Shades of Black (2 page)

He could no longer close his mouth. He tried in vain to shut his jaws, but it was like biting an iron rod
. His throat was clenching around something that wasn’t there, that he felt going down along his oesophagus, an inch at a time. He felt short of breath, even though he knew it wasn’t real, he knew he was breathing. He wasn’t going to die for that.

The girl moved away from him crawling, then she stood up and started running. He had seen it, but had he really noticed
? Or was he too busy concentrating on the pain he was feeling to record anything else?

He couldn’t know that. The pain wasn’t his. He felt hit, but he could detach from it, most of it at least
, and he had done that almost immediately. He had imagined that he couldn’t have been able to stay clear-minded and focused otherwise.

In that moment, he wished he could isolate himself from it entirely. The pressure that was mounting inside him was unbearable, and he could only imagine – of which he was thankful to all gods – the growing terror in the mind of the man.

Now there was no part of him left that wasn’t experiencing that feeling
. As if the force that was oppressing him had infiltrated into every crevice, every opening, even every vein, and was constantly about to burst out of them, still never actually doing that.

When he got back to himself again, he didn’t try to go further. He knew that death hadn’t come yet – that sufferance would go on and on for a long time, judging on the way in which it was being administered – but he no longer had any doubt about how it would finally arrive
.

«
So?» Seymourn urged him when he noticed hat he had stopped.

He put on his gloves again
, affectedly slow, breathing quietly, before turning and answering.

«
Sorry, I didn’t see anything.»

Carmelo Massimo Tidona, employee, writer and translator in his spare time, has been reading and writing since as long as he can remember. Some of his short stories have been published in various anthologies.

For 0111edizioni Carmelo Massimo Tidona published:
“Trittico Oscuro”
, collection of urban fantasy tales (2009, Italian).
“Riflessi d’Ombra”
, urban fantasy novel (2009, Italian)

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