Bad taste in my mouth

It was raining heavily before Lilo died. He felt each cold droplet of water against his skin as the light left his eyes.

Each one drove a shiver down his spine. He did not know exactly when he died but he felt his soul dissipate and change into something different... something new.

He still felt something raining down on him, but his surroundings had changed. His body felt different, smaller and less robust than his old one that had gone through rigorous training.

His hands felt... soft. Not only were his hands soft but his body was laying in something that felt soft as well.

The thing that was raining down on him had more weight than water. It smelt of trees and grass... the sensation was very... earthy.

It was soil. As dirt continued to rain down on Lilo's new body, his consciousness slowly woke up, becoming more self aware.

'What the hell?'

He tried to look around but his sight was compromised, so was his movements. The sound of dirt thudding on his corpse could be heard.

He could feel the dirt pressed against his skin, he could even smell the earth; but he couldn't move or see.

'Wait... how am I breathing?'

Lilo knew that he was being buried but he didn't understand why he didn't feel the urge to fight it. He wasn't fighting for breath and his body had not entered a state of panic.

'Did they find my corpse in the alleyway and mistakenly pronounced me dead? Am I being buried alive?'

Just as that thought was made, the presence of a small being could be felt in the depth of his consciousness.

Lilo searched within the hidden crevice's of his soul.

'Who the hell is invading my mind?'

A small faint voice echoed.

"I didn't mean to..."

Lilo was startled at first, but that small voice sounded so broken. He felt he needed to comfort it. He was drawn to it.

As he moved cautiously closer to the source of this voice within his own soul, an image of a being that reflected the broken voice's soul began to conjure up.

It was a small child, a boy in their early teens, curled up in a fetal position, sobbing uncontrollably and clutching his stomach.

"I'm sorry mama... I really didn't mean to..." His innocent voice rang out and made Lilo's heart sink.

Lilo could also hear muffled voices outside of his soul in the real world where he was currently being buried alive.

He looked down at the kid in his soul and a quick flash of a distant memory entered his mind.

An early memory of Lilo as a child, crying himself to sleep each night, shivering from the sore muscles and fresh wounds he received from his father's rigorous training.

Lilo had to catch himself before becoming immersed within this flash back. He knelt beside the mourning child and placed a comforting hand on their shoulder.

"Hey kid... I'm not really sure what's happening... Can you tell me what's going on?"

The child opened his redden eyes and shriveled back in fear upon realizing the close proximity.

"Go away! I don't want to eat you too!"

'The fuck?!'

Lilo took an involuntary step back... appalled by the child's absurd comment.

He studied the child a little closer. The clothes that he wore was odd. Otherworldly. Not quite ancient but not quite modern.

A tunic made of a mesh like fabric that phased and flickered as it interacted with his movements. 

His hair was a bright red color but the color of his attire was bleak and dark. His enlarged pupils were of a faint yellow hue and his pale face was littered in freckles.

The child continued to mutter the same statements and remained crying in a ball.

'Forget this weirdo in my soul... I need to get out of whatever predicament I'm in out there in the real world...'

But he couldn't. No matter how hard he tried to open his eyes or move, the dirt above him was simply too heavy.

The thudding of dirt slowly stopped and the muffled voices above him also dissipated.

Lilo opened his mouth to shout at them to dig him back out but dirt instantly filled his mouth; and yet, he somehow was able to not need to breath.

He remained stuck like this for what felt like an eternity.

The child in his soul was still there. Awkwardly keeping distance and continuing to murmur whilst crying.

For awhile it was tolerable... but the lack of knowledge and the absurdity of the entire situation slowly drove him mad. He grew impatient and the child became intolerable.

'Fuck, I'm this close to beating his ass.'

"Sir?" The child abruptly stopped and looked up at Lilo, catching him by surprise.

"Am I a glutton?" It asked wit uncertainty.

Lilo was baffled. "What? No you're skinny as hell... A little too skinny." 

"No like... am I a monster?" It asked with fervor.

Lilo scratched his head and shook his head in confusion.

"No?"

The child wiped away his tears and began inspecting his body, as if it were to transform any moment.

"That's strange."

Suddenly the suffocating darkness was lifted like a veil, replaced by a blinding bright light.

