[@AdmrlStalfos19]

[b]Uchima Senior High - Main Building, 3rd Floor, Hallway outside Faculty Office[/b]

There was someone out there.

[i]Something[/i] out there.

It had been waiting. It had been watching, and as she had climbed through the darkness of the stairwell back towards the faculty office, it had followed, quiet rumbling footsteps unnoticed by Etsu. Each heavy tap against the wood of each step. They drifted through the monotony of grey and crimson, the shifting noise growing closer and closer and closer. And as she opened her mouth, breathing her words into the stagnant dark air of the hall ...

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQXoC5ssgBQ]It struck.[/url]

An oozing black appendage, made of the shadows itself, shot out from behind her to grab onto Etsu's left foot like a hand, the icy cold touch constricting her movements. A second followed, this one jabbing straight into her right thigh with four stinging, ivory-white claws into the flesh. No blood drew. Yet the pain lanced through, an eerie, excessive impact that could chill her veins. There was a wild hiss. Inhuman. Monstrous.

The right thigh pumped. Blood was being drawn.

No.

It was being [i]drunk[/i]. Seeping into those claws.

In the darkness far behind, where the long, shadowy arms originated, a rounded shape, cobbled-together, mangled ... broke into the light.

Golden eyes.

Matted hair, colours impossible to determine, were frayed across its pockmarked brown skin. Golden eyes, obscured by dirt-covered strands, peered with madness at Etsu. Not madness. Hunger. Joy. Happiness. Relief. Its jaw, every inch covered by a disgusting beard, hung loosely from its head. Chittering. The bruised, purple tongue licked through a hole in its cheek. Chittering. Chattering.

It wanted.

It needed.

The blood continued to pump.

Its hunched-over body continued to pitter-patter along the wooden floor.

Closer.

Closer.

It would stop her from running.

And it would enjoy her.

If Etsu did not find a way to escape her constriction ...

The thing's blackened teeth grinded together.