Confined With a Goddess

Jake felt like his whole body was in a vise. His legs were numb, and he could barely feel his arms, but everything else hurt, and it was excruciating. He'd never felt quite this bad before. Not even that time a few years ago when he'd tried to drink a rancid beer that he couldn't finish because the taste was just... not good, the other one. Bad; that was it. He didn't remember what he'd done last night, but he didn't really remember anything. Maybe he'd remember if he looked around.

Unfortunately, someone had set the sun to its maximum brightness, because as soon as he opened his eyes, he was blinded as his corneas were set on fire. He couldn't look. He'd have to feel around. He'd never guessed that he'd be blind, but now, he was. At least, temporarily.

He commanded his right arm onto his face. It smacked him a few times before actually managing to find its grip, but he found it eventually. With his right eye covered, he opened it, then began to lift his hand to let in just a little bit of light.

It was green. He was in a green place. The location where he was was green. Greenland. No, wait, that was a misnomer. He was in Iceland. That's why it was so hot; because Iceland was green and Greenland was icy. He was in Iceland.

No. Not Iceland. Island. Why was his brain telling him wrong things? Why was he being so stupid right now? "Wha--"

He clenched his eyes shut and shot his hand to his hair. He meant to cover his ear, but had gone too far. In addition to setting the sun too loud, someone had set his volume to maximum brightness.

"Fuck..." he whispered. Despite whispering, the consonants sent a pair of shockwaves cascading down his body. He could finally feel his toes, and they were unhappy with him. It felt like he was being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles, and not in the way that stepping on a thousand needles would all apply equal pressure to his foot and not let him sink. They were stabbing him, like the blood in his foot was the only vaccine to the world's most deadly disease, and they needed all of it.

The feeling began to radiate up his leg as he moved it. He needed to put his knee in front of him so he could wrench himself up. He had to move up to his hands and knees so he could move around. Perhaps he could find a dark place under the floor?

As he brought his legs closer, he felt a hot, sticky fluid run out of his butt. To top off everything, he had diarrhea. Wonderful. He took a deep breath. He must have lost his sense of smell, because it didn't smell that bad.

Suddenly, and arm wrapped around him and squeezed him. "NUUU, NUUU!!!" it bellowed, ripping through his hand and stabbing into his eardrums. "FIVE MORE MINUTES!!!"

As it squeezed him, more fluid squirted out of his tail end, and as it pulled him back, he could feel the vise grip that had taken over his torso operating from both the inside and the outside. His body was being crushed both outside-in and inside-out. How was that even possible?

He couldn't even try to figure that out right now. As he was drawn back, something was crushing his head, and it was big and heavy and powerful. His eyes were about to pop out of their sockets, and the only thing he could do to stop it was clenching his eyes shut as tightly as he could. Granted, he was already doing that to keep the noise out, and whatever this thing crushing his head was kept the light to a more manageable volume. It was still excruciating, though.

After five hours, the grip lessened, and he managed to pull himself away. He could feel more, now, and something solid was sliding out of his butt. Something big. Lots of liquid was coming with it. He couldn't look, but he was pretty sure his intestines were sloughing out through his rectum, and he was going to die very soon. But he'd have to look, first, and opening an eye revealed that the sun was still too loud.

A roar sounded out behind him, and with one more push, he felt whatever was coming out rip free of his body. Like a sea cucumber, he'd just eviscerated himself to flee from whatever foul beast was chasing him across the floor, and he hoped that the discarded pile of organs was enough to slow it down.

He made it to the edge, and had to stop. He knew it was the edge because he could feel the drop. He couldn't feel gravity, but he could feel his hand, and it fell. The direction it went must have been down, so it had to be the edge. Plus, that's where the floor was. Down was that way; he was seventy percent sure.

He leaned over the edge and cracked open his eyes. There was dirt, but it was several kilos away. Suddenly sickened at the thought that he'd almost fallen off the floor to his death, he vomited over the edge. It, too, was green when it hit the ground. It was green land. Greenland. Wasn't he in Greenland at one point?

He vomited again, and a few more times, too. Every time, the ground came a little bit closer, and his head felt a little bit heavier, until he fell over the edge.

It hurt to die. He felt like he had when he'd fallen off a ladder while cleaning a window, but now it was in his shoulder, rather than his hip. He wasn't in heaven this time, though. The last time he died, he was surrounded by billowing white clouds. Now it was just plants and dirt.

Jake threw up a few more times, until nothing would come out anymore, then crawled under the floor. He was dead, and he was going to be buried. And if the house wasn't going to build itself on top of him, he was going to build himself under it. He could still hear the monster roaring above him, and he would let it roar. Let it roar until it fell asleep, because it couldn't find him all the way out here in Iceland, where he was safe and dead, and maybe a little bit still exhausted. It had been a long night.