Z Chambers- Last Day

They were standing above their own body. 

Z sometimes had dreams like that, standing by their sleeping form and wandering around. Sometimes they actually went somewhere, like when they woke up ankle deep in the surf, seaweed tangled around their feet. It wasn’t anything demonic or witchy, like their grandmother on their father’s side thought and wailed about. Just lucid dreams and sleepwalking, which apparently everyone on their mother’s side had anyway. 

But this wasn’t that. They were looking down at themself. The blood from their own nosebleed was touching their foot. It was cold. Congealed. How long had they been standing there, no one would be able to say. Even their memories were frayed, coming away with each second that ticked by, washed out into some great unknown that they never dared to cross. Z had been walking back home with their dog. Cadell… There he was. The hound sat at their body’s side, panting and staring straight at… Them. Z slowly reached their hand out. Cadell tracked their fingers. A single fingertip slowly pressed against his head. 

Cadell immediately stood and shook his entire body, like he did when he got out into the water and came back dripping. He gave a low growl and took off into the trees, immediately swallowed up by the darkness. 

“Aros!” Z tried to shout after the loyal creature but their voice wasn’t able to go above a hoarse whisper. 

He didn’t come back. 

Z stayed there. They couldn’t move. Not many would, in their situation. Looking down at their own body, lying like a broken doll, limbs jutting out wrong. Throat crushed. Eyes staring up at the sky, mouth slightly open. Someone had… Come up behind them? They… Who?

It wasn’t until the lanterns came bobbing into view, tiny fireflies drifting their way over, did Z slip out of their state. Cadell leading the pack, neighbours and friends arrived. People they quite liked once. They thought they could see their older sister but everyone’s face had begun to smudge, like watercolors running in the rain. Even the sound of crying and gasps of horror ebbed away, sounding muffled, as if their head was underwater. 

Something cold took their wrist. Not even looking at it, they let it pull them away, fog descending rapidly on the scene and blanketing everything. Z thinks… They’re upset? Or shocked? They should be. They didn’t quite… Feel anything. 

“I’m sorry by the way.” A male voice whispered from ahead of them. 

“... That’s alright.” Z answered, just as quiet. They were somewhat surprised at their own politeness. Then again, it didn’t feel like it mattered if they did get angry. Nothing mattered. 

Cadell barked somewhere behind them. Z looked over their shoulder, but there was still nothing but the fog. 

“We’ll let you get dressed.” The male voice murmured again, this time joined by three more voices, all different, pressing in from just outside the strange bubble they found themself in. 

They glanced down at their clothes, muddied and ripped and thought that was quite a good idea. The mist eventually fell away, as did the hand leading them. Everything sharpened. They were in a temple, standing by their own casket.

Their funeral was crowded. Lots of smudged faces and a chorus of cries rising up, drowning out the hymns and speeches. It was like looking at an old tapestry that had faded and was losing threads. They could count each individual twine on their mother’s stretched face, a big gash of red-pink for her wailing mouth, the unravelling dark brown string of their younger sibling’s faces, knotted and fraying. It was like a hanging, stitched in the moment, instead of years in the future, to remember. The only thing that hadn’t been morphed into old stitchwork, was Cadell, sitting by their coffin and staring at them with his dark, pebble-like eyes. He gave a low whine and slowly stood, as if he had aged so much in a short time. He rounded the coffin to sit at Z’s side and started to sniff at their freshly cleaned hands. It took them a moment to realise their clothes had been changed. Long, dark, heavy fabrics. 

A warbled moan echoed out and their mother trembled towards them, yarn splitting and stretching. Even with her coming closer, nothing about the woman that held them when they were sick, that kissed their forehead everyday, that loved them even when others did not, came into focus. Up close, they could make out the greyed strands interwoven in the cords of her black hair. Her face was mostly stitched dark brown string, and soft brown threads for her eyes, soaked through with water. When she opened her mouth to speak, it was like watching decay sped up. Her lips moved disjointedly, as if someone was trying to sew her mouth moving as quickly as they could, only to rip out the seams and try again with each letter. 

“Anwylyd?” She whispered. 

“Mam.” Z murmured back. 

She collapsed into a heap of sobbing, Cadell beginning to howl, reaching his paw up to swipe at Z’s hand, but it just went through it. It was loud. Z didn’t like it. The fog slowly pressed back in, rolling through the stretching and twitching threads as people pressed forward, lumpy hands stretching out. 

“They’re still here!” Their mother screamed, her knotted fingers trying to reach for them. “My baby, my baby!” 

But everything was already slowly washing out the scene. Pulling the color from the yarn and soaking it into the endless grey. Cadell whined as he stared up at Z, only to be swallowed entirely within seconds. 

And Z Chambers began to wander.