FREE SAMPLE OF MY SHORT STORY "CLOUDS"
Posted by Matt McAvoy on Thursday, August 21, 2014 Under: My Work
Am I dreaming?
I feel wide awake, but this can't actually be happening. It's the stuff of nightmares, too outlandish to be real.
Yet the icy cold, rasping friction of the wind tells me it is only too real. It scorches my face and hands with bitter, angry chill; the burn is agonizing, threatening to tear off my flesh and rip my hair from its roots. The ringing in my ears is deafening. That, and the pressure of the atmosphere, vowing to burst my eardrums, to crush the inside of my head, implode my brain until it is nothing but a bloody pulp rushing out of my ears, mouth and nostrils.
It's hard to breathe up here; I suppose that's why I'm not screaming – can't get the oxygen to do it. My lungs feel close to bursting; I must breathe – I must! But then again, what's the point?
This must just end. Please end! But when it does, I'll know that's it. That's it. Jesus, I must be dreaming, yet I know I'm not.
The only respite is the clouds. A thick, cotton blanket as far as the eye can see. One moment I see myself hurtling toward them, then they are gone, then back again in my eye-line. I am being flipped and thrown, tossed and twisted so hard against the turbulent sky, I feel as though I fight to keep my limbs intact. The clouds appear and reappear before me. I have lost all bearing, all sense of reason.
The beautiful sea of clouds should be above me, up there in the sky, yet my undignified somersaulting is altering my logic several times a second. Why am I tumbling toward the clouds? Clouds should be up, high above, surely, in reality. Yet I fall toward them.
…..
COPYRIGHT - 2011 MATT McAVOY
This represents a FREE SAMPLE of “CLOUDS” by Matt McAvoy.
Please close this window to purchase the story in full, which is also published in “MODERN TALES OF HORROR – COMPLETE COLLECTION (The Black Line; Clouds; Granjy’s Eyes)”, by the same author.
In : My Work
