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The relentless patter of rain soaked through Terry's thin yellow raincoat, which despite being several sizes too large for his small frame, seemed to offer little protection. Not helping was Terry having to keep his head upwards to avoid any of the blood from his nose dripping down onto his bright blue T-Shirt.

Thankfully, the front door was unlocked as Terry pushed with all the strength he had and near enough fell into the living room. Quickly shutting the door and removing his equally soaked yellow wellington boots before making his way to the kitchen counter and reaching up for the tissues.

"What happened to your bag, Terrence." Came the voice of his father, startling Terry as he quickly turned to find his father sat in his favourite easy chair, face obscured from behind an edition of The Araminta Times. He usually wasn't home this early.

"I.." Terry uttered quietly. He found his voice wavering and grip tightening on his nose as he struggled to keep from crying in front of his father.

"Billy Schmidt hit me and threw it into the lake, Daddy." 

Terry sniffed and waited for a lecture or an admonishment or for his father to grab him by the ear and march him back to the lake to fish the backpack out because there was no way they would waste their funds on a new one. Instead his father simply tilted his newspaper slightly and looked at his son with hard, unmistakable eyes behind thick rimmed reading glasses.

"You should have stood up to him, Terrence." His father brought the paper back up to his face.

"Like a man."

[hr]

The sight of a sky devoid of life deeply perturbed Terry. Just like earlier today when he admired the setting sun, so too did he enjoy the simple pleasure of silently seeing the stars and moon glisten in the night. But here there was nothing, a blank canvas mocking any observer who looked upon it. Oblivion.

Voices rang out and quarrelled, some of the group went elsewhere, most found themselves questioning and fearing the unknowns presented to them from the endless hole in the ground. Terry simply found himself transfixed upon the sun disappearing and that hauntingly empty night swirling above him. He was not broken from this trance until an ear piercing sound rang out from whatever hell this bastardisation of Araminta occupied. No sooner had this happened than an alien appendage burst from the chasm and wrapped itself around Terry's waist, another darting out and sinking what at least looked like teeth into her ankle.

"Shit man! SHIT!" Terry's vision and presence of mind was sloppy as he rained down fists upon what was previously thought to be a formless tentacle. But then, he found his minuscule offence halted by the reflection that looked up at him with those cold, emotionless eyes.

His father's gaze remained as ruthlessly intense as it always had been, but what truly gave Terry frightened pause was his father's mouth. Skin pulled haphazardly over it like a grotesque surgery, his lips nonexistent as though his jaw had been stapled in some manner to the skin just below his nose and yet the top half of his head remained in pristine condition akin to a photograph of the man. 

Terry, though not exactly doing any damage to begin with, found his resolve leave him as his flurry stopped. The tentacle wrapped itself around his waist tighter and began to start hauling him upwards but a sudden stop from Archie grabbing Terry's arm brought him back into the moment. Terry used his free arm to again relentlessly batter the face of his "father", his blows still having little effect, that is until Terry's eyes widened and realisation struck him.

Kayla let loose an earth shattering scream as light engulfed the surrounding area and seemed to incinerate the tentacle holding her hostage. Terry let out a yell of his own as he shut his eyes tight to block out the man-made sun. Instead clamping down his hand as tight as possible onto the face of the twisted mockery masquerading as his father and let loose as hard a propulsion of pure sound as he knew he was capable of without losing his voice. 

[i][b][h2]CRACK[/h2][/b][/i]

The sound blasted directly from Terry's palm onto the tentacle, slamming into it with incredible force and causing it to shoot back limply into the chasm and sending the now free Terry flying into Archie. As far as he could tell, Terry could still hear the panic and yelling of his fellow non-monster residents which meant his voice was intact for the time being. But the sudden burst of his power caused feelings of vertigo to flare up as the world felt it was popping backwards and forwards. Which, considering what had been happening wasn't out of the question. 

Terry felt something wet flow down from his nose and found a thin trickle of blood reaching his upper lip. He gingerly brought his, still pulsating and unclear, arm up to his face and wiped away the blood as it went from a thin trickle to a messy line on his right arm. 

"Thank you." He said, not being able to make out exactly where Archie was as his eyesight still adjusted but hoping he was at least within earshot.