Help, I've Fallen Overboard

The gentle breeze of bubbles. The sharp jarring blare of the siren. “She’s fallen overboard! Lord, she’s fallen overboard!” However, she is locked and trapped in her own head of daydreams. Been this way a long time, but where was she now? Drifting, and drifting, and drifting, to bump through the softly harsh caresses of the decayed vegetation burying itself in its own, weeping graves below her tongue. Crystal-green waters flood her nose with painful inhales as she juts her head above the water. 

Aha. There she was. 

She sat up. 

Where was she, exactly? 

Mother said.. Something.. About surroundings, didn’t she? Something when I’d lose sense of where I was and she’d help me back to reality. She breathed in. Five senses. She exhaled cautiously, then sputtered a lurching burst of vomiting swamp water rusting her lungs. She wiped her mouth with her left hand, then flexed her right hand, then paused, tilting it upwards. Heavy. Heavier than it should be. Though, the edges of her vision were a strange, blurred red, not being able to exactly see the cause of the bizarre, extra heaviness. 

Focus.. Five.. senses.. Sight..? She saw.. Water. Water and the bustling city of trees, clustering farther away from the stretch of swamp she was seated. And the slight glimmering of metal encircling her wrist.…Hearing.. Ominous wet pops of surfacing bubbles answered her to her right. She decided perhaps that wasn’t a very nice thought to have when thinking about the source of what made the noise. It was also not a very nice thought to have if she was trying to pull herself back to reality. 

Right. Taste. She sucked in a shaky breath, though immediately regretted focusing on the intense, and may she add, repulsive taste of the swamp which immediately caused her to dry-heave, her mind dipping back into that mental state- No. Focus. I am trying, Mother. Soliet.. Smell. She inhaled, though with a strong intensity as if refusing to voice her anger or harbor the feeling, though forcing it into her actions. 

The venomous scent of death. The one she smelled on everyone. On her, especially. Focus. Touch.. Almost back to reality.. Last one. She let out a shudder of a sigh which sent shivers through her and ran fingers down her spine as she felt the murky, dusted dirt of the swamp, infected with the slime of unidentifiable sources. She lifted her hands, disgusted by the deadly-green algae clumping in her hands, then glanced down at the severed hand hand-cuffed to her wrist. 

She blinked. Then blinked twice. Then screamed. 

That gurgling pop beside her didn’t help any better once a disfigured creature lurched out of the waters and grimly regarded her as it leaned down to open its rottened mouth and- 

“Calm down, will you? I don’t bite. Not.. not usually. Okay, often, frequently.” He paused. “That sounded bad. Can we start over?” 

Soliet was shocked into silence. Dipping, dipping, dipping, her mind went, until he reached out to snap his dead-pale fingers in front of her. 

“Hey, I’ll need that if you’re done screaming. Lady? Hey, are you alright?” He let out a disappointed grunt as he saw she was drifting off. 

Five senses. She reminded herself and she snapped back to reality, though the Sight part of this only made it worse. 

His appearance was not as calming as his voice, as strange as that sounded to admit. His voice was slightly garbled, as if he didn’t speak very much to anyone he met, though it seemed to be leaning towards friendly or at least benevolent, plus with a casual charm to it, as she realized. 

His skin was graying and sickly pale, with chunks of flesh bitten from all over him. His blood seemed to be blackening around the edges of his wounds and his lips seemed bitten a bruise-like purple as his skullish eyes stared back at her, unblinking and dark-violet along his sunken sockets, just above his gaunt cheeks. His hair seemed to stray off in clustering piles as it was only left for a few spaces where dark sprouts had wriggled their ways from his blood-messed head. He staggered as he shifted around and stitches were splayed out all over his body which was covered by tattered clothes looking as if stolen from a tourist. And worst of all, his arm was severed from- 

Wait. The decaying figure was waving his right hand in front of her until some of his stitches loosened and he quickly pulled it up to his mouth to tie with his rotting teeth again. This.. thing was.. 

“Why.. thank you very much, I needed that.” She realized her hands were extended towards him as if wanting to analyze just exactly what he really was, though he only worked on unlocking the handcuff from the severed arm and stuck it into his yellowing-sparrow-brown bone, shrugging a shoulder as if to think that it was about the right size, then splashed off to leave her there. 

“W-wait-!” Soliet splashed violently after him. “C-can you help me?” She certainly didn’t want to get mixed up with this dead creature, not knowing that creatures like that could even exist, and also needing to take care of the thought reeling in her brain that she should be way more terrified by the man, despite how charmingly friendly his voice was. 

“Help you? You came to my home. Why should I help you?” He seemed clearly annoyed as he turned to look at her, at least stopping for her to catch up to him. For a dead man, he was surprisingly fast. 

Maybe not as friendly as you thought. Then again, what person really is..? She walked behind him, not exactly wanting to be under his blank-skulled stare, again. 

“W-well.. You.. Well it’s not my fault.. I got sent here.” Soliet clutched at her light head and exhaled a cotton-like sigh. “Please? Maybe.. Maybe I can help you, too..?” 

“Unlikely, but I have nothing else interesting to do here and since you’re the first human to come here for years, why not?” He lifted a bloodied smile to her, then beckoned her to follow him through the weaving of the swamp’s whispering trees, towards drier, yet damp land which he traveled through very well, probably since he did say this was his home. 

Soliet wished she were alone. Maybe she really didn’t want that, but it made long silences easier. Now, she felt compelled to talk. Plus, her questions were probably key to what in the hell was going on. Just probably though. Just a hunch. Trust.

“Uh, where are we?” She asked hesitantly which he responded very briskly to her. 

“A swamp.” 

“I.. can see that.” She cleared her throat. “But where are we.. on Earth?” 

“Oh, we’re not on Earth.” 

