Wherever he was, it looked like someone had melted a city, poured it down a tube and now he was walking through the barely-settled remains. It was vast but he could just about see streetlights sticking out above him, around him and beneath him - all at odd angles and all bathing the tunnel in a soft orange haze.
It it weren't for the fact that his car had started to dissolve into the floor, he'd be driving along the bumpy ground in the hopes that he'd reach safety somehow. Instead he was power walking past what might have been a school once, trying desperately to ignore the little hands papping away at the windows.
The thought that there might be a greater city behind the filthy glass that jutted out from every conceivable angle only made him feel like he was inside those tubes you got at aquariums where the fish would swim over you. Only instead of graceful aquatic life, he was surrounded by an entire civilisation that was watching him for no discernable reason.
He hoped he was wrong and that the faint sound of tapping against glass was just his imagination but as he walked by an old butcher's front he clearly saw someone hacking away at a pile of writhing meat that quietly sobbed with every strike. Somehow he thought it would have been easier to deal with if it screamed.
By the time he made it to the remnants of a zoo, he was beyond hoping this was a dream and instead considering how he could get out fast. Heading back to the butcher's sounded like a swift way to go but the thought that there might be some kind of wild beast that could kill him with a single strike had more appeal than risking a slower death like whatever was weeping back there.
Again, it looked like someone had taken a zoo and poured it into a bowl, letting it slop down and cool until it lost all function to the Dali-esque aesthetic. He wondered how many, if any, creatures had survived long enough to escape and what creatures had been housed there to begin with.
The signs were barely legible but there had been at least five different types of bear and three types of big cat. Large carnivores that would end him and eat him, hopefully in that order or at least quickly if it was the other way around.
He knew he wasn't alone, something large was close enough that he could hear them breathing just out of time with his own panicked gasps. Soon enough he would turn around and face the thing that had been tracking him since he got into his car after his shift at work.
It it weren't for the fact that his car had started to dissolve into the floor, he'd be driving along the bumpy ground in the hopes that he'd reach safety somehow. Instead he was power walking past what might have been a school once, trying desperately to ignore the little hands papping away at the windows.
The thought that there might be a greater city behind the filthy glass that jutted out from every conceivable angle only made him feel like he was inside those tubes you got at aquariums where the fish would swim over you. Only instead of graceful aquatic life, he was surrounded by an entire civilisation that was watching him for no discernable reason.
He hoped he was wrong and that the faint sound of tapping against glass was just his imagination but as he walked by an old butcher's front he clearly saw someone hacking away at a pile of writhing meat that quietly sobbed with every strike. Somehow he thought it would have been easier to deal with if it screamed.
By the time he made it to the remnants of a zoo, he was beyond hoping this was a dream and instead considering how he could get out fast. Heading back to the butcher's sounded like a swift way to go but the thought that there might be some kind of wild beast that could kill him with a single strike had more appeal than risking a slower death like whatever was weeping back there.
Again, it looked like someone had taken a zoo and poured it into a bowl, letting it slop down and cool until it lost all function to the Dali-esque aesthetic. He wondered how many, if any, creatures had survived long enough to escape and what creatures had been housed there to begin with.
The signs were barely legible but there had been at least five different types of bear and three types of big cat. Large carnivores that would end him and eat him, hopefully in that order or at least quickly if it was the other way around.
He knew he wasn't alone, something large was close enough that he could hear them breathing just out of time with his own panicked gasps. Soon enough he would turn around and face the thing that had been tracking him since he got into his car after his shift at work.
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