other, veering around minor obstacles. The tallest out of the three humans lead the way as they run into a nearby forest.