Fictional Lines: From the Nether, Helter Skelter.

FICTIONAL LINES: FROM THE NETHER, HELTER SKELTER.

FICTIONAL LINES are a set of short stories that blur between fiction and reality, based on the city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia where I currently reside.

They stared at me, their eyes dripping with ire.  There were movements in the shadows, irksome writhing gestures that signalled the wretched to come beckoning with caked dirt and blood on their hands. They spewed vulgarities with impunity as they kept staring with their hands outstretched in reception to a few filthy bills while the atmosphere dripped an eldritch aura of hopelessness and desperation; a noisome burgeoning of the senses that discomposed the very foundations of suffering and shame.

More of them emerged from the irriguous alleyways, their tongues black with the distortion of life. I ran towards the neon lights only to find masked predators prowling for fresh prey, parading inside their dens in a serpentine fashion perfumed with the scent of polyamory and cold hard cash. Many come to worship at their shrines, reverent to their physical nihilism. Death to the old gods. I crept out of that vice; to know is to hide, and I am hiding amongst the faceless bodies shuffling away in the crowded streets.

Wisps of incense waft amongst the excrement of stray dogs as I step into puddles in deep depressions that wrapped around my shoes like hands dragging me into a void of sheer darkness. The tainted water violates the sole and soaks through to my bare skin like the kiss of a parasitic leech as I cough out specks of rust into the midnight air, drenched in stale breath of failed dreams. I have to keep moving.

I push past the bodies and they scream bloody murder to my face as I made haste towards the illusion of safety. They hear every cough, every wheeze. They follow not far behind, creeping up on me, smiling ear-to-ear with their thoughtless eyes and baring their fangs and serrated claws itching for my blood; the sound of their blackened tongues thrashing about in anticipation of my flesh, the gnashing of their jaws and the snide giggling that reeked of something far more insidious behind.

I have to run. I hear them coming, and they are bringing hell with them.