Chapter Text
Somewhere deep inside Louies head, sparks of consciousness resided. He was deeply sleeping, too deep for any dreams. He was far away from life, thoughtlessly content a peaceful dark void. It didn't stay blank for long.
Something tugged at the peacefully resting childs' attention, a sensation that lured him out of his oblivion and into a realm which thoughts could form. And despite the lack of context to his identity and situation, unaware of being mere figmentation. The small part of Louie could still unequivically understand that now was a time to panic.
Chemicals fired in his head, making the fickle part of his cognizance suddenly crazed with fear. The emotion became paired with images. He imagined helplessly staring at his body laying on the cold ground, unable to move, as rats nibbled at his flesh. He watched and endured. A poetic nightmare, his own food source turning on him. In this state he was unaware of anything but the present moment. All he knew was this. The merciless experience appeared so vivid that in the background of it all a faint phantom pain developed. Although out of his focus, Louie felt the pain guide him somewhere, lifting him from the depths and into...
Louie stared up at the rock ceiling, finally awake. Was it his imagination in the after effects of sleep, that he felt light as a feather? No, something was definitely different. What was different? He couldn't feel a thing. The freezing temperatures, gone. The hard stone floor, gone. He was awake, though, right? He couldnt feel himself blink, or breathe. Was he breathing? He couldn't be certain. Something was certain, though, and that was the horrendus sounds occurring beneath him. His curiosity forced the disconnected boy to flip himself around and discover the source.
To which he immediately regretted. Beneath him laid what was undoubtedly himself, unmoving and in terrible condition. Dead. Tissue around his legs and arms had been scraped away by fingernails, in some parts down to the very bone. And the three culprits, still diligently tearing him to shreds, also looked to be eating him as well. Their mouths and hands were coated with deep red, the same fluid that pooled below.
Inside Louies head flashed memories of his nightmare. And it occurred to him, while looking at this twin depiction, that the distant pain he'd felt might not have been part of the dream.
They're eating me. Why!? I was just sleeping! I couldn't have been that deeply, right!? Why didn't I notice!?
Or maybe its just a dream, Yeah! Its obviously just another dream. Another nightmare. I'm not dead. My friends aren't eating me. My friends wouldn't do that. Why would I even dream of such a thing?
He did all he could to lessen the impact of this situation. He turned away and covered his ears. Still, for some unfair reason the the sound of ripping flesh remained just as loud as before. If any normal person were cursed with this circumstance, they would surely antagonize the ones who were desecrating their body. They would feel betrayed, robbed of their future. But Louie wasnt any normal person. He possessed a sense of empathy that had no off switch. Constantly he found reasons to forgive, no matter the cards he was dealt. Whether a weakness or a gift, it was undoubtedly this naivety that had him wound up in this situation in the first place. The moment a sliver of hate began arise within him, he bashed it down.
Whether he'd come to forgive them or not, he wasn't content in staying close by. He had himself waft away, he didn't want to be near it. He wouldn't think about it. Except it wasn't working. After drifting only a meter, he felt a strange vaccum that tried to pull him back. The further he went the more intense it got; his essence stretched thinner, the air felt thicker and heavier. Soon he wasn't able to move against it at all.
He stopped fighting the force and was tugged back. Why was this happening now? why was he forced stay near them? Wasn't killing him enough? Again, more hatred arose and he bashed it down again; he couldn't be angry at them. they weren't the cause of this sensation. He was being unreasonable. He tried to think of a concrete reason for it. A reason for everything. A reason for the fact his arms went through his head when he tried to smack himself awake. A reason for why the world felt so far away. He wanted to believe he was dreaming. He didn't understand why the explanation felt wrong. None of the questions he had could be answered any other way.
He wasn't able to wake up or leave to escape it, so he forced himself to cling onto this answer, no matter how untrue it felt. He distanced himself from reality, It was all he could do. Ignore everything. Focus on one thing. One thing only. His hands, they looked pretty. Pretty and yellow. It was like the light that fell through the hatch in the cieling. Sunlight. His hands didn't normally look like this. But he wouldn't think about that. He looked pretty.
In the days that passed afterward, Louie would be forced to come to terms with the truth of his situation. It wasn't a dream. A dream would've ended by now. And although he knew maintaining the beleif that he was in some sort of coma might have been nicer, his denial had already frustrated him enough. He was dead. This is the afterlife. He was a ghost. This was his new belief.
Then there was the incomfortable fact that his cellmates had eaten him. But three factors drew him to forgive them. They were starving, They needed this boost to survive. And though he was reluctant to admit it, if it hadn't been him as the victim, he would have certainly been depraved enough to join them.
However one question was left unanswered, why couldnt he leave? He was a spirit, shouldn't he be able to slink past these walls, see the world, the light, his family again?
And why him ? Why Dale? why was Dale the anchor that doomed him to remain?
Maybe their souls had fused somehow, when he was eating. But Hugh and Sidney had done so too, shouldn't he be tied to all three of them? Maybe he'd taken the first bite, or he'd eaten the most?
Gross . It was not the most delightful topic to think about. He'd stopped referring to his corpse as being a part of him, to make it feel less awkward. If he was completely honest with himself, he wound up feeling content with his fate. He was helping his friends. Maybe without him, none of them would've made it. It, strangely, made him feel better being down here.
So instead of thinking about it negatively, in that they had robbed him of his future, he glorified it. He died so they could live.