PseudoPod 103: Geist
Geist
by Chandler Kaiden
At first, there was only numb horror.
He couldn’t move his arms, couldn’t catch his breath. Everything was black. The thick stench of mildew, of rust and minerals, coagulated in his nose and throat. Steaming water spilled over his forehead, rained into his eyes, seeped between his lips. Brackish, foul water, full of chemicals.
It seemed to go on forever.
He tried to move. But he was confined, his limbs pressed tightly against his body.
When the water stopped, he heard dull, heavy thumping, like the machinations of an enormous water-logged engine.
The air was thick with steam. The foul water collected around his eyes, spilled into his nostrils, packed his sinuses.
There, in the wet darkness, he tried to drown himself. He inhaled the water. Tried to hold his breath — that breath he’d been instinctively fighting to catch when he came to — and found that he could hold it and hold it and hold it, and nothing happened.
_I want to die._
About the Author
About the Narrator
Richard E. Dansky
Widely regarded as a leading expert on video game writing and narrative, Richard Dansky has worked on franchises such as The Division, Far Cry, Splinter Cell, Assassins Creed, and more. He is the author of The Video Game Writer’s Guide to Surviving an Industry That Hates You, and co-authored the upcoming horror graphic novel Bridgewater with French comics legend Matz. Richard has published 8 novels and 2 short story collections, with his next novel, Nightmare Logic, scheduled for release in 2026. He has worked extensively in tabletop RPG writing as well, having been a core contributor to White Wolf’s classic setting The World of Darkness. Richard is also pretty sure he is the only working horror writer to have won PC Gamer Magazine’s coveted “Mission Pack of the Year” award, and he was briefly the world’s leading expert on Denebian Slime Devils.
