If you know, you know.
Thanks to Anora / MorbidOrb for their help and feedback.
*
We had heard of these things. The brain of the operation. The hivemind. My friends and I had jokingly called them Anora. There was this kid named Anora in our neighborhood when we grew up who always seemed to know everyone's thoughts. We joked and teased how we were all part of Anora's hivemind. Though, we had never seen an actual Anora.
This morning, my husband Kenny and I woke up in the midst of being kidnapped. We lived in a third-floor apartment in a high-rise outside of Indianapolis. The apocalypse had seemed imminent, but somehow never got to our part of the US. Chicago and some other cities had it much worse, and I heard that Wisconsin just didn't exist anymore. So many different reports, so many rumors, and so many conflicting stories. And the internet? It was hard to tell with everything going on.
But it all traced back to the same thing. The same being. The same rumors. How the monsters tearing people apart all came from the same Anoras. Of how these flesh-eating human-like beasts that had torn society asunder were all connected in some way. These beasts had different names, but it was obvious that they were pawns if we were to equate them to a chessboard.
When our kitchen window crashed that morning, we thought it was these beasts that had finally come for us. Kenny got his shotgun and shot one point blank in the face. It fell, but right behind was another. I screamed as I heard the snap. Then I threw up when I connected the sound to Kenny's torn elbow, his arm hanging loosely from its socket. But instead of us being eaten alive, the zombie beasts picked us up, threw us across their backs, and disappeared with us into the early spring.
It was a while until anything changed. Both my husband and I quietly sobbed in despair, not sure what was going to happen to us. If we weren't to be eaten, then what? It had been hours since we were kidnapped. It was so long. We witnessed so much. The normal flesh-eating human-looking zombies slumbered towards the city while we were carried in the opposite direction.
Heaps of body parts were everywhere. Heaps of indistinguishable corpses. I had to close my eyes, I couldn't bear to look at the devastation. One minute everything was a relatively normal morning, now I saw clerks, postmen, maids, and road workers all in the same piles in various forms of disfigurations and consumption.
And even as my eyes were closed, the stench was unbelievable. Blood and rotting flesh made the oxygen itself unbearable. It was like the air itself was thick and evenly moist. Humid and caked. At first, I tried breathing through my mouth, but I could taste the death on my breath as I drew in. And through my nose, it just stuck to my canals.
I don't know if I could call it luck when the kidnapping beasts that were carrying us sped up. I looked to both my sides and saw that me and my Kenny were not the only ones that were off to wherever we were off to. We didn't know it then. But we know now.
Or I think I do.
*
We sat in a chamber of sorts. I don't really have any other word for it. It was a square room. Four walls, a floor, a small window, and a door. The things one expects from a room. Only it wasn't made out of wood or concrete. It was flesh. Or a flesh-like substance. Dark and somewhat pinkish. Maybe a darker shade of violet. It clung to the walls and partly covered the window and the door, making any sort of escape difficult. But unlike the horrors outside, it didn't smell like death. It smelled like...
"Tutti frutti, Amy," Kenny moaned, clutching his arm. He had been out for a while.
Normally he was a big burly man, bearded and flannel-wearing kinda guy. His dad worked in a coal mine, and he was a lumberman. A contrast to me. I was a journalist. Small. Petite. Blonde. Kenny was big and dark-haired, though with a face full of life and a glimmer in his eye. But now he looked pale. He had lost a lot of blood from getting his arm broken almost in half.
"It smells like tutti frutti... I have been wracking my brain," he said, ever trying to be the cheerful man. I guess the air was kind of sweet. And thick. Like outside, but surprisingly much more pleasant.
"What the fuck are you talking about, Kenny? Let's focus here. We need to get out!" I slapped back. Kenny must really have lost a lot of blood.
I looked around. It was hard to tell where one piece of the skin-looking material began and ended. It was like the whole room had become whatever this thing was. I went over to the door and tried to yank it, but the handle was way too slippery. I couldn't get a grip.
"You think these are one of the Anoras?" I asked, standing up to inspect the wall closer.
"You mean the hivemind? I don't know... I... ugh, I can't figure out why they would bring people here. Wouldn't it be for them? Why would they bring us here?"
"Maybe this is like their nest or something," I answered. I found it increasingly hard to focus for some reason. I wanted to look for a way out, but I just felt my thoughts drifting.
"Anora's nest," Kenny joked. I chuckled. I felt my own laughter echo inside my brain.
Why did I chuckle?
"Do you feel that?" I asked. I was starting to feel kinda weird. Floaty.