Main Character’s POV:

‘Ba-dump! Ba-dump!’

I could hear it and I could feel it, the sound of my heart beating rapidly in my chest. I was utterly stunned. It felt as if I was brought back from an abyss of endless suffering. My memory wasn’t all there but the last thing that I remembered was my chest getting impaled by that swindling bastard, Sharp Stepper. He was brave enough to attempt to steal what was mine and succeeded. Soon I would pay him back for what he did to me.

“Huh!” I tried moving my body but there was no response. ‘What the hell? Where am I?’ I had no idea where I was. All I could see around me was pure darkness. But I heard something… music of sorts.

“Is that Red Devil Halo playing?” The bass was so damn loud that it was beating my heart out of tune. However, it made me discover something important.

“Is this what I think it is?” The hectic bass from the music, made me realise that I was being restricted by a mass of dirt.

“That punk Sharp Stepper must have buried me alive!” This was the first thought that came to my mind. I tried opening my mouth to speak but all that came out was dirt and a shit load of worms. I could taste their juiciness slithering down my throat.

‘Cough! Cough!’

After spitting out those disgusting worms, I tried getting my body to respond to my will but I could barely feel my limbs. I can’t recall how long I was lying there trying to flex a damn muscle but I felt alive and dead at the same time. I know it sounds insane but this is the only way I can explain it.

“Goddammit! Move already!” Giving up wasn’t in my vocabulary, therefore I exhausted every avenue, even tried using rage to get my cells to respond to me and it worked. I began sensing mobility in my left-hand fingers, but something was off. As my tactile sensation began to creep in, I could perceive that my fingers were partly without flesh.

“What the hell, am I rotting alive?” My fingers weren’t the only part of me that felt that it was without an adequate amount of flesh. Apart from my legs and my arms, a portion of my torso was lacking flesh. Those wormy bastards had their fill of me. Had I not awaken when I did, I reckon those worms would have finished the damn job.

Now that I was able to freely move my limbs again, the first thing I started doing was clawing my way out of there. It was then that I knew what it felt like to be a mole. If I had sharp claws like they do I would have dug my way out of that hole much sooner. I climbed and I climbed until my rotting ears heard a few voices coming from above.

“Babe, put it in already.”

“Alright, alright, don’t rush.”

It sounded like 2 horny brats were screwing each other directly above me. This occurrence made me start wondering where the hell I was buried. I continued to listen to the various sounds that were coming from above. I heard a bunch of noises that sounded like a party was taking place. Was I buried underneath somebody’s house or outside their backyard? I set these thoughts aside and continued to climb my way out of there.

Though I was badly wounded, surprisingly I had enough strength to burst out of the ground like a vampire. My right hand was the first to reach the surface. As the rest of my body followed, I heard somebody screaming in shock. I looked ahead of me and identified a boy and girl running away while skipping over a few graves. They must have been scared off by my great reveal.

“Bunch of horny brats!” As soon as I came from underneath the ground, I shifted my eyes about trying to find out exactly where I was.

“I recognized this place. This is Sunflower Cemetery. So that bastard brought me all the way out here.” In my mind, I began processing the many ways of getting payback for what Sharp Stepper did to me, but after I balanced on my feet, a sharp ringing in my head came along and interrupted my diabolical thought process. The frequency was so screeching that I immediately stumbled to my knees while holding onto my head.

“What the heck is this irritating noise that is trying to explode in my head?” Just as I asked this question, something bizarre happened that you wouldn’t believe. I started seeing a flashing red interface before me, moreover, heard a bossy female voice telling me,

<Warning! Health Level Critical!>

<Warning! Health Level Critical!>

<Warning! Health Level Critical!>

“What is this?” I thought that something was wrong with my eyes, therefore, I began using my hands to rub out whatever this inexplicable interference was. I tried but it didn’t go away. At one point, I almost used the exposed bone of my finger to puncture my damn eyes.

Why was this bizarre thing happening to me? I had no idea. But I needed to find somewhere chill to figure it out. With this thought in mind, I ignored the flashing interface and tried to get out of the cemetery. However, with every step that I took I felt weaker and weaker, not to mention the damn red windows kept on popping up more frequently.

<Warning Health Level Critical!>

<Warning Health Level Critical!>

<Warning Health Level Critical!>

<Warning Health Level Critical!>

<Warning Health Level Critical!>

“For God's sake shut up already, you annoying thing!” I screamed out like a mad tyrant amid the cemetery. The dead people who were sleeping below were probably awakened by my voice. Then again, probably not. These party mongers who were behaving badly in the graveyard must have already awoken them.

