Work Text:
Grian, for most of his life, had been an abandoned house explorer.
But in the middle of his boring day job, he'd gotten a notification from his phone- quickly glancing at it revealed that one of his friends had sent him a link after a terribly long message, leaving him with the preview message just having a few letters of the link before cutting off into three fullstops.
After work, however, he finally was able to read the link- skimming over the greeting message, the link was shown to be a Google Maps link.
He's intrigued, of course, the abandoned explorer coursing through his veins catching interest instantly.
So cut to now. He goes into the house, though it looks more like a bigger version of your average shed, but nothing is inside the rooms. Once he's absolutely sure that nothing was in the other rooms, he headed over to the kitchen. And with his arrival in the kitchen, he realized there is a door leading to the backyard.
Before this, the backyard had been covered by moldy and dirty fences, so he had just ignored the backyard.
He goes out to the backyard, thinking he won't find anything, when all of a sudden he gets hit by the smell of rotting flesh and decay.
Grian looks around, plugging his nose and just thinking it was a dead rabbit in the open shed or something, and he should just close the doors and he should be free to explore the rest of the overgrown backyard.
He shuffles over to the shed, the smell getting worse as he inches closer to the shed.
He arrives and just barely steps his foot in out of curiosity when he feels something squishy bump his foot and make a wet thump sound. He looked down reluctantly and saw a barely decayed body of a man, green eyes glossy and skin being eaten by maggots.
Grian is cut severely off guard by this and pushes himself back, the hand plugging his nose flying back and forcing him to breathe in the entirety of the smells of rot, slamming onto the grassy floor of the backyard.
The dead man was no older than him, Grian guessed, but he had a long and painful-looking scar tracing down his nose and under his chin. His brown hair was ruffled up with past rains and in the darkest part of the pigmentation it was a long trail of blood, dragging under his chin and going into his collarbone before disappearing into his gray t-shirt.
Grian felt the feeling of vomit collect up to his throat and he instinctively curled his shoe-covered toes, the feeling of throw up staying deep into his throat but the contents never spilling.
Grian had stared at the scarred-faced man before gaining his senses and pushing himself up, the overgrown and silky grass making it hard for Grians shaky legs to stay upright. He turned away and ran, the image of the scarred-faced man burning into his memory.
- - -
A few weeks of Grians nightmares being plagued by the scarred-faced man had passed slowly. The three week mark had hit and Grian couldn't stop thinking of the dead man. When he had gotten home and spewed all of his breakfast into the toilet, he couldn't stop seeing him.
Passing by him in the streets, in the corner of his eyes in the empty bus seat next to him when he was on the way to his work, Grian could not escape the glossy eyes, the maggots eating away at his cheeks, and it had resulted in him never sleeping at all. He was jittery, easily aggitated, everything that no sleep will do to you.
It had occurred to him, in his sleep deprived guilt, that he had not thought once to call the police about the man, but with all the weeks that went by his feelings about the traumatic experience had made him feel as though he is the reason the scarred-faced man had died.
A simple look away as a murder happened- or maybe the man had gone missing, and Grian had not cared enough to actually step foot outside his schedule to look for the unknown man.
The decision was set in stone when he accidentally dozed off in work, but the dreams- or, nightmares- were no different.
Being snapped awake, he called his boss saying he was sick and had to leave, after all, he had a mission to accomplish.
- - -
He arrived back at the moldy house with a car trunk full of items, turning off the engine and grabbing the shovel and flashlight, walking into the house with the purpose to end this nightmare once and for all.
Grian pushed open the back door in the kitchen gingerly, the molded wood giving away easily on rusted hinges. The feeling in his gut about burying the scarred-faced man had trickled in doubts, like this wouldn't put his mind at ease, like it wouldn't end the sleep deprived nights once and for all.
Walking over to the shed, it felt like time had slowed down as he began to think about all of the days he had spent thinking about the man.
He'd given him a name, "Scar", after the defining scar running down his nose, and also thought about the fact that maybe, if the man had been alive, Scar and Grian would be friends.
The thoughts quickly ended when he realized he was standing over the body and had been staring down at it, like it was a picture book he was nostalgic about.
Scars body had been in worse repair since the first time Grian had seen the man. Scars skin was eaten through more than last time and his clothes were looking a little worse for wear, but his hair was still as muddled as it was before.
He silently took measurements in his mind, seeing how tall he was and calculating it into how big the hole had to be.
Soon enough, Grian was done, and the only thought that was racing quickly through his molasses mind was scenarios of him and Scar, like they were best buddies or even just close friends.
With a small unknown smile, he finished the last pull of moist dirt and placed it onto the buried patch of grass, carelessly tossing the shovel to the ground and moving his sore arms in a poor attempt to stretch them. Wiping sweat off his brow, he turned towards the run down shed, stalking towards it and seeing the decayed man once more, though because of the scenarios, Grians vision took on a lighter shade of rose, seeing Scar like he was just taking a common nap, and Grian just needed to fondly put him into an actual bed, as if Scar was sleeping on the floor.
He chuckled and shook his head lightly, scooping up the decaying man with seemingly practiced ease and barely noticing the maggots fall off of Scar's body. He walked towards the hole in the overgrown ground and lightly placed Scar in it, as though he was trying not to jostle Scar too much whilst he was dreaming.
Grian blinked and suddenly, though in the back of his mind, he could try to prank Scar, smiling mischievously and bending down.
He reached inside the hole and dug his fingers into Scar's socket, lightly pulling out the beautiful iridescent-green but glossy eye and blowing and plucking off the squirming eye-eaters in a nonchalant manner.
He tucked away the eye safely in his pocket and turned towards the one-eyed corpse, picking back up his shovel and pushing the dirt back into the hole.
And with a mutter of "good night, Scar," the final mound was shovelled in.
- - -
Grian arrived home and kicked off his shoes, mindful of the eye he had been safely keeping in his pocket.
He walked over to his own kitchen and scooped up an empty jar he had been keeping for a little ecosystem, but that he never had time for. Filling it up with water with a slight mist of some vinagar to kill off some of the maggots.
Plopping the eye in and closing the jar tightly, he ascended the stairs with the jar enclosed securely in his hands. When he reached the room, he made a beeline towards an empty shelf and placed the water filled jar carefully and slid it back so nobody but him knows it is there, and so Scar could never expect him to be the one to have taken his eye.
He snickered quietly to himself as he got ready for bed, pulling the covers over himself and preparing for a dreamful night.