Washington, D.CBrenda and Paco were too busy banging their heads to the pounding beat of the radio to notice reality snapping like a twig in front of them. Fifty feet ahead of their van, a decuplet of razor sharp, midnight black digits were cutting a hole in this fragile existence. The horizon where the road met the sky rolled and frayed like the edges of a piece of paper. Further the claws dug, revealing the blinding crimson sky of the other side. It bubbled and pulsated, akin to a body drowned in cancerous tumors.
Paco hadn't noticed it until he saw a flash of bark and leaves dominating the windshield. Before he could so much as let out a scream, the entire vehicle heaved, the front portion buckling underneath the sudden impact. Searing pain shot along the front of his torso from the seat belt digging into his skin to keep Paco from flying out of the window, sheets of broken glass scattering along the interior of the car.
Blood seeped down his forehead, crawling across one of his half-closed eyelids. Everything felt murky, as if he'd been submerged in milky water. A voice called out his name from beyond the fog.
"Paco!"
Was that Brenda? Was she alright? Why...why couldn't he feel anything?
"!oɔɒꟼ"An ear-piercing shriek sliced through the heavy numbness clouding his mind. Paco threw his eyes open, allowing reality to slam back into him. He was pressing squarely back against his seat, several branches of an oak tree inches from piercing through his face. Bark, glass, dirt and leaves covered his lap. There was a stinging pain in his shoulders and the front of his head, but that didn't matter; he needed to find Brenda.
"B-brenda?" He coughed and sputtered, tasting blood on his tongue. He ran his fingers along the door, searching for the handle. There was another scream, though that one was different from the sheer terror he'd heard a second ago. Finally his fingers found purchase, and Paco shoved, forcing the van to open.
"What...What happened? Brenda?" He tumbled out of the car when he managed to get the seat belt undone. Every inch of his body burned and ached. Even as his hands and knees hit the asphalt, Paco felt like his skull might implode on itself. Rising to his feet was a monumental effort, and he couldn't do it on his own- he had to lean heavily upon the bent and contorted frame of the vehicle beside him for support. But he had to get up- he had to check on Brenda. "Please...please be alright.." He sputtered, limping toward the front of the car.
He came around just in time to watch Brenda get her head slammed against the pavement.
The branch she had clutched in her hand fell away from her weakening fingers, consciousness slipping away as blood seeped from her cracked skull. A figure draped in black stood over her, his shoulders heaving with each rasped breath.
He was shorter than Paco by several inches, and leaner, yet that didn't make him any less terrifying: for, after staring at the man for several seconds, Paco realized that it was barely a man at all. The dark clothes clinging to his slight form were alive. Ruminating, swirling like the inky blackness between stars. A thick cloak danced and twirled in the windless air, a sound like bubbling flesh following behind it's sickeningly impossible form.
Paco froze like a deer in the headlights, his eyes shifting erratically between his fallen friend and the monstrous attacker standing over her. His mind and body pulled him in two different directions: Paco desperately wanted to rush in to help Brenda, yet the sight of those wicked claws drained all the courage from his heart and the color from his cheeks.
That decision was made for him when the monstrous thing turned and looked into his soul with a smile of sadistic, otherworldly delight.
"˙ɯǝɥʇ ʞɐǝɹᙠ" It spoke in a tongue of garbled static.
Engulfed in crippling shame, Paco ran.
Hot tears clung to the contorts of his rounded, young face, even as he crossed the street at a dead sprint. Arms pumping beside him, his feet tearing apart grass, he made for the fence surrounding one of many sizeable suburban homes on either side of the block. He...he wasn't running because he was scared. No, he knew he couldn't fight that thing- so he had to...call the police! He had to get to a phone and get help! What else could Paco do but run?
What else? he thought with hot bile threatening to spill from his throat.
Clearing the fence in a leap, he charged through the backyard and toward the house's door. Paco knew it'd be locked even as he tugged violently upon the doorknob. It stuck hard and fast, even when he slammed his shoulder up against it. "HELP!" Paco screeched, a fist pounding against the pristine wood. "Somebody help me, p-please!"
