All I hear at first are the curious footsteps of mice. Featherlight on the dusty stone, they draw closer, lured in by who knows what. It's all I can hear, all that there seems to be. Tiny, ephemeral footsteps. Tiny spirits.
Around me the air flows sluggishly, currents left behind by something, coiling and heavy with motes and mold. I'm on a floor that hums faintly, alive with an irregular heartbeat. Horses pulling carts blocks away. Machinery further away than that. The surge of water somewhere, but not nearby. Above me the world blossoms with reflected sound, like one dropping a pencil in a cathedral. Such a small clatter scintillated hundreds of times back down, like rain drops from heaven.
New sounds, fluttery sounds. Quick, reliable staccato lights in the dark. Beating hearts, so many tiny beating hearts, growing closer. The beating hearts ride on the skittering tiny footsteps like ferrymen, pulled in, approaching. A sea of little flickering candle lights in the dark.
Come closer, little ones. I need you. I need your little lives.
The steps come closer and closer now, unafraid, entranced, obedient. Closer to my head. Closer to my mouth. Opening my jaw hurts, it's so tense, it makes such a wretched sound, a sound like old canvas creaking, or leather complaining. There are no heartbeats within me. There is no light. That's why I need theirs.
Just as I feel a whisker tickle against my cheek and a small paw press to my lip, there's a horrible pain along my scalp and the side of my face. It's like fire burning through parchment, eating me up, agonizing! A howl of pain escapes past my dry throat and I flinch, curling up to escape, engaging the sound of metal clinking. Chains, heavy chains all around me. Concrete scraping against metal and my skin. My face hurts but it's cooling off, and I crawl slowly, painfully, like a worm away from the pain towards the cold.
My journey takes ages and the mice, long scattered now, bear witness to me from the fringes, squeaking and chittering in distress. I smell cooked flesh, charred meat, and old blood. The scent of dusty bags of grain grows the further I crawl, until I bump against old and rotting burlap. Mice and rats surge within it, startled, and grains start to trickle over my face and body. Not knowing what else to do, I tear at the burlap with my teeth, ripping holes in it until a cascade of fetid grain pours over me and hides my body entirely.
It's cool beneath this pile, and despite the warmth of that approaching fire heating the grains, I don't burn beneath their protection. Such relief, I'm so grateful, and the little feet approach again, unimpeded now as they dig towards me, towards my mouth, and into it so that I may eat them.
Every one.
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