Jo M Thomas
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Passage 20 - Well-Met by Sunlight

Passage 20 - Well-Met by Sunlight

May 23, 2022

There is one giant sniff. I can feel it lift my hair so it's standing on end. Then there's the inevitable exhale and I'm covered in slime I'd rather not think about.

"You," rumbles a voice that sounds oddly familiar.

I feel queasy, possibly enough to through up where I'm curled up on the grass. The scrubby trees around me haven't stopped whatever it is lowering its head down to be right over me. Something giant and covering me with snot and slobber. This dream just gets better and better.

"What in the blazes you think you're doing?" asks the thunder, each sound taking a heartbeats to complete.

It's not Empanda's thunder but something about the voice rings bells that make my head ache. My stomach churns like I have a hangover. I suppose, given this is a dream, it's probably just an echo of what I'm feeling as I wake up in the real world.

"Lying down and trying not to puke," I croak.

There's no point pretending I can't hear it. I would have stood up by now if the world weren't spinning and I didn't feel like so much shit warmed up.

"What are you?" I ask.

I can't look up. All I can do is stare at the ground. Not because I don't want to look but because I don't want to end up covered in sick as well as this thing's slobber. Something smells like rotting meat and the smell is so heavy it seems to cling to me like I've been wrapped in a whole warehouse's worth of duvets.

"What do I look like?" the thunder rumbles.

I raise my head and it feels like someone else made the decision for me. I can't not. I bork and there's bile in the back or my mouth but I still can't stop my head moving and...

There's an old woman, bent double with her face thrust down within touching distance f mine. She's bigger even than Empanda. She wears some kind of warty brown leather cloak and horrible brown woolly clothes but that's not the worst of it. The worst thing is that her skin is grey and torn and cut - but where the thin grey skin is broken, all I can see is green flesh. Green instead of red blood. She oozes. I think there may even be maggots in her eyes.

I throw up.

I try to look away but I can't, so it basically overflows all over my chin and drips down on to my knees and then the damp ground beneath me.

"Were you not looking for me?" the thunder rumbles.

I spit to clear my mouth. There's no way I'm swallowing any of that back down, even if swallowing might be the only way to hold down the next wave of nausea that the giant's foetid breath is causing.

"No," I say. "I'm pretty sure I've not been looking for a giant zombie."

The giant laughs long and hard. I crawl back from the waves of bad air.

"I am the Wizard's Wife," the thunder rumbles when the laughter finishes.

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