THE AWAKENING
MICRO STORIES
Nicolás J. Marinelli
THE AWAKENING
A strong smell, like rotting flesh, filled that place, which, moreover, was narrow and deeply dark; no more than a meter high and sixty centimeters wide. It was completely built of rock, as I could feel with my hands.
My head throbbed, and my brain, swollen like a snail trying to escape its own shell, burned, spitting out fragments of names and images I could not recognize.
Then, another scent arrived... a sweet aroma, like flowers, like honey, like spring.
I followed that trail without stopping to think. I just wanted to get there, to escape the fetid, the damp, the rotten. With a strength I didn’t know I had, I pushed a kind of slab and emerged to the surface.
The air hit my face, distracting me for a moment, but the sweet aroma was still there, calling me…
And amid the shadows of a damp afternoon submerged in fog, I managed to see the aroma. That sweet, sweet scent of life.
I lunged without hesitation, and my hands sank into something soft. A dark, warm, crimson liquid soaked my face and teeth. And from that moment on, I knew nothing would ever be the same.
Now, I forever pursue that fresh spring aroma, which calls me, calls me... forcing me to stalk those who still breathe.
