Corrupted

One

I caught the flu. It was, as expected, misery. When I heard the noise that night, I thought it was just a side effect of the cough syrup, or the fever, or both. I rolled over and tried to ignore it. It wasn't until the second or third squish that I realized something was wrong. I opened my eyes and looked up at the ceiling. A humanoid creature was climbing across it on all fours. I watched in horror as his head turned, slowly, until the vertebrae were cracking and breaking so he could look down at me. I tried to scream and found myself unable to. I tried to roll away, but my limbs were paralyzed. Looking up at that thing, I couldn't breathe.

And then, my girlfriend was raking my eyes out with razor sharp talons, screeching in laughter.

I startled upwards from the bed with a scream. The woman next to me went sprawling. I panted and shivered in cold sweat.

"Astin? Babe?" Mary was there with a hand on my shoulder. I felt a warm pull from me to her, calming me. "I'm here. You're safe."

"If you say so." I rubbed my burning forehead. Thanks to this stupid virus, even my horns ached. Did I mention I had horns? Wings, too. You'd think it'd be glamorous being Other—a living myth stuck in a human world—but ever since I sprouted my new appendages, it'd been one unpleasant surprise after the next. I found out last week I molted. I spent most of my weekend sweeping up feathers that humans couldn't see and hacking up a lung. Not fun.

And then, there was the Taint—these things made of solid nightmares, always gnawing away at the edge of the world. No one knew where they came from, and yet they had always been there, devouring reality bit by tiny bit. They mostly kept in the shadows until it was time to strike. What little I saw of them haunted my nightmares. I hadn't slept real well since discovering their existence. Constantly having to watch my back didn't help.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Mary asked, putting a hand on my chest.

"Not much to talk about," I mumbled back. "A freaky thing crawled over the ceiling. Then... uh... something plucked my eyeballs out."

"You mean me."

"Yeah," I sighed, tussling her dark black hair. "I meant you."

"It's okay. I understand." She tapped my necklace. A pink crystal, washer, and ankh hung from it—male, female, and a symbol of power. It kept both of safe from her psychic fits. "Besides, the Taint is gone. You got rid of it last winter."

"It was still awful." I shivered. "I'd never seen anything like that before."

"You mean, you've never seen it before you had a nightmare?" Mary tensed. "Not out on the streets? Not in that underground temple?"

I shook my head.

"Astin," she said slowly, "don't you have prophetic dreams?"

Both our eyes widened in horror, and we turned. While we were distracted, a figure made of tar had crawled through the window. With a horrible gurgle, it spat a blob of black.

We lurched away just in time, and a few seconds later, there was a smoking hole in the mattress where we were laying. We bolted into action—or, at least, one of us did. Mary dropped her human mask and went on the attack, unleashing the full fury of vampyric rage. Meanwhile, I got my feet tangled up in the sheets and hit the ground with a pained wheeze. I struggled through fever, cough medicine, and 300 thread count sheets to get back up.

Mary dodged its acid vomit and managed to take off one of its arms with her claws, but the bathroom now had a jagged, hissing window where there hadn't been before. The missing limb didn't seem to bother the thing too much. The severed arm spasmed, then skittered over on its fingers and grabbed her ankle. She gave a cry of alarm, and the distraction was enough for the creature to grab her by the throat.