The Valley

The rusted curves of blemished steel roofed the stretching valley, mutating the once captivating Emerald Slade into a minefield. Their edges were piercing yet brittle; chunks snapped, fell, and embedded into the broken layers of the unfortunate.

In the wind, they squeaked, swinging back and forth in a cacophony of death.

In the wind, they shrilled, dancing back and forth in a mockery of agony.

Breath held, his eyes danced over the murder of hanging steel. His gaze held for a moment, eyes sharpening as one descended. It’s once metallic tint now a bloodied crimson stain.

Crossing the valley was a despair of a suicidal nature. No matter where you stepped or landed, they would find you, catch you. He had seen men, women, and children fall—all desperate enough to long for an escape from their imprisonment. To risk the unstoppable. Parlay with the inevitable.

They figured if they were quick, they would go unnoticed.

The cries always told him what he already dreaded, no—knew. Then, there was a squelching as metal broke flesh, ripping its way into a comfortable embrace before hauling them above.

Its sharpness split flesh like overripe fruit.

If you were lucky, it would only get your flesh. A small scratch and a chance of surviving whatever was up there.

But most were not lucky; he had seen men drop to their knees in fear, only to have their spines ripped from their beings and bones cracked with a wet snap.

They dwelled on the floor below for only a few instants.

Only when they had ceased screaming could he do his job.

Only when they were past saving was he allowed to drag their remains over the edge.

He had gotten used to the coppery stench.

The shine of his uniform—an illuminated helmet—told them he was off the hook. He was exempt. He found it shameful that the awful headwear was the only thing sparing him from death. The only thing hindering them from reaching down and snatching him up like a piece of meat on the market.

Nonetheless, that was the case.

So once the screams died down and the coast was clear, he made his way through the bunting of enticement in hopes of disposing of anything left of the discarded form that would attract unwanted creatures.

His body danced through gaps in chains. His calculated footsteps instruments in the metallic symphony. Pre-empting a change in breeze or a ripple from the West, he moved in time with his dance partners, swaying and ducking and pausing and swirling all in perfect unison. They were a team. A harmonious performance.

It was like he was inside their minds, if the metal weaponised to murder had one.

His hands hooked underneath the arms of the woman’s crumpled carcass. It had hit her skull and implanted just high enough for her cranium to crack and crumble a mile into the air. Her cranium had caved, crashed to the ground with a crunching collision, then gone soft like a rotten pumpkin. It was better she had died upon hooking up.

Her legs were mangled with protruding bones bro-ken through blemished skin, which had begun to peel off in ragged sheets. There was a barricade of blood around her like a moat of protection.

Upon approach, he could faintly see his eyes leering in the red reflection: two sculpted concaves, dull and depthless. There was a faint resemblance to that of a pupil.

His hasty heels trampled through her moat, breaking the shield of scarlet. Gripping her tightly and ignoring the crunching of cartilage as it repositioned. He dragged her across and towards the ledge that lined the valley like a channel of emptiness.

This channel was an unending abyss, another way of entrapping the people who lived on the land.

They could have created this abyss on all four sides, instead they chose a valley. A valley of death, pain, and misery. It gave the people hope of escaping—hope of survival. But no one had ever made it across. Not when those above waited to tear them away from earth—away from their loved ones. Away from everything.

No one who went all the way up ever made it back down. He had heard, of course, the rumours of why. Of what happened when they reached civilisation above (not that anyone would refer to those people as civil). He dared not think of it much, especially when they were generous enough to give him this job, pleasant enough to pay his bills, and nice enough to turn a blind eye to his own crimes.

Instead, he merely focused on his job. At least half of his job anyway.

Those in the world above were not completely inconsiderate. They had installed signs that read ‘danger of death’ and paid him to warn those who risked ignoring them.

He had gotten rid of those signs a while ago, and he rarely spoke to anyone he came across. Anyone alive, at least. He had been known to start up a conversation with the carcasses of those he failed to warn.

Choose not to warn?

Dared not to warn?

Did not want to warn.

He had crouched at the edge of the world, straining his ears as the woman’s body descended into the pit of despair he chose as a burial ground for his victims.

Even with pure and complete silence around him, he could not pinpoint the moment her body had made contact.

Irritated, he rose, eyes glaring out into the distance. His hands, coated by warmth and wetness, wiped against his overalls. For a moment, he wondered what was across there. What lingered on the other side of entrapment, outside of punishment.

