Undead!

The hands are all around me, touching me and pulling me deeper into the slime. They are a mixture of rotting flesh and bone. I am running out of oxygen, I didn't get a chance to take a full breath when I was going under; half of my mouth is filled with the slime that I am now drowning in. As soon as the slime hit my eyes and went up my nose and down my throat, I just felt my insides erupt with pain, and disgust at me for letting it fill with the slime.
I am thrashing about, trying to escape the clutches of the flesh eating creatures below. I can feel them biting and scratching at me, trying to tear me to pieces. I can feel the hopelessness taking me over again. The same hopelessness I felt when I looked into the eyes of that creature on the docks.
My heart feels like it's on fire. The pain is excruciating. The teeth of the creatures are snapping at my legs and arms.
I can't see anything. I haven't stopped kicking this whole time, but it is no use. Every time I kick or punch, another creature replaces the one I just kicked away. I am hopeless; I may as well give up now.
My mind is swirling with ideas, a million and one ways to escape, but I no, no one of them will help me.
There is a light, I can see the surface now; the light seems to be distracting them. Now is my chance to escape.
I quickly kick my legs and arms, slowly pushing myself to the surface. I didn't realise how deep they had dragged me. I am about 5 metres under. The light is moving further away every second; soon it will be dark again. It must be Vengeance; no one else is down here. He must be using some kind of magic to distract them.
My hands have breached the surface of the slime, and I am grabbing onto the side of the river of slime, and hailing myself onto dry land; even if it is still inside the rose. It is better than being in the slime with those creatures. At least this way we have a chance of surviving.
My eyes are stinging badly; the slime has covered me from head to toe. My vision is blurred for the moment, but soon I will be able to see Vengeance.
A hand grabs me from behind, so I kick behind me and catch the creature in the gut. But as I wipe my eyes, I see Vengeance fall over backwards from the unexpected blow.
"Oh my god! I'm so sorry, I couldn't see you. My eyes are covered in that slime." He stands up and using some force invisible to me, forces almost all of the slime down him and onto the floor at his feet. "How did you do that?"
"How do you think?" He roars at me. The moment this escapes his lips, he adds, "I'm sorry, I just" He stops and sighs, considering his next words carefully. "If I ever lash out or say something, then just tell me I'm being an arse. Okay?" There is a sad tone to his voice, but that is already gone.
"Okay let's go." I can't help but think about what has happened to Vengeance in his past, but that will have to wait till another day.
But before we even take our first step away from the river of death, a thousand shrieks fill the air around us.
"Run!" Vengeance conjures up flames in his hands and sends balls of fire hurtling into the zombies. Each ball is burning about five to ashes, but they just get replaced by other zombies trying to get the first bite out of me and Vengeance.
"Where are we going to go?" Vengeance turns around for a split second and in that split second I see the helplessness in his eyes.
We are slowly getting pushed back, further and further from the mouth and freedom. I turn my back pack round to my front and open the upper most front pocket and find the leather casing of my hunting knife, I take it out and zip the pocket up and put the back pack back around into its previous position. I slide the knife out and admire the carving of the black dragon burning my home world, (the serrated edges are perfect for cutting things clean in half) before holding it with my right hand with the knife pointing right and blade away from my body.
The zombies have spread out and are coming in from all sides, they aren't really and different from the movie zombies that we have at home, except they are smart and can control themselves to enough of a degree to know how to trap their prey.
"Vengeance, concentrate all of your fire forwards!"
"But that is suicide, the brunt of the load is that way." He looks troubled, but then adds. "Just don't get us killed." At that he sends fire ball after fire ball into the biggest horde of zombies, slowly creating a small gap for us to get through.
"Keep going and start walking; I'll knife any that get too close to us." The zombies are all charging at us, but somehow, with some kind of angel watching us, we are making it through.
Zombie after zombie tries to get to us, but any I see are dead. I just run up and slit the zombies neck open and then punch its head off, it seems to be doing the trick so far.
Vengeance is covered in sweat and is starting to get disorientated, but luckily we are almost through. "Keep going, we're almost there!" He jumped forward and started running, while still hitting the zombies with the fire balls. I can barely keep up with him, and the largest part of the zombie horde is starting to get left behind, only a few hundred are left. Ten metres. Nine. Six. Three. Two. One. Vengeance is free and still running.
The zombies are closing around me, and the gap that Vengeance had made is slowly closing with zombies. As I get within touching distance of the first zombie that has got in between me and life, I jump and kick it hard in the face and hear a sickly crack as I land and push up off of the floor with one hand and continue. One zombie is blocking the gap. Two, three, five, ten. This is really bad! I keep going even if I might die and I jump, not up, but forwards, straight into the group of zombies. I can feel them and smell the death.
I have to do this, if not for me, then for Sienna. I promised I would do everything in my power and more to get her back, so I will. I think of her for the two seconds I am flying through the horde, which seems like a whole minute. I guess this is what people mean by having a flash back in life or death situations, except mine is willing me on.
The smell is dissipating, and I can't feel the slime anymore. I'm free, past them all, just got to run to freedom now and escape the horde.

We have been walking for what seems like forever. My feet are blistered and sore; I can feel my legs weakening with every step. I need to stop soon, but I know we must continue or be digested by the beast and die.
The creatures in the water have messed with my head. Everywhere I look I see them, but I know they aren't the real ones. The real ones got left behind within the first hour of running and also they don't watch and wait, they just attack, one after another, never stopping until you get lucky and escape or they break you.
"You look exhausted." This is the first time either of us has spoken since Vengeance's outburst.
"Yeah, you don't look too good either."
"Do you want to stop for a second, just for a minute though; we do not want to be in here any longer than necessary.
This is the first good thing to happen all day, "Thanks. I really need a break from all of these aliens. No offence to you."
"None taken. In fact so am I; all of these bloody creatures are exhausting me out." His face is dark, the smile of a man who has experienced much worse.
"Yeah, I thought after all of my hundred mile hikes through the mountains during training would have paid off, but obviously nothing can prepare you for a universe of creatures." Most of the people in my small team of five back home didn't do any long hikes; they preferred to exercise in our specially created training zones.
We both ate some form of salad and meat, but I have no idea what it is, but it is still nice, well nice compared to some of the salads I've had back home.
After five minutes Vengeance stood up packing away all of his equipment and told me to do the same. We left two minutes later, continuing our walk to freedom.

After another two hours of walking Vengeance is finally ready to teleport again. I give one last look around the mouth of the Dead Rose and disappear to another adventure, except this time to a planet called Freim.

8