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wouldntyou-liketoknow · 1 year ago

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Day 12: Putrefaction

(Disclaimer: Neither of the characters here belong to me. Unus Memento and Annus Mori are the property of Ethan Nestor/CrankGamePlays and Mark Fischbach/Markiplier, respectively)

(Trigger Warnings: body horror, death, talk of death/dying, descriptions of decay, insects, infestation, confined spaces, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10 Day 11 Day 13

Hearing was the last sense to go after a person died. Of course, it typically only stuck around for about six minutes or so after death, but sometimes outside forces had other ideas.

Unus had long-since adjusted to hearing people walking over his and Annus’ grave. In fact, the occasional footsteps had grown oddly soothing, sounding similar to an irregular heartbeat. He’d listened to rain striking the grass above him. That obviously meant he’d heard plenty of distant thunder, too. Hell, he was listening to thunder right now.

But this thunder was. . .different.

Unus wasn’t sure how he could tell; it sounded just as thunder should sound, heavy and foreboding. And yet, for whatever reason, it didn’t sound like it was being muffled by the several layers of soil resting on top of the casket he and Annus shared. It sounded loud enough to be just outside, loud enough to promise that if either of the coffin’s occupants pushed the lid open, they’d instantly be swept into a violent storm.

Unus’ right eyelid involuntarily fluttered, as though he was trying to wink at someone. He couldn’t feel the movement in his eye socket, but the simple fact that it’d just been so, so, so long since he last closed his eyes. . .

An instinctive, guttural sigh clambered up through his throat as he stirred, experimentally opening his left eye. He was met with complete and utter darkness. As one massive twitch wracked its way down his spine, as Unus tried and immediately failed to stretch his arms, he recognized the dull weight of another body shuffling beside him. Said weight went still, but it’d clearly been disturbed.

Unus paused for a moment, thinking. Then, though he probably should’ve had to, he didn’t take a deep breath before announcing, “Unus. . .” His voice was a bit gravelly, due to not being used for so many days and so many nights.

The seconds dragged on as though they’d each swallowed a piece of kitchen stone.

“. . .ahh-nss. . .” A familiar voice rumbled.

“Ooh-Nss. . .” Unus repeated, this time with more emphasis.

Another pause.

And then: “. . .auUgH-NiS. . .”

His friend’s voice was still quiet and stubborn, determined to stay in his throat like a hibernating bear in its den. But Unus knew better. Even in death, the call still had power over the two of them. He just had to keep going.

“Oooh-Nis.” For good measure, Unus reached over to gingerly shake his friend’s shoulder.

“. . .Aahnnis.”

“Unus.”

“Annus.”

“OOOOOOH-NU—”

“SHUT UP,” Annus interjected, harshly nudging Unus with both his elbow and his hip.

While he felt no pain from the jab, Unus still automatically yelped. He then cleared his throat. “So, uh, you’re awake, too?”

“Mmrregh,” Annus complained, his deep voice in an even lower pitch. “Don’t wanna be.”

“I know, sorry. But. . .I didn’t choose to wake up.”

“So the nap didn’t completely stick,” Annus muttered. “S’how sleep is. And the sooner you stop talkin’, the sooner we can drift back off.”

“We haven’t been sleeping,” Unus protested. “We’ve been dead, and we’re still dead.”

An irritated sigh tore its way through Annus’ lips. The words that followed it dripped with sarcasm. “Wait, really? We DIED and we’re DEAD now? Holy SHIT! Is THAT why we possessed those two YouTubers and made them joke about the inevitability and permanence of death for a whole year?!”

Unus rolled his eyes. . .or, eye, since something was definitely happening to the other one and he just couldn’t see it. “Yes, yes, and yes. So doesn’t that mean we shouldn’t be awake right now? That we should’ve never been able to wake up again in the first place?”

Yet another batch of painfully awkward seconds came and went.

Then, the movement beside Unus briefly grew more erratic, accentuated by a dull thump and “AH! Son of a bitch, god-fucking-damn it, gaAahhh!”

Through the darkness, Unus could tell that Annus had attempted to sit up, only to bash his head against this side of the casket’s lid. Now his elbows were continuously knocking on the wood as he tried to scrub at his eyes.

Sooner or later, Annus’ miniature tantrum tapered down, which Unus took as a green light to keep talking. “Did you hear the thunder, too?”

As if the weather could predict the snark manifesting on Annus’ tongue and wanted to defend Unus, a booming CRASH echoed from somewhere up above. Both of the reanimated corpses flinched. It was possible that they’d gotten dangerously close to embracing one another for safety, but thanks to the darkness in the coffin, that would never be known for certain.

“Yeah, I did,” Annus eventually answered. “But it didn’t seem like enough to fully wake us at first. I was still trying to ignore the goddamn buzzing.”

“Buzzing?” Unus repeated. “What do you mean. . .” He trailed off, suddenly aware of a high-pitched, grating, whining sound that was apparently competing with the thunder.

“You seriously didn’t hear that until now?” Annus wondered, his voice transitioning from aggravation to curiosity. “I don’t know when it started, but it was way before the storm did.”

