69. Riggs
RIGGS
Is this what death tastes like?
Rotting flesh?
At least, Riggs thought he was dead as he was pulled to the bottom of the lake, but he wasn’t. Not yet at least. Not as the Rouskla placed her wrinkly mouth around him and breathed. Decaying oxygen bloomed down his throat, filling his lungs, and nauseating him further.
Her slimy arms wrapped around him, his bones cracking under the weight.
No matter how hard he thrashed against her hold, the pressure in his ears came to a brink of explosion, and he just wanted to stop—wanted the pain to stop.
Certain he was already hemorrhaging. He could feel it.
Taste it. Sense it. There would be no way he would make it to the surface alive.
He accepted his fate, accepted it the moment the creature crawled toward him from the hellhole he was in now.
The Rouskla’s skin flapped through the water like papier maché, Riggs' stomach churning at the sight. Swallowing his urge to puke as she placed her mouth around his and gave him another breath of life, and he greedily inhaled everything she gave him.
His stomach sank faster than his body. Are Esemeray and Killian safe? If he knew they were okay, that would be enough to let go.
Enough to relieve himself from this?—
There are better ways to die.
She gave him another breath, another, and another.
His vision blurred, the water flickering around him.
He simply could not stand it.
Life was slipping from his fingertips, and he had nothing to grasp on to.
No one was coming for him. No one to save him.
This was it?—
The Rouskla placed her mouth around Riggs' once more, giving him the oxygen his body begged for. But he didn’t allow it, sealing his mouth shut and jerking away.
He refused to die on the Rouskla’s terms.
He would die on his terms.
Its hollow, deathly eyes stared into his soul, the world around them still.
Then it shrieked, rattling his ears. It attempted to give him another breath, but Riggs thrashed and gasped by instinct, swallowing water.
His lungs filled fast, burning pressure building throughout his body.
His vision darkened, the warped and muffled sounds around him becoming silent.
He was drowning.
Inhaling more water, he choked, repeating the cycle of agony, pain, and fear, and there was nothing he could do—nothing at all.
It was simply too late.
His body, his heart, his soul a flickering flame, soon to be snuffed out by fate.
The Rouskla’s eyes glowed, its jaw wide before pain exploded across Riggs' neck. The tang of metallic was strong in his mouth as she ripped into him again and again.
The beating of his heart, quiet in his ears, slow.
The creature yanked chunk by chunk from his throat, blood floating around him like a crimson nebula in the universe—his eyes fluttered shut, imagining he was there—somewhere else—somewhere beautiful instead.