Orpheus - Haunting the Dead.pdf - Dice

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CORRIDORS
And then Ed feels a terrible weight slam into him
and is overwhelmed with a scent of wet fur and rotting
meat. He collapses as the pain grips his neck, feels
himself falling, not hitting the floor but continuing to
tumble downward into darkness.
Falling
Ed wants to black out, but the pain keeps his
consciousness from fading. There is an animal presence
tearing at his thoughts, a feral hate trying to overwhelm
his mind, even as his body is being chewed and ground.
Razors across his throat. Knives in his shoulders.
The pain is too great for Ed to cry out. He closes his
eyes. He wants only to be somewhere else, anywhere
else. And he is seven years old, lying on cold concrete.
He sees the dog’s body, its head cut off, the blood
everywhere. The man in the overalls drops a bloody ax
and asks if he’s okay. His parents are running toward
him. The Ed-child is fainting and his lasts thoughts are,
This is my fault.
“I remember,” Ed croaks, lying somewhere in a cold,
dark place. Does he feel something in his chest, something
warm and powerful, rising into his throat?
“It wasn’t your fault,” Ed gasps. “You came at me
because you were sick, because you hated me….” Ed’s
vision seems to rush past the mass of fur and shadow
that’s engulfed him. He sees, as if down a long corridor,
a ragged dog, a young boy. He feels hot tears running
down his cheek. “You hated me because of what I did
to you.” Then Ed screams. His face is being eaten. A
burning knife is stabbing him in the eye, over and over
and over.
Blue Palace Hotel, Courtyard
May 27, 10:01 a.m., Thirty Years Ago
Running down a corridor, running to get away,
running. I didn’t see anything, he thinks. I didn’t do
anything. Running into the courtyard behind the hotel.
And there is the dog, a skeletal stray with patches of fur
HAUNTING THE DEAD
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