The Conveyor Belt

I slowly open my eyes and have to stop from gasping. The air is thick and oily and fills my lungs with a wet, soggy film. Where am I? I attempt to slowly look around but can barely move my head. Odd. Instead, I focus on what is in front of me. It takes a few moments to realize that I can’t see anything, just a cold, black abyss staring back at me, silently. Several more moments pass before I realize I still can’t see anything. A feeling of despair begins to creep at the back of my throat. Why can’t I move and why can’t I see?

“Ah, at last, one is awake”, I freeze. The voice seems to emanate from everywhere, all at once. “You’ve kept me waiting, this batch has taken longer than usual” the voice continues. It was a dull, lazy voice that would have been toneless if it weren’t for the slight traces of contempt. My heart begins to beat noticeably faster. No, this is a bad dream. My eyes, which had closed, seemingly by themselves, slowly re open. For the first time since gaining consciousness, images began to flood my sight. Dark, blurred shapes intrude my vision. Flickers of light dance haphazardly across the room. Or was it a room, where was I? I blink my eyes several times in an attempt to make out the details of my surroundings, but an impenetrable haze seems to coat everything. My heart begins to beat even faster. “You’re probably thinking that this is a dream. It pains me to tell you, it is not”. His tone indicated otherwise. “You’ve also probably noticed that you can’t see, move or talk, ohhhh no”, the voice paused “this is by design”.

A tall, dark figure enters my vision. I squint, trying to get a better look. The blurred haze continues and my eyes only make out blemished shapes. The being before me is tall, unnaturally so. His persistent, black clothing does not hide his lithe frame. I slowly look up at his face. A small, thin head sits atop his body. Though I cannot make out the details of the pale face, I feel the lifeless, black eyes staring down upon me. I look away. “You’re sole purpose now is to think, think about what you’ve done”. A sudden twitch shoots through my right leg. I again attempt to turn my head, more feebly this time. “Of course, you will be privy to certain details of your new existence. It wouldn’t be fun otherwise…would it?” The voice trails off gleefully in a manner I didn’t know possible. Finally, my head obeys my command. I look down at my leg and scream.

My vision which up until now been had been foggy is suddenly sharp in contrast. My leg does not resemble a leg. A grotesque tube of flesh lies before me, several times larger than a normal leg. The skin is pale and sickly looking. The morbidly obese and mutated leg seems to fold over itself several times. The shock of seeing this grossly disfigured appendage sends shivers down my spine; it takes every ounce of willpower not to throw up. “Ahhhh, I take it you’ve seen your new augmentations? It’s all a part of your eternal stay.” the voice cuts in again, more stringent this time. My heart, which had already been beating at unprecedented rates, was ready to explode out of my chest. What the hell is going on here?!? My leg, my leg, my leg, my poor leg. And this guy, this room…where am I? What the FUCK! I look up in the direction of the voice but the shadowy figure is gone. The hazy coat of fog returns and the shapes of the room (why do I keep calling it that) become blurry again. The visual details of my prison remain just out of my reach. Light continues to dance across the concealed contours of my surroundings, as if jeering at me, daring me to uncover their secrets.

My attention begrudgingly returns to my adulterated leg when my vision suddenly returns to sharp focus. Something else catches the corner of my eye. I follow the ghastly lump of tissue and stop towards the end, near the ankle and calf. I pause for several moments while my brain processes what I am seeing. A second, equally perverse leg is conjoined to mine. The unknown extremity is every bit as repulsive as mine. It lies, swollen and disfigured; as repelling as it is, I can’t pry myself from staring at it. Sweat drips down the side of my head. What the fuck, fuck, FUCK. What is going on here?! There is ANOTHER LEG attached to mine. Whose goddamn leg is that anyway?! “Beautiful, isn’t it?” the voice interrupts again with a calmness that one might mistake as soothing, but I know better. “Why don’t you look a little further?” I look up and instantly regret it.

A human sits beside me. I only say human because that is the only word I know of that remotely describes what I see. The repugnant figure beside me is morbidly obese and completely naked. Scars and disfigurations cover the skin and a slimy, secreted resin seems to cover every inch of its bloated physique. I cough when a realization hits me: the oily odor from earlier is coming from them. Discernible, albeit monstrously deformed appendages appear where they would on a normal human. Its vile and ghoulish leg stretches out to meet mine, joined together like some hellish Frankenstein. It is only at this point that I make the mistake of looking down.

What I see makes me dizzy. I open and close my eyes several times, but the images don’t change. “The other haven’t woken up yet-“, I cease to pay attention to the phantom. My own body mirrors that of the being next to me. The body I now inhabit is gargantuan; its size is only overshadowed by the pale, slimy skin and disfigured features. It’s as if a sea of tumors lived below the surface of my flesh, ready to poke through and spill their gelatinous bile into the world. I try to weep, but the tears won’t come. This isn’t what I used to look like. I used to look like…that’s odd, why can’t I remember what I used to look like? Why can’t I remember what I looked like or what my name is? WHO AM I?!?

“This is your life now, your very existence,” sneering this time, “You will never again talk or move; you’ll just sit on this conveyor belt, forever,” I scream again but nothing comes out. “It will take a millennia before the insanity sets in – half a millennium if you’re lucky.” I can’t see my shadowy tormentor; I don’t need to, to know he is frowning. Somewhere in the background, I hear the flip of a switch. A slow, mechanical rumble echoes all around me as the ground beneath me shudders. I tilt my corpulent head down the best I can just in time to witness my surroundings begin sliding to the side. A conveyor belt, I’m on a god damn mother fucking conveyor belt. “…others haven’t awoken yet…”, the figure in black continues in the background. I am dizzy. Nothing makes sense. Why am I here? “…around and around forever…” I catch glimpses of the others. Hundreds of obese, grotesque bodies line the conveyor belt. Some are conjoined with multiple bodies, at one point I see a twisted ball of torsos, arms, and heads. “…most delightful augmentations are reserved for the worst offenders…” The urge to puke returns. As far as my blurry eye can see, the conveyor belt stretches like a demonic mechanical serpent, slowly guiding its passengers to a fate worse than death. “…dead in the practical sense of the word…” Around me I feel consciousnesses start to stir; unaware of the hell they have woken up to.

Suddenly and all at once, it hits me. I know why I am here. The full nature of what is happening hits me, the gravity of the situation sinking in. I begin to shriek. The conveyor belt continues on, endlessly, relentlessly, forever.