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the crashing of body parts onto the roof seemed to multiply.
She didn’t even try to open the door, she just stopped in front
of it and stuck her hand out again. It seemed like her smile
was becoming brighter, more real. I know that’s a hard one
to wrap your head around, but it was like her smile had been
muted all along, barely visible from behind the thin plastic
curtain of our cheap little reality. It was somehow burning
its way through the divider, showing its true colors.
“Like a thunderbolt, a severed elephant’s head smashed
through the roof, taking out the door, granting Sneakers
access to the building. The woman stepped around the head,
the arc of blood spraying from its still-flailing trunk always
seeming to miss her. I screamed and ran out the back door.
“I ran until I crossed beyond the city and into the woods.
The body parts were still coming down. The only real
change was the sound. The loud smashing was replaced by
the cracking and rustling of parts falling through the forest
canopy—limbs falling through limbs, I guess you could
say—and the softer thuds as they landed in thickets and
underbrush.
“It wasn’t long before I found my salvation—a cave. I
practically dove into the thing. I didn’t care who or what
might’ve been in it, I just wanted to shut out the sounds
of the rain. It was a huge cavern, going far deeper than I
expected. I squish-squashed my way inside, hoping I would
just dissolve into the darkness and be done with everything,
once and for all.
“Well, I didn’t dissolve, but I did eventually collapse into
a sobbing heap of blood-soaked ruin. And no, I wasn’t crying
over my lost family, or the insanity that had replaced the
world. I was crying because I had become so very hungry. It
was like a blazing, ravenous fire growing inside my belly. To
my surprise, I had almost unconsciously begun to stuff my
mouth with whatever crawled across the dank floor. Spiders,
salamanders, it didn’t matter—in they went. I did this for
hours, until I was full. Soon after I was done gorging myself,
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