#rip ios users

The first room was the worst of them. Before he got used to the smell. Before he learned the patterns of this place. Before he got used to the bugs. He never got used to the bugs. Countless, covering the six walls of each room from top to bottom, making them shift and writhe with their numbers alone. The sun beamed down on the gruesome centerpiece. The first one he’d seen, that had followed him through the sparse sleep he’d gotten since he found himself here.

Conjoined twins. Fused at the hip, laid on their back with their hands and feet spread, nailed to the ground. Their four brilliant green eyes stapled open, staring into the blinding light that poured in from the open ceiling. They almost seemed unnaturally vibrant, though he tried not to look at the time he’d remembered them countless times since. Like pieces of emerald, so beautiful would they be were they not so lifeless.

The bugs didn’t touch the body. They never did. They were perfectly preserved, flesh still as supple and clean as it would have been when they were alive. The smell wasn’t rot. He didn’t know what it was. Some mix of honey and garlic, not as unpleasant as it was overwhelming. It permeated every corner of every room, filling his nostrils until he couldn’t remember anything else.