And that was all he gave her. 

“...what do you mean, not on Earth?” She asked, testing the waters again. 

“I mean we’re not on Earth. He responded back, simply and plainly. He seemed very confident his answers wouldn’t trigger even more questions. 

“...But.. how?” She emphasized the question, trying to get him to understand. Maybe his brain was just as rotted as the rest of him.. 

“I mean you’re probably dead.” 

…okay. 

That wasn’t the answer she expected. 

She didn’t exactly know what she expected anyways. Honestly, it seemed like a pretty reliable answer, the only one available, anyways, though she still felt very alive. Not at all like the creature in front of her. 

Then again, human bodies don’t start decomposing until.. 

She shuddered and the man turned back to her, picking out a messy spool of thread from one of his pant pockets and a needle was held between his teeth as he glanced back to Soliet. 

“You alright?” He questioned, the slightest concerned, pausing his work on sewing his new, left arm in. 

“No,” She mumbled, feeling numb to her head. Nothing about this was alright. How could he be so calm, meanwhile- well, alright, he was probably a zombie, but that was besides the point. 

“But you,” She pointed to him who had tied the arm to his own, firmly, flexing both of them with delight before turning to her, again. She shuddered suddenly, holding his eye contact. Nobody made eye contact with her for long, willingly. Why was this.. “You aren’t alright, are you?” 

He followed her forefinger which gestured up and down his body, his expression grim. 

“Oh. That.” He replied, dull and flat. “Yeah, I’m dead.” 

That shouldn’t surprise her. It did explain why he looked like a zombie, but it didn’t explain how was keeling over and groaning in pain or being able to respond seemingly intelligently to her statements and recognize emotions and faces. This was, to say the least, strange. 

He sighed, recognizing the emotion of pure, scrambled confusion. He stretched, accidentally popping off his wrist and having to spend another awkward moment stitching the hand back onto himself, then turning back to her meanwhile walking slower, to match her pace. 

“You must be a new soul, aren’t you? Let’s start with the basics. If you’re dead, you usually spring up sort of disfigured or a horrific relation to how you died, but you don’t really look like you're dead, huh?” He stopped to look at her, Soliet noticing he really did make eye contact with her, again. She didn’t imagine it. “And, I look.. Well, dead. I don’t.. Talk about it. Often.” He replied uneasily, but didn’t seem to dwell on it very long. Soliet wrung her wrists, feeling as if she’d wanted to throw up, again. Was she dead? But.. it was so sudden. She.. she wanted to do more than just sulk and.. Dip.. dip her mind back under the water. Drowning and dipping and dipping and dipping- 

There was a jolt of a shock, a parasite of pain screeching off her neck as the creature flicked it away. 

“Sorry,” He seemed bored rather than irritated. “Parasites.” 

Parasites. ARE YOU SERIOUS?? Alright, that shouldn’t surprise her, though it certainly seemed as if her face was very clear to her emotions, since the dead man only shook her shoulder lightly, not helping once she’d felt the iced damp of his fingers. 

Forgot to tell you, not every new soul manifests as a person.. Sort of. Once their depression and miserable feelings catch up to them, they sort of just.. Well, they change, to say the least.” He explained, though a piercing screaming wove itself around Soliet’s heart and chained her throat, her breath dead-silent in her throat. There was an incredulously demented sound of moaning, then a break-down of psychotic sobs that followed afterwards. 

Though, the creature only finger-snapped toward the sound, continuing to walk on forward. 

“That’s Helena, who used to be one of the only decent souls to talk to here, before she went completely psycho when she realized she was here because she lost her son.” 

A figure had been staring at them through the trees, its eyes dead and lily-white, though the man only glanced at the creature as it continued its flaring gaze in their direction. 

“Youssef. Don’t speak to him as much as I used to, now that he’s off sealing his mouth shut with thread and started stalking every happy couple there is out there to make him feel better about his own doomed love. Well, here’s the bad news: It doesn’t make him feel any better, it just makes him drown worse in his loneliness." 

Soliet, though, was slightly dazed, barely glancing back at the figure who watched them in somber quiet as they walked on. Happy couple..? She had to laugh at that. Though, her laughing only made him turn back to her as he began to explain another soul writhing around in the trees, apparently a harmless one who only obsessed over looking over at any interesting or new things that came along in his life. 

“Excuse me? Are you laughing at me!?? I’m dead serious!” He scolded her, which only made her laugh harder at the dead man. 

Though, he didn’t seem very annoyed by her laughter as her mother would be when they came in for examinations and check-ins. He seemed rather elated by the fact that she was laughing in such a situation like this. 

After a rustling quiet of following the wild forest-like path, he’d finally displayed his.. “house”.. Which was more of just a shack overflowing with muddied, mold wood planks and another vastly overbearing scent of decay and organic plant matter. 

“...Oh, wow.” She tilted her head at it, trying to find something good she could say about it. “It’s very..?” 

“...Wow, thanks.” He replied back, sarcastically. 

“Wh- What do you want me to say?” 

“I don’t know, something like, ‘Oh, Josh, your house is so cool and awesome and you’re cool and awesome, and thank you for letting me stay here and not be hunted down by the Wendigo, wow, Josh, I should give you something just as awesome as this gift!” 

“So.. your name is Josh?” Soliet asked, stifling her laughter with her hand. 

“...That’s all you got from that!?? Where’s my thanks!??” To say the least, he was very disappointed, and Soliet was very entertained by the dead man. 

“Oh.. Thank you.” Soliet couldn’t help but smile at him and Josh stopped to look back at her, his drey eyes rounding with an otherworldly sort of light. He stepped back, serious now as he nodded. 

“You’re welcome, then, miss.” It was so strangely different from what Soliet had seen of him that it ended up triggering her fit of laughter, again.