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spineyrequiem

Necromancer
Oct 16, 2011
814
Heinrick was having a nightmare. His bed's sheets were wrapped around his throat, throttling him and dragging him in towards the pillow, which had turned into a drooling maw, teeth lining it as far as the eye could see down the gaping, endless chasm of its throat. A hot, wet tongue slid out and almost shyly licked his face. Moments later, his skin began to burn where the monster's saliva had touched him, the flesh sloughing away...

Heinrick woke up. The hungry mouth in his pillow had disappeared, his skin was whole and the pain was but a memory. The sheets, however, were still trying to strangle him. His left hand grabbed them and he pulled desparately while his right hand groped for the bedside table. His fingers touched cold steel and he began sawing at the sheets around his neck until they finally loosened their grip and he could breathe again, sucking in sweet air as he slid off the bed, keeping his gaze firmly on the still-writhing bed linen.

His own sheets had tried to kill him. Again.

Eva was not in bed so, after a quick check beneath it to ensure that the chamber pot (which had developed legs and a crude form of sentience a week earlier, and had been surviving off mice since then) had not ripped her to pieces and gorged itself on the remains, he made his way downstairs, his stomach growling in anticipation of breakfast.

Eva was a short, dumpy woman of middling age with slightly greying brown hair and a kindly smile. At the moment, she also had a large wooden spoon, which she was using to beat the morning porridge into submission. Finally she was satisfied and set it down on the rickety old table, which had no truck with this new-fangled demonic possession all the other furniture seemed so fond of. 'Morning dear.'

'Morning. You know, we're going to have to get some new bed linen soon, the current set's become very aggressive recently.' Heinrick muttered a few words of blessing over his porridge then sprinkled a few drops of holy water on it. It writhed and the whole surface bubbled for a few seconds. When it subsided, Heinrick poked it with his spoon then tentatively took a bite.

'Ooh, well Mr Kissingen, you know, from number 23 was transmuted into an horrific and blasphemous spawn of chaos last night, so I'm sure he won't mind if we pop round later to take his, he's hardly going to use it any more.'

From outside, the sound of drizzling rain suddenly changed to a much heavier, louder pattern 'Oh, it's not hail again is it?' asked Heinrick

Eva opened a peephole in the door and took a quick look outside 'No dear, it's blood-slicked teeth again.'

'Again? We had that only three days ago! Ooh,it'll play hob with the drains, I tell you that.' He gesticulated with his spoon, and the blob of porridge on the end made a vain attempt at freedom. He crushed it against the table.

'Oh, I'm sure it'll sort itself out. Who knows, we might even get a shower of fish again soon!'

'Ah yes, that was good. You do cook a wonderful Sea Pie, I won't be sorry to taste it again.' Heinrick felt his bowels grumble, and he got up to go to the privy, passing his empty bowl to his wife as he went to the door.

He fought his way through the rain of teeth, which tried to gnaw at him as he stumbled to the little outhouse. He slammed the door shut and ground an errant molar to powder beneath his boot heel. Then he saw, poking out of the hole leading down to the sewers, a furry, whiskered snout encased in rather filthy black cloth. 'Hello, whoever you are, what on earth are you doing in there?'

The ratman went stock-still, except for its ever-twitching nose. It looked like it was searching desparately for a reasonable explanation. Finally, it said in a scritching voice 'Ummm... city sewer inspection?'

'Really? What on earth are you inspecting for?'

'Oh you know, the usual things you get in sewers that man-things... I mean that we don't want there, blockages, troll-things, skaven...' It suddenly stopped and, as far as Heinrick could tell, a look of horror crossed its filth-encrusted face. 'No-no, not Skaven, why did I say Skaven?' It laughed nervously 'What in the name of the Horned Rat, I mean in the name of Sigmar is a Skaven?' It looked at him pleadingly.

'Hang on, are those knives you've got strapped to your wrists?'

The rat-man looked down at its fighting claws as if it had not, up until this point, noticed their existence. 'Ummm... maybe?'

'What do you need wrist-knives for?'

'In case we find any trolls or Sk... other things on our inspections?'

'Hang on, I'm not sure there even IS a city sewer inspe...'

'DIE-DIE, MAN-THING!' The night runner leapt at Heinrick, slashing at his face with its claws. He fell backwards and saw, just by his hand, a long plank studded with nails which he had used to board up the door a month ago when all the corpses in the cemetery rose and that he'd never got around to putting away. He grabbed it and swung it at the rat man on top of him, achieving a brilliant strike which knocked it back, head-first, into the privy. It legs waved comically in the air and he raised the plank high above his head and brought the nails down hard between the rat-man's legs. It squealed as it plunged into the depths below.

Heinrick took another quick look down the hole, just to be sure it was safe then undid his britches and sat down. A copy of the Almanack hung on a nail on the door, and he flicked through it. He laughed softly when he got to that day's date: It predicted sunny weather, with only minor beastman activity to watch out for. At least the pages were absorbent.

I thought about just how grimdark fantasy's background is, and decided to try writing a story of a normal bloke just trying to live in this magic-saturated world where absolutely everything is trying to kill him. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to say anything about the trees... maybe I shall write more later. Or not, as the case may be.
 

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