He soon regretted this careless moment of daydreaming as a resentful gust blew at his figure; his feet fumbled with the floor, and his eyes bulged. For a moment, he envisioned the floor of the void, imagined his impending and unstoppable splat, and the ways in which his bones would splinter. Creating a scene of terrified screams in which he would gargle a mouthful of broken teeth. He anticipated the creatures that would feast on his remains, the maggots that would pulse under his rotting skin, or the mammal whose tongue would lap at his demolished organs. But it did not occur. Instead, he regained his balance and raged out an irritated sigh.

As he turned back to safety, however, he felt it. The way the silky breeze ruffled his mane of swarthy hair, the way it tickled the arc of his ear, and caressed the nape of his neck. The beads of sweat that once clung to his forehead were now dried up by a taunting touch of algid air. These were sensations he had never experienced. Feelings completely new to his being. And as his hands travelled upwards, trembling with hesitation, he came to a stomach-churning realisation. The helmet that once labelled him untouchable had fallen into the abyss, swallowed whole by karmic shadows.

A slithering dread coiled in his gut, a chill navigated his spine, and numbness overtook his feet. He was paralysed, so still that from afar one might mistake him for a statue. For the first time, the sickly charming persona of his self matched the holes in his head that ordinary people called eyes. Broken, cold, empty. The alluring smile once used to trap now curled into his mouth, howling out for mercy as teeth attack in a panicked gnaw.

Ideas, pleas, and realisations spring around his mind like snow in a globe. These thoughts, so small and meaningless in the greater terror of the inescapable reality he was facing.

There were only two options in this case; aside from staying in this position for the rest of his wretched existence, he could take two fatal avenues.

The first, he could follow his helmet and hope to spend his last moments on top of the beautiful yet mutilated corpse of the woman whom he had previously disposed.

Or he could make a run for it and hope no one would seize him up for a late afternoon snack.

He only grappled with those thoughts for a few moments before a twitch travelled his calves, his feet pushed at the ground, and he stumbled through the bloodthirsty links of doom. Metal hit his shoulders, knocking against him, before swinging and crashing into the next, setting off a chain of clanging and thrusting that stopped him in his escape. No matter how hard he tried, he could not move in sync with this collaboration of squeaking and grinding shrill. There was a crash of hooks which cascaded closer and then farther, and then the teasing rattle of those who had already begun to reel in.

One rocketed by his ear, the tip of the hook narrowly missing his overwhelmed canal. The faint clink of it returning to the above reminded him of his forthcoming punishment.

His feet began to move again.

His legs began to ache from the force of his fearful strides.

His heart slammed against his chest, leaving an overpowering ache behind.

His arms reached out for the unattainable shelter of the wooden hut he called home, for the pine wood prison he no longer wished to leave.

He had not felt it mould round his collarbone until he had mistakenly pulled against it. Until his ears were deafened by the crack of his clavicle as it dislodged from his sternum. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see another, knocked in a moment of panic, hurdle back like a boomerang with vengeance. It lodged in his side, hooking round his ribs like a snake around its supper. His feet kicked in panic, his throat drying out, and terror bloomed like a bruise on his mind. His body stretched out as the hooks span upwards, weaving back and forth in one synchronising ascent.

For a moment, he remained calm, the pain too overwhelming to comprehend. Around him, the air felt thicker, suffocating. A bird dodged through the chains above. He could hear it cawing out in excitement, thrill, and freedom. Its wing grazing the chain currently holding his collarbone, the metal rippling and whipping uncontrollably, bending, and curling until it got closer and then sending him spiralling east. Half of him.

It had happened slowly. Comically slowly did he feel his flesh tear. His bones shattered and dissolved into his blood, crumbling as it was maliciously forced apart, his torso split with a wet crack. After bone, it was tendons quivering, muscles unravelling, and skin shredding. Each layer peeled with ease away from his being, blood spurted out and up, filling his mouth as he screamed in horror.

If he had made it to the top, if he had held on longer. If his body had not been torn apart and left a pile of glistening bones and dishevelled skin. If tendons had not snapped or organs had not uncoiled.

He might have felt the warmth of the ground above; he might have felt the touch of fingers on his pulse, pointlessly checking their prey. He might have finally learnt what happens to those who disappear from the valley below.

He might have realised that this was the punishment he deserved. The punishment he earned.