Page 70 of Devil Inside

That’s odd.

Where’s the stiff pillow? The saggy mattress? There’s nothing beneath me. I swear, it’s like I’m held up by the tubes and wires of every machine I’m connected to, supposedly keeping me alive. I have the uncanny feeling of suspension, like I’m hanging in the air.Gravity’sgot me in its grip, but I’m not going anywhere, held aloft by... by what, exactly?

I’ve still got my eyes closed. Nothing in me wants to open them, see what’s waiting on the other side of my eyelids. Then I’ll know.And knowing is half the battle,G.I. Joe says.

Me, I’m thinking ignorance is fucking bliss right about now. My body still feels broken. The stitchwork still itches. But the beep of my EEG sounds more erratic than normal. Metallic. It doesn’t have the steady rhythm of my heartbeat. It shivers. Jostles. Bells around my body.

This isn’t my bed. This isn’t the hospital at all.

I can’t avoid it any longer. I need to see. I need to open my eyes and—

Oh. My feet aren’t touching the floor.

Because there is no floor.

I’m suspended, somehow, naked in the pitch black, unable to reach the ground. I kick through the air and immediately hear that crescendoing shiver of metal again.

Chains.

Links rattle all around me, Christmas bells chiming, and I feel a sudden pinch in my skin. A sting in my shoulders. The pressure digs into my flesh all around, like teeth.

My arms... What’s wrapped around my arm?

I try lifting my hand, reach behind me to see what’s dragging across my back, only to feel this immense pressure across the lower slope of my spine, these metallic fangs digging into the tissue along my muscles. The more I move, the deeper these teeth pierce my skin.

That chime only grows louder the more I struggle, links rattling all over, filling the air.

I’m covered in chrome.

Bike chains.

I’m strung up in the air by endless reams of linked metal, miles of bike chains, all of them wrapped around my body, twining my arms and legs, digging into my skin and drawing blood.

Each endless tendril spans out in a different direction, lost in the surrounding shadows. I can’t see how far the chains go or what they’re even attached to, if anything. These links could go on forever. It could all be a chrome cobweb and I’m the fly, trapped.

Ihave toget out of here.Have totry.

Whenever I stretch my arm in either direction, the chains rattle. Ring out and echo. Listen to the bells toll. The sound disperses, spreads and fades into silence.

Just how high up am I?

How low?

I glance down and there’s nothing, nothing beneath my feet at all.

Just darkness.

SoI shout at the top of my lungs, “Help me!” The sound goes nowhere, fading fast.

Silence.

Ihave toescape.

Now.

Blood rises from my skin. The links have gnawed their way into my flesh, drawing blood along my back, my arms, thighs, everywhere, guttered by the hollow pins and plates, each chrome segment drenched in red, drip, drip, dripping into the abyss below.

I need to free myself from these chains. Need to pull myself out of—