Unus couldn’t do much besides shrugging. “I don’t know. No matter how loud either of them are, they still shouldn’t have been able to wake us. We shouldn’t still be able to hear anything.”

Annus hummed at this. Then he sighed yet again, “Alright, alright. Hold on—where did I put it?”

Even more shuffling. Unus could hear Annus searching through the pockets of his specially-tailored jacket. Unus tried to shift onto his side so his friend could have a little more elbow room. How had the two of them been able to fit in here at the funeral?

“Aha! There you are!” Annus crowed.

With a soft Sscr-clink! the coffin was abruptly filled with a flickering glow. Unus blinked and squinted against it, his eye taking much longer to adjust than it should’ve. Annus held the silvery lighter at an odd angle, trying to keep it upright without accidentally igniting his clothes.

“. . .You know that’s just gonna fill this box up with smoke, right?” Unus mentioned.

“Oh, please. It’s not like we can breathe anymore,” Annus scoffed. “If we’re gonna be awake, then we might as well be able to see.”

Unus, who hadn’t felt any air in his lungs since waking up, couldn’t disagree with that.

For a moment, the hush inside the casket resumed. The duo simply watched the little flame dance, probably feeling a weird, instinctual fascination akin to deep sea creatures staring at an anglerfish’s lure.

But the new light couldn’t do much to make the thunder or the buzzing tone down. In fact, the buzzing seemed to get clearer and clearer, as it would’ve been impossible not to see at least a dozen tiny shapes flitting through the air. Some of them circled Annus’ lighter, only to collapse onto his jacket when they learned that there was indeed such a thing as being too warm.

“Flies,” Anus murmured, clicking his tongue as he swept the tiny corpses off.

“How did they get in here?” Unus asked, swatting at one of the insects before it could try to start a game of pinochle on his nose.

“These must be the burrowing kind. Megaselia scalaris, or something like that. They can squeeze through even the smallest spaces.” Annus craned his neck, eliciting a couple loud, ancient craAcks.

“. . .Huh.” Unus maneuvered his ankles, trying to stretch his legs and causing something near one of his knees to go snap! Without quite meaning to, he finally turned his head and gazed at Annus for the first time since they’d awoken.

Gone was the bleach-like glow of his eyes; now they were bloodshot and cloudy. His nasal septum was raw, covered in dried blood, looking like a scab on steroids. His shoulder-length, raven hair was tangled and shone with grease. His skin—which had become so gray that it was almost translucent—was taut, outlining the contours of his skull and stretching over his face so tightly that it looked like it would tear itself on the angles of his cheekbones.

Fat, sweaty little maggots were squirming all over his face. There were more on his neck, crawling on top of one another, teasing at the awful mass that was very clearly under his button-down. The way they all writhed almost made Annus look like he was breathing. Some were even clambering though his hair to feast on his scalp. As Unus watched, the maggots burrowed into his friend’s flesh, probably retreating from the new light source.

“You look like shit,” Unus observed, not unkindly.

Annus nodded, snorting. “Says the guy who has a cluster of pupating things in his eye socket.”

(So that was why he could see through one eye. Mystery solved!)

Unus lifted one of his moldering hands for inspection. Sure enough, maggots were having the time of their lives with him, too. Though they’d only taken a few patches of skin out, they’d still gone deep enough to reveal bits of his metacarpals.

Out of instinct, he made to lick his lips. . .only to realize that he didn’t seem to have lips anymore. This casket may have been delux, but it hadn’t been designed with a mirror. So, he could only reach up and touch his face to have a guess as to what he looked like now. His fingers brushed against dry teeth and withered gums; both rows had to be exposed by now. As far as he could tell, there was still a generous portion of skin left in his cheeks, but something that felt like oily, chunky tear tracks was definitely clinging to them.

“That’s not too bad, I guess,” Unus proclaimed, folding his hand back onto his chest.

“Yeah. Something was gonna start picking at us eventually.” Annus reached up again, this time aiming his hand behind his head to adjust the silk pillow. (Which did have a few lumps, but honestly, those lumps made it feel like Unus’ head was being cradled.)

“. . .I still would’ve preferred butterflies,” Unus mentioned. “I mean, they only feed on stuff that’s out in the open, but still, they’re like vultures. Wouldn’t that be kinda pretty?”

“‘Pretty?’” Annus echoed, looking both amused and skeptical.

“Well, y’know how monarchs will roost on trees when they migrate?” Unus inquired.

Annus nodded.

“Okay, so, imagine: two mounds of something in the middle of a field, out in the sunlight. . .and just completely covered in butterflies. They’re all just huddled together. There’s so many of them that even when they move their wings, you still can’t see what’s underneath them. All you can see are the colors and the little spots—”

“And then, once you get too close, the butterflies all take off at once!” Annus interjected, his voice now dramatic and posh like a comedic villain onstage. “Whoosh! A living rainbow lifts up into the air! The way they all move almost looks like a pulsing mass before they scatter! And when you look back down. . .you see a pair of mangled, rotting corpses at your feet! You can do nothing but stare and hyperventilate as you question everything you thought you knew about those delicate, innocent-looking butterflies!” His words melted into a maniacal guffaw that lasted a good ten seconds before he started coughing up bits of moldy phlegm, along with a slimy beetle that Unus could’ve sworn had a demonic glint in its beady little eyes.