A heavy creature was digging up his grave and it was adamant to reach Lilo, in a strange desperate kind of way.

A far too familiar sense of desperation that Lilo knew intimately during his time as a professional cage fighter. The same kind of desperation a predator feels when they hunt. HUNGER.

As the dirt around his body loosened up, Lilo could finally wiggle his way out; but before he could free himself, the creature that was viciously digging clamped its maw onto Lilo's throat.

Without having adequate time to adjust and react, the creature dragged Lilo out from the grave, violently thrashing his body by the throat.

It was disorienting but... oddly he felt no pain. His nerves could feel each tooth that dug into his throat but his pain receptors were not responding to that sensation.

Lilo slowly gained his senses and tried to push off of the creature.

His arms were slim and weak compared to his lethal weapons that he had for arms in his past life; but he still managed to struggle free from the creature's grasp.

He rolled onto the ground, trying his best to create distance between him and whatever the strange hungry creature was.

A chunk of his throat was missing, but blood did not gush out of his wound.

The world around him was still spinning because of the creature that viciously thrashed his body around; but he could still make out the violent creature that had dug him free from his grave.

Before him was a large creature, equivalent in size to a bear, but resembled nothing like an earthly creature.

It had terrifying features: thorny horns protruding from its fleshless skull, ragged torn flesh draped loosely on its lanky frame, a maw with rows of razor sharp teeth and a collage of clashing bright colors making up different components of its body.

The creature approached Lilo slowly, and as it got closer, more of its terrifying features revealed itself.

Its breath smelt familiar... it was the last thing Lilo had in his mouth before he died: the euphoric candy.

It's eyes were an endless void, like a gateway to a boundless haven, eerie yet infinitely wonderful to gaze into; layered with countless colors that shifted in shades as the sunlight refracted off of them.

"Oh, it's only a fun sized one." The child in his mind spoke aloud just before the creature chomped on Lilo's head... or at least it tried to, but Lilo dove into the maw of the creature before it could chomp down on him.

Lilo knew his new body as too weak to fight it and it was too small to outrun this creature... so he cleverly thought to kill it the same way he had died.

He wedged himself into the throat of the creature, making sure to thoroughly block its airway.

It's breath reeked of the euphoric candy, which wasn't bad, but it made Lilo eerily reminiscent of his recent death... Well Lilo was still unsure of his death... everything here in this world he woke up in was too strange.

'Did I really die? What the hell is going on?'

Th creature thrashed about in desperation, trying its best to swallow Lilo, but Lilo wedged himself firmly deep into its throat tighter and tighter the more it thrashed.

It even attempted to claw itself out of desperation, trying to open up a hole its its throat for an airway to survive.

Several seconds passed... minutes felt like hours and Lilo's new small frame was growing tired, but his mental fortitude from the years he spent fighting in a cage for his life played a major factor in this battle with this ferocious beast.

Eventually, the movement stopped, the creature stopped struggling and slumped to the ground with a loud thud.

Lilo stayed clammed up in the throat for several more seconds just to be sure but eventually he let himself relax and crawled out of the creatures giant maw.

"Fun sized?" This creature was definitely large, and by no means was it any fun either.

'What the hell was that kid talking about?'

"I heard that."

Lilo took an involuntary step back.

'He can hear my thoughts?'

A ghostly silhouette of the child in his mind appeared beside the corpse of the dead creature. He paced around the creature for a bit and then nodded his head.

"Yep, definitely fun sized."

As Lilo was about to inquire more from this mysterious child and this mysterious creature and the mysterious world he was in; he could hear the sound of an engine in the distance.

This prompted Lilo to study his surroundings. Currently they were in a forest of mystical plants. All having the most wrong color combinations and the same euphoric scent of the elderly ladies candy.

That scent, to Lilo, was synonymous with death. 

The engine sound grew louder and in the distance, along the sun set horizon, Lilo saw a bright white van extinguish itself from the rest of the colorful forest.

It came closer and closer until it stopped right in front the creature, the child and Lilo.

The window to the suspicious white van slowly rolled down with a rustic squeal and a middle aged man with a crazed expression offered the most audacious smile Lilo had ever witnessed.

"Hey kid, you want some candy?"