PROJECT MORTUUS : The Creature

Chapter 14: Oneiratraxia

Mortuus sat up; his head felt heavy and light all at the same time. Like a thick smog, the air around him was suffocating and heavy as rocks. He looked around him for something. The only visible thing was the jagged outline of a crystalline man standing in the distance, just out of his reach. 

"Morgan... Morgan... Morgan..." It seemed to chant but never moved any part of it. 

Mortuus stumbled up toward it with unease, collapsing every foot or so. Mortuus collapsed again, his eyes shutting as he did. He wanted so badly to reach this strange crystal man. 

When he opened them again, he was kneeling in the church, a blood-soaked cross in front of him, dripped with enough blood to fill a pool. Before Mortuus could question what happened, Death entered from seemly nowhere behind the cross. 

"I, too, had family," Death spoke as he wiped a spot on his blade's scythe, "And much like you, I do not remember them."

Mortuus turned to him, confused as to why he was saying this but also curious about it, "If you don't remember them, how do you know that?"

"Because I was the first devine."

Mortuus stared at him, confused. "So why kill?"

"Did I ever say that I kill? That is your blood." Death motioned to the blade in Mortuus's hand; he hadn't realized he was holding one. "She would not have liked that, you know." Death vanished, leaving Mortuus alone once more on his knees in front of the bloody cross. 

Mortuus stood up from in front of the concession stands and walked out of the church unsteadily to his makeshift home in the clock tower. He stopped as he noticed The Stitcher standing in an alley, staring into nothing and unmoving. 

Mortuus walked toward The Stitcher, his cannabis pen in one hand and revolver in the other. Taking a long puff of the pen and sending a cloud of smoke up, Mortuus spoke to it. "Been a while, shit bag. Miss me?"

The Stitcher ignored him and continued standing in its trance-like state, "Hey, you ugly bastard! I'm talking to you!" Mortuus fired a single shot into the monster's chest. Instead of attacking him, it simply turned around and showed the countless wounds on its back. 

There were cuts all along its back, riddled with bullet holes and burns that seared the skin. There were scars on top of scars, cuts that were deep enough that one could see its spine and ribcage. The skin was a gnarly greenish gray in some parts with specks of purple bruising. On its shoulder blade was a rusted knife. 

A child's voice enveloped him again as it asked a question that seemed to make Mortuus's blood run ice cold. "Who's the real victim?" The voice's eerie echo seemed so familiar and yet so creepily new to him. It seemed as if the voice was separate from The Stitcher but, at the same time, seemed to be The Stitcher. 

"I know how you feel. You're trapped in a husk." Mortuus took another puff of the pen, the smoke billowing up in an oddly dark cloud of white. He wanted to reach a comforting hand out to it, but he knew how unpredictable it could be. 

Another voice, dark like the night and husky with a harsh, cutting tone, spoke. The dark voice commanded the creature, "KILL, KILL, KILL." The voice shouted as the child screamed for it to end, for the harm to stop. Mortuus raised his arms to his face, blocking the creature's attack, as it knocked him to the ground, tearing at his jacket. 

BLAM, BLAM!! 

Mortuus shot the creature's jaw, rearing back, stunned and bleeding but ultimately unharmed. After recovering from the initial shock, the animal pounced, slamming into a wall as Mortuus weaved out of the way at the last second. 

Mortuus grabbed the back of the creature's head, tears soaking his bandaged face as he slammed the head into the wall violently and repeatedly. Blackened blood sprayed with each slam against the bricks. 

"Sorry, kid. I never wanted it to come to this." Mortuus walked away, looking back at the battered body of the creature. Its smile dripped with blood and saliva, its eyes seemed just as empty. 

Its head was hidden on the other side of the wall that Mortuus had smashed it through. The Stitcher's arms twitched and thrust into the wall, its claws digging deep into the brick and muscles pulsing. 

Mortuus turned to see The Stitcher raise its blood-soaked head, smashing through the brick with no effort. Within seconds, The Stitcher had already gotten up and resumed attacking as if nothing had happened. 

The Stitcher took another swing at Mortuus, dislocating his jaw with simple ease as if it weren't trying. Mortuus grabbed The Stitcher's hand, twisted it around, and threw The Stitcher to the ground. "You shouldn't have done that," Mortuus coldly replied, popping his jaw back. 

The Stitcher leaped upward toward him with seething rage. Mortuus grabbed its neck, lifted it, and shot it twice before throwing it to the ground again. It fell with a hearty thud as it landed on its back. 

The Stitcher thrust its arm at Mortuus, who caught its wrist and swiftly kicked it in the face. 

It grabbed Mortuus's leg, ripping it from the joint and plunging it deep into his chest like a wooden stake to a vampire. Grabbing Mortuus's broad shoulders and slamming him to the ground, the leg digging into his chest deeper before it tossed him up again. The Stitcher ripped his vocal cords from his throat as it kicked him into a wall. 

The Stitcher ran at him but stopped dead in its tracks and stared with a blank and hollow look as the child's voice screamed to stop once more. Mortuus watched it with confusion as his vocal cords slowly slinked back together. 

A tear slowly trickled down The Stitchers' left eye, hitting the ground before it bolted into the adjacent street into the woods, leaving Mortuus alone again.