Chapter 18 #4
And within the roiling darkness, an entity in the shape of a man rises, stepping forward slowly, smoke pouring off his towering frame in heavy, oily wisps.
The closer he gets, more of his grey-skinned and powerfully built structure is revealed. Every inch of him radiates lethal and deadly grace.
With ripped abs and a sculpted chest glistening beneath the haze, his arms are full of solid muscle.
His hands are pitch black, obsidian fingers tipped with long, cruel claws. Dark veins writhe upward like spreading poison, threading across his shoulders and up his neck.
Then his face emerges from the smoke, and my eyes almost bulge out of my skull, my breath completely dying in my throat.
For one agonizing second, my pounding heart simply stops as hot tears blur my sight, the recognition slamming into me.
Dark, disheveled hair frames a chiselled face carved from my nightmares. His pitch-black eyes are like endless voids that drip rivulets down his cheeks.
When they lock onto mine, he doesn’t just look at me, he looks through me, peeling back every layer of my shattered soul.
No… No, no, no. Not him.
Please, God, not fucking him.
He stops some distance away, the black smoke still curling lazily from his shoulders like a shroud. His head tilts slightly, a slow, predatory motion that sends ice racing down my spine, as if he were studying me and relishing the fear radiating off my broken body.
Then his arms snap out like twin whips, and I flinch as two massive, smoky tendrils explode from his black forearms with a tearing sound.
They streak past me on either side, close enough that I feel the rush of displaced air and the sickening chill radiating from their surfaces.
A guttural scream rips from my throat, tearing through the stitches, and I crouch instantly.
With frightening speed and accuracy, the two massive, barbed tendrils spear through the air and slam into the pig-headed creature's body, knocking it back a step. Until one punches clean through its thick chest while the other coils around its throat like a noose of living shadow.
Then the real horror begins.
The tendrils whip and thrash with ruthless strength, tossing and smashing the massive pig-headed body into the nearest building with a deafening crash.
It’s flung around repeatedly, hitting the wall, again and again, each impact leaving a red smear and a crater of pulverized brick, chunks of meat flying with every collision.
The second tendril tightens around the pig’s thick neck, sawing deeper with each flex. Spikes tear through muscle until the creature’s squeals turn into choking, gurgling wails.
With a sudden, violent twist, the tendril tears the head clean off, the snout lolling at a sickening angle, connected only by shredded tendon and flapping skin, while dark crimson gushes in rhythmic spurts.
But the entity isn’t done.
More tendrils erupt from his back and shoulders—longer, thinner, and tipped with needle-like spikes.
They burrow into the pig’s torso like ravenous serpents, piercing organs and wrapping around it’s bones. With horrifying power, they pull in opposite directions, and the pig’s body tears open down the middle in a wet explosion of gore.
Intestines spill out in slippery, slapping thuds onto the cracked pavement, followed by its head.
As it’s lungs collapse with a final bubbling wheeze, one tendril wrenches out the still-beating heart and crushes it mid-air, spraying blood across the street and me.
Thick black smoke curls off its frame as the tendrils slowly retract, glistening with blood and violence before disappearing inside the entity.
With wide, unblinking eyes, I stare at the grotesque pile of pig meat. My stomach churns, vomit rising and burning behind my throbbing lips, but I can’t look away.
Knowing the entity is still somewhere behind me, I hurriedly get to my feet, legs wobbly, and start running before I even realize I’ve moved.
That’s it, run from me, little light—I want to see how long your spark lasts before I snuff it out, he growls demonically, the sound not coming from behind me, but instead, inside me.
I sprint down the narrow alley as fast as my wrecked body allows, dodging rusted trash containers and scattered junk. My bare feet smack against the filthy pavement, shards of glass and debris shredding the soles with every step.
But no matter how fast I push myself, the darkness catches up, spreading along the walls on either side of me.
Then, without warning, two thick shadows lash out from the blackness and coil viciously around my ankles like iron chains, jerking me backward with brutal force.
My body slams face-first into the ground, and pain explodes across my chest and jaw.
Before I can even gasp, I’m aggressively dragged, my chin scraping along the rough pavement, nails scraping uselessly for purchase.
An agonized scream tears from my throat, the stitches in my lips ripping, and fresh blood floods my mouth.
Gotcha. A cruel voice echoes directly through my mind as I’m smothered in darkness, and lifted off the ground.