You used to play on the old army pillboxes as a child, pretending that you and your siblings were up against hoards of monsters. You could never figure out a way inside the concrete blocks, most of the entrances were blocked by iron grates or graffiti-smothered boards.
Still, it never stopped you from hunting around the area in the hopes that one day, you'd find an open pillbox and live your childhood dream of exploring inside of one. Last week you had this dream come true and the regret still lingers.
It was the third to last one you'd found over the years, hidden by a lake and overrun with vegetation to the point where it must have been missed by the council and their explicit need to barricade every last pillbox in the country. This one, though, they hadn't gotten to, the entrance wide open and beckoning you in.
What you found inside the old pillbox was a shivering mass of grey flesh with no discernible beginning or end and about the size of your torso. Somewhere between you arriving, staring with mixed horror/fascination and you gradually edging back to the entrance, it noticed you and a broken voice came whimpering from among the many folds in its sagging body.
C-c-cove-r-r m-m-eee
P-plea-s-s-s-e
It jerked itself towards a tattered bundle of blankets on the far side of the room.
Looking back you wish you'd just covered it and called the police or ambulance or whoever could deal with whatever it had been. Instead you piled every scrap of fabric on it, carefully covering every inch until its voice was a muffled plea for less covering, that it couldn't breathe.
You didn't want it to breathe.
You kept applying pressure all over it until the voice became rasping gasps became a steady exhale.
You left it there along with your childhood dreams of exploring the old pillboxes.
Still, it never stopped you from hunting around the area in the hopes that one day, you'd find an open pillbox and live your childhood dream of exploring inside of one. Last week you had this dream come true and the regret still lingers.
It was the third to last one you'd found over the years, hidden by a lake and overrun with vegetation to the point where it must have been missed by the council and their explicit need to barricade every last pillbox in the country. This one, though, they hadn't gotten to, the entrance wide open and beckoning you in.
What you found inside the old pillbox was a shivering mass of grey flesh with no discernible beginning or end and about the size of your torso. Somewhere between you arriving, staring with mixed horror/fascination and you gradually edging back to the entrance, it noticed you and a broken voice came whimpering from among the many folds in its sagging body.
C-c-cove-r-r m-m-eee
P-plea-s-s-s-e
It jerked itself towards a tattered bundle of blankets on the far side of the room.
Looking back you wish you'd just covered it and called the police or ambulance or whoever could deal with whatever it had been. Instead you piled every scrap of fabric on it, carefully covering every inch until its voice was a muffled plea for less covering, that it couldn't breathe.
You didn't want it to breathe.
You kept applying pressure all over it until the voice became rasping gasps became a steady exhale.
You left it there along with your childhood dreams of exploring the old pillboxes.
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