Unus nodded, smirking as he raised his hands in a slow, light applause. “Exactly.”

Annus sighed once his hacking died down. “You’re right, that does sound more appealing than the bugs in here. But the community probably thought it’d be disrespectful to just leave us decaying outside.” He rolled his shoulders, then began to chuckle. “Besides, anything is better than an air-tight coffin. Can’t believe those things are still selling.”

Unus knew that gas-buildup was a standard part of decomposition. He also knew what tended to happen when gasses like that had nowhere else to go. Semi-disgusted snickers started bubbling up between his teeth.

“Oh, God. . ! There’d just be bits and pieces of us all over this damn thing! It’d look like we went through a garbage disposal! Our guts would be all tangled up—no-one would know where you ended and I started!”

Annus shook his head, laughter growing louder as he shoved at Unus’ side. “Ah, fuck! Don’t say it like that!”

Unus grinned, shoving right back. “Like it’s my fault you brought it up!”

It really almost felt like not even a day had passed. Becoming gruesome, hideous carcasses didn’t mean they had to abandon their personalities, their wits, everything that had made them loveable in life. Humorous enough to justify the macabre nature of their games, yet mature enough to take their circumstances in stride.

The duo kept snipping at one another for a few minutes. . .or, maybe a few hours? It was just so hard to keep track of time when your brain had been reduced to maggot pie. In any case, the thunder took their roughhousing as an invitation to grow even louder than before. The casket lightly reverberated with the sound, as though the dirt encasing it had shivered.

Unus and Annus both fell silent, as did all the flies.

The former wrapped his arms around his torso, paying no mind to how his liquefied organs started making his sleeves damp.

The latter tightened his grip on the lighter to the point that a couple of his phalanges tore through however much skin left around his knuckles.

“What are the chances. . .” Unus knew there was no way that what he was thinking could be correct. Then again, he’d seen how desperate some folks could be. “. . .of that being some kind of sign?”

“About fifty-fifty, I’d say,” Annus remarked, grinding his jaw. “Even if it is, that doesn’t mean it’s something that’ll involve us.”

“I know, I know. But how can it be enough to wake us? That can’t just be a coincidence.”

“That’d still be pretty funny. Funnier than someone out there trying to convince us to come back.”

Unus wasn’t quite capable of pursing his lips, so he clicked his teeth together instead. It was surprising that none of them ended up falling further into his mouth. “Do you think we’ll ever need to come back?”

“We can’t. Even if we weren’t too far gone, that still wouldn’t be an option.” Annus raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Didn’t this start off with you reminding me that we’re dead?”

“Look, I have no idea what it could mean. It’s just. . .it’s making me think even though I’m not supposed to think anymore.” Unus dug his rotting fingernails into his shirt, squishing a few maggots into pulp. “I know we just need to rest now, but—”

“Hey, hey, listen. We told them how it would be at the beginning. They knew it was going to end one way or another. No changing that now.” Annus’ free hand suddenly materialized Unus’ shoulder. “I know how that pressure can feel, and I know it can be hard to resist. But we did our part. We’re not in that world anymore, and it’s already found a way to keep functioning without us.”

Unus gnawed at his shed-snakeskin-feeling tongue. He glanced all around the casket, letting his friend’s words really sink in. They were cold and brutal. . .but that didn’t mean they weren’t sincere. He finally sighed. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Annus hummed with a nod. “Besides, we didn’t arrange for a mortsafe to be installed up there for nothing, right?”

The thought of an honest-to-God cage guarding the perimeter of their shared grave made Unus sputter out a giggle. “Oh, yeah! How the fuck did I forget about that?”

Annus smiled knowingly. “If it makes you feel any better, the decomposition hasn’t done my memory any favors, either. Speaking of which. . .” He pushed the lighter’s cap up and over, extinguishing the little flame with a hollow clink!

Now that the coffin was full of darkness again, Unus could only hear Annus let out a long, low yawn. “. . .Let’s get back to it, huh?”

“Sounds good to me,” Unus replied as he let his shoulders relax.

The thunder kept up its primal, ominous drumbeat, almost as if it was protesting. Unus responded with a small groan.

“The longer you listen to it, the easier it’ll be for you to adjust,” Annus advised. “Just treat it like a sound-machine.”

“I’ll try,” Unus promised. With that, he went still, eyes drifting shut yet again.

@sammys-magical-au

#the thirteen days of goretober 2023 #goretober 2023 #my writing #my stories #unus annus #memento mori #mark fischbach #markiplier #ethan nestor #crankgameplays #tw descriptions of decay/rot #tw body horror #tw blood #tw insects #tw talk of death/dying #tw death #tw confined spaces

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