“I need to get out of here.” I didn’t know what it was, but the music coming from the speakers was causing a volcano to erupt in my chest. This had never happened to me before. I frequented places that had loud music and never got ill from it. So what the hell was happening to my body?

I became so tired that I had to rest my back against a tree trunk. A pair of giggly voices entered my ear which prompted me to look above the tree. Up there I saw a naughty couple ravishing each other’s bodies like wild beasts. Weren’t they cold exposing themselves like that?  

“What the hell is wrong with these youngsters? They can’t party like normal people?”

I got so annoyed by their giggling that I pounded the tree trunk with the back of my fist and shouted, “Get down from there, you damn monkeys!” To my surprise, the fist I gave the tree didn’t just shake it roughly, no, it split the tree from where I pounded it and caused it to fall over.

“Eeek!” I heard the shrieking voices of the couple hollering out as they leapt out of the tumbling tree and fell on their faces.

“What the hell man are you bloody insane?” The youth glared at me with anger in his eyes. He was probably upset that I’d just prevented him from getting some.

“You could have killed us, you hobo!” His lady friend had a dirty mouth on her. Seconds later, she spoke sounding frightened. “Oh no! Look at his chest. Babe let’s get out of here!”

The couple looked at me with a shocking expression before picking up their jackets and dashing off in a hurry. The fear that they portrayed made me aware of the inexplicable state of my body. Observing myself, I discovered some terrible wounds that a normal person wouldn’t have been able to survive. The most frightening discovery was the gaping hole in my chest. How had I not seen this until now?

My ribcage was slightly preyed open and my heart was frigging huge! I doubt this was normal; far from it. My heart didn’t remain as big as I’d seen it earlier. I watched it diffusing a bloody mist across my body as it shrunk back to normal.

“What the hell is happening to me? How am I still alive with these fatal injuries?” I hadn’t enough time to organize my thoughts because I was alerted by 3 police vehicles that showed up by the cemetery all of a sudden.

The lead squad car had someone speaking through a microphone. “Alright, you drunken youngsters, break it up! This party that you are hosting is without a valid permit, therefore, this party is illegal! Go on home before I lock you all up in jail! Didn’t you hear me? I said go on home right now!”

“Oh, shit! The cops have come to ruin the party!” The guy who was controlling the music began panicking.

“We better get the hell out of here! I can’t afford to go to jail again. My dad would kill me!” A young lady dropped her beer on the floor and started running away.

Another lady said to her male friend, “Dude, where’d you park the car!?”

“I thought it was over here!”

“Obviously it isn’t.”

“Then someone must have stolen it. Let’s make a run for it!”

“Hmm…” From where I was standing behind the fallen tree, I witnessed the crowd of party mongers scattering in various directions. I didn’t want to confront the law either, not in my current state anyway. Therefore, I picked up a coat that I found hanging on a tombstone nearby, used it to cover my exposed chest then started running out of there. I took the rear exit of the cemetery which was rather steep.

<Warning! Health Level Critical!>

<Warning! Health Level Critical!>

<Warning! Health Level Critical!>

“This damn annoying thing!” It caused me to trip a few times because I couldn’t see where I was going and I had no idea how to turn it off. While I was sliding down the opposite hillside of Sunflower Cemetery, I was trying to interact with the interface but everything I swipe my hands, they only grasp empty air.

<Warning! Health Level Critical!>

<Warning! Health Level Critical!>

“Dammit, this thing won’t go away!” I closed my eyes really tight, hoping that I wouldn’t see the flashing interface but it kept showing up.

<Warning! Health Level Critical!>

<Warning! Health Level Critical!>

No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get rid of it and the more I moved my body the flashier it became. I surmised this was because my body was being damaged slowly due to the recurring injuries.

“I better find a way to handle this issue and fast.” I arrived at the bottom of the slope near the side of the road. There was a small grove of trees across the street overlooking the open seas of Clown City. Hearing the sirens getting closer, I ran across the street and hid behind the trees until the cops drove by. I spotted a few youngsters being held captive in the back seats along with a few other vehicles driving by.

As I peaked my ears to listen, I wasn’t hearing the loud noises coming from the hill anymore. This meant that the party was truly over. I waited until the coast was clear before I came out from my hiding spot and started dragging my rotting body along the borders of the shore in the dead of the night.

“God, I’m dying for a smoke right about now.”