A sound like a popping blister resonated behind him, but Paco didn't notice it: for in that same moment the door was thrown open from the other side and he went tumbling into an unfamiliar kitchen.
Yellowing wallpaper and old, ugly tiling on the floors met his reddened eyes as he searched for some sign of his savior. Standing above him was an old man, a worried and perplexed look on his face. "You alright, son? Looks like your car's right messed up out there-" He held a decrepit hand down, offering to help Paco up from the floor.
Throwing his head from side to side, Paco leapt up, struggling to find his voice. "911!" He blurted out, spinning around to face the closed door. He couldn't hear anyone outside, but he was sure that thing was coming for him. "Call the cops a-and find somewhere to hide!" Sweat dripped from his every pour as Paco searched for somewhere else to go. Somewhere he could hide, or another way to run. The old man looked even more confused, but Paco's words had frightened him into moving as fast as his skeletal legs could carry him.
That
pop sounded again, this time from behind him.
Paco didn't get the chance to react before he felt a foot slam against his spine. He was thrown forward, his momentum halted by the frame of the door smacking up against his nose and shattering it like glass.
He brought a hand up to hold it, turning about to face his attacker once more.
"!ɘm q|ɘH"His own voice played back to him, filling meaningless sounds with that same, desperate croak he'd cried out in earlier.
He didn't have time to react, for by the time he was facing the metahuman, The man of living darkness was already twisting, his foot coming down at an angle to impact against the burly teenager's temple. Paco cried out in pain, his neck thrown to the side as he fell and hit the floor. Another foot sailed for his head, though this time he managed to throw his forearm up in front of it. His arm screamed it's protest, his marrow threatening to split underneath the weight of the blow.
Adrenaline was the only thing that let him scramble to his feet and make for the stairs.
Surprisingly, his attacker didn't lash out. He simply stood by and watched Paco stumble away. The sounds of his own pathetic mewling bounced back to him in a garbled reverse, off-pitch and filled with a heinous, malign mockery of Paco's terror.
"¡ǝsɐǝld-d 'ǝɯ dlǝɥ ʎpoqǝɯoS"He snapped his eyes shut, half-crawling, half-running up the stairs. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know why he bothered. But that ever present, howling desire to
live brought his hands down upon the steps, driving his body further and further upward until he reached the top.
There was another sickly, fleshy
pop, and a pair of amorphous feet of pitch black dominated Paco's vision. He threw himself back with a start, tumbling head-over-heels down the stairwell until the back of his head smacked up against the drywall on the bottom floor. His aching form refused to rise, the pain too great for Paco to do anything but lay there and stare up at his inhuman attacker.
This was it, he realized.
The figure swaddled in breathing void began to descend the stairs, a grin cut across his features face. A hood hid away everything above that wicked set of fangs. Slowly he reached out, letting his long, bony fingers carve lines within the walls as he began to slowly descend toward Paco.
"˙ɯǝɥʇ ʞɐǝɹq ʎɐɯ I ʇɐɥʇ oS ˙dɹɐM 'ǝɯ oʇ ʞɔɐq uǝɹplıɥɔ ǝɥʇ ɓuıɹᙠ" Like a broken voice recorder, he repeated the words of another, mimicking their voice as best his twisted vocal cords could manage. A cackle like that of a psychopathic madman, deranged and unhinged, followed; distorted and impossible as all the rest.
He was halfway down the stairs when the door was thrown open, and a sound like exploding thunder nearly deafened Paco. A spray of buckshot peppered the inky form of the creature as it let out a hideous screech. Space bent around it and it flickered out of existence; that same, disgusting
pop heralding it's disappearance. A brief silence fell over the house, until the confused cry of the elderly man hiding in the living room reverberated through the house.
Brenda Del Vecchio pulled back on the pump-action shotgun's slide, an empty shell ejecting onto the tiled floor. Blood stained her neck and dripped down her crimson locks, her expression set with steely fury. "Like I said," she breathed, shooting a glare down at Paco. "Insurance."
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