Bogleech.com's 2013 Horror Write-off:

"I Don't Want to Go"

Submitted by Eventua

My grandmother told me, on one of her rarer moments of clarity and happiness before she died, that at one point the oceans and sky weren’t shades of yellow. The sand and soil weren’t blue and the clouds weren’t dark abysses, and the Eye was just a ball of fire in the sky above us, warming the land and bringing us joy.

As I look out at the thick, boiling yellow fluid that congeals like toxic, deranged custard, I can’t help but doubt it.

There is the sting of sulphur, here: sulphur and ice, and my nose wrinkles up. I used to come here all the time, as a child. I don’t remember very much from back then - but that’s hardly unusual, is it? All I remember is my father telling me about fish. We used to catch them, I think, on an ocean I can’t describe - with nets and worms on tiny hooks. All sorts of fish, with goofy mouths and big googly eyes and slippery scales: they weren’t very bright, considering they snapped up those worms like nobody’s business.

By the Eye they were ugly things, but they always tasted good with salt, smoked, sometimes with some mushrooms or herbs. I used to be able to name them all.

I miss those days. I don’t remember anything else at all. Just his smile, and the fish, and his voice - like a bear, soft and happy, but always knowing that if trouble arrived, he could help. The taste of salt, sweat, tears, is everywhere.

I’ve sat here for hours, I think. Legs bunched up, arms tight around them. There’s not much else to do.

I turn my head, and look at the old house. A house of... bamboo? And wood. Different types of wood, I think. The paint has peeled and the windows are gone, and the little old boat by the peer is shattered, thin tendrils of yellow hate creeping along its surface.

I can’t go back in there. What is there to go to? The food and drinkable red water have both finally run out, and the yellow ocean has started corroding the supports. It’ll probably collapse soon.

I turn my head the other way, further inland. The jungle lurks there, red and spiked and twisting, the trees made of glass. I watch as it laps up the sea water, totally at home with it. I see something rustle, some sort of insect, I think. It's round and smooth and hits the blue sand with a thud, before unfurling into a mass of burning tendrils and human limbs, and creeps along into the undergrowth.

I slowly get to my feet, backpack slung over my shoulder, and take a deep breath. There’s nothing to take, save the last few medicines, the last bit of food, and a single change of clothes. That and the photo. The last photo we had, before this all began two weeks ago.

Maybe there’ll be something on the other side, or a way around it.

I doubt it.