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
Richard Dansky is 20+ year veteran of the video game industry, where he has written for games like The Division, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and numerous others. He’s published seven novels and one short fiction collection, and was a contributor to White Wolf Game Studios’ World of Darkness games. He lives in North Carolina with a cat named Goblin, whom he swears was named that when he got her.
