Death was looming just a few meters away. I was about to die. This was going to be my grave. In some dark and unknown place where hostile creatures numbered greatly. What a nightmare.

My feet were quivering, hands were shaky, and my face cramped up while beads of cold sweat dripped down on my back and forehead, drenching my clothes that stuck to my body like glue.

I looked around me. More and more pairs of yellow balls popped into existence. I felt it. Their ferocity with each horrendous sound that they made. The feral hunger in their eyes, where an easy opportunity for a feast presented itself to them. Their bloodlust that sent shivers down my spine. I felt it all.

RUN!

The voice inside my head shouted at me to move. As always, a very wise advice. Can’t argue with it.

I ran with everything that my body could muster. Straining every muscle, every ounce of strength until nothing was left to exhaust. There really wasn’t anything complicated about it. It's one of the world’s best proven strategy for survival. Tuck tail and run away. It’s very effective in most situations, but it didn’t seem to be the case with mine. Results may vary.

Everywhere, anywhere, there wasn’t a place that I could call ‘safe’. It was pitch black and everything else was covered in the veil of obscurity. The window, which was my only available light source, faded away just a few moments ago and I didn’t know where it went or how to bring it back. There was something more pressing than having no vision, though.

How long did I still have before I get attacked?

Any second now, I guess

My heart was in overdrive. I felt nauseous while having the urge to vomit, thinking that my heart will fail anytime soon if this kept up. It wasn’t a good situation to be in, but I need to endure. I wanted to live. I don’t want to die in a damn place like this. I dreamt that my final moments on Earth were to be cradled in the hands of a beautiful maiden while she sung me a lullaby until my eyelids grew heavy and then I'd drift off into a sweet and eternal slumber.

That clearly wont happen here. But a man can dream once in his life before he dies, right?

Something clawed at my right arm and I panicked with a girly shout. Not really the manliest of responses, but who cares? I turned in the opposite direction of where it came from, but something else bit at my left leg. Two of them to be exact. And then more things came to claw or take a bite.

Everything in the darkness pulled me down into the ground and pinned me with their weight. It felt like a mountain suddenly appeared on top of me. Crushing me flat while I suffocated from the pressure.

I screamed and shouted for this suffering to end. My voice filled the darkness with unsightly despair as I went on with the pleading for my release. Unending, unrelenting, they did not stop. For how many hours, for how many days, they tasted every single part of me. It sounded perverted and lewd, but trust me, it’s not. It’s just painful. Not in the good BDSM, masochist-sadist way, though.

“No… please. Someone help…” no matter how hard I called and for how many times I repeated the same sentence over and over, rescue didn’t come. Not even a response. I’d yet to realize it, but there was one truth laid out before me. It’s something so simple that it should have been obvious to me the very moment that I got here. But with the stress and confusion from this hellhole that I’ve suddenly been thrown in, it got pushed in the back of my mind. It's a single definite thing that I’m a hundred percent sure of now and I don’t think it will change anytime soon.

I’m alone.

Yes, I am. And what am I going to do about it? Nothing. Because there wasn’t anything that could be done. I couldn’t resist them as they tore my flesh away piece by agonizing piece. I even had trouble screaming out in pain as my lungs were already tapping out. I’m just waiting for the ‘You have died' because the game is over, and there is no ‘Continue?’ that comes afterwards. Any second now.

…

.a…

How am I not dead yet?