Terrestrial Alien ✔

[ Part III ] Chapter 25: Don't Leave Him

Looking back to Ethan, I find him frozen rigid where he stands. His frame shudders slightly, and his eyes are wild, his breathing refusing to slow. He gaze locks onto mine, and I see what's happening as it happens.

Ethan fills his lungs with a huge breath.

"FU—"

I lunge forward, slapping my hand over his mouth and muffling the end of his exclamation into a strangled, weak cry. I stare him down as he shudders, and he looks at me with this helpless horror as he struggles to fully digest the situation. Finally, he lets his eyes slip closed, and he inhales a long, slow breath against my hand. I pause for a moment, waiting to be sure that he won't have another outburst as soon as I let go, and he opens his eyes to look at me again.

I let go of him.

His breath heaves him in one giant exhale, and he suddenly seems to have trouble supporting himself without the door to lean back on.

Somewhere down the hall, there comes a horrible shrieking sound, and both of us jerk right up. There's a slam as a body rams into the doors of the school, and another shriek that somehow also sounds like a howl. It resonates in my head, and it sounds just like the creature from my nightmares. The slam reverberates down the hall as it tries again, then again. Ethan pulls himself away from the classroom's door, stumbling back to stand by me. I can't move.

I'm frozen in place, paralyzed by that howling, so much like the coyotes we're all so used to at night, but so much different. It's like a garbled mess of indistinct snarls and roars from so many different animals that in a way, it's entirely unique.

Hearing it hurts me, somewhere in my chest.

Ethan looks to me, and he still seems rather shell shocked for a moment before it all seems to settle on him, and he breaks me out of my rigid stance by saying, "Why the FUCK would you do that?"

I jolt, startled by the outburst, before pouncing back on him immediately. "Shh!" I hiss, bringing a hand back up to shush him, but he slaps it away.

"No, fuck no. Don't you shush me, Joshua Gonzalo. What the fuck. If you knew that he's that god-awful monster, why the fuck would you hit him with my GODDAMN baseball bat, Joshua? Huh??"

He's in my face now, yelling at me, too loud. I can hear the slam and the shriek again, this time harder, louder, more violently. He knows we're here.

Ethan slams his hands into my chest, and I stumble back into the desks. "Do you want to die, Joshua?" He exclaims, his voice cracking. "I've known Seth for like point-three seconds and I already know hitting him with a baseball bat? That's a big no-no! HELL! Hitting anyone with a baseball bat is a big no-no! So what the fuck, man? What the fuck. Just— why? Why would you hit him? He didn't even do anything! If I get killed by your murderous monster of a boyfriend because you two don't know how to get along, I'm going to... I don't know, but I'm going to be fucking livid, I can goddamn fucking tell you that. Jesus christ." This last utterance is to himself, as though he still can't believe the entire scope of what's happening to him.

My face is burning now, and my fists grip at my sides. I want to tell him to shut up, to tell him that we should go, that we should find some way to get out of the building or somewhere to hide. The beast could get in here any second now, and we're just standing here, Ethan yelling at me. This is absurd.

But I just can't let it stand. Not like this.

"I don't know!" I yell back at him, finally bursting. "I don't fucking know, okay, Ethan? Is that what you wanted to hear?! I don't know! It just! Happened!" I shove him backwards, out of my face as I emphasise my words, and my anger boils over with my own confusion.