I was in a nightmare. The thing I was looking at, was a nightmare.
Its six legs made of curved bones were tightly holding on the street lamp post and the vertebrae tail with the dart was loosely balancing in the air, making the grotesque silhouette looking scorpion-like. The orange light shone directly on the pale skin of the upper body.
Skin?
My eyes were transfixed in horror, unable to look away as much as I wished for. Morbid fascination lead my gaze along the bony curves of the upper body belonging to a woman. The fragile outline of her collarbone, her pitch black hair flowing on her bare shoulders like ink, the smooth transition of her hips into the six ebony legs... Everything of her was vicious, predatory.
I need to escape. I need to escape. I need to escape.
My body was constricting me, my skin was too tight, my chest was oppressed by the weight of terror... I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think-
"You don't deserve to live." The creature spit through her jagged teeth.
I staggered on my feet and my legs almost gave out under me. I had the feeling that millions of little ice needles were piercing my skin, it was so cold...
A crimson drop of blood fell off the bony tail, near my shoe. I bit so hard on my shivering lips that a metallic taste spread through my mouth.
The black eyes of the woman looked into mine. Her six legs changed position and she glided further down the lamp post with a shrieking noise. I was internally screaming, my inner voice was shrill, desperate, hopeless...
"You don't deserve to live." The woman repeated, but not with the same silky voice. This time, her voice broke one the last word, cracked like Rachel's neck under her blood-drenched tail a few minutes ago.
And what seeped through this weakness was not anger, not coldness. It was so much sorrow and grief that could literally feel it like she had threw it at me in form of a rock. I stumbled, my blood roaring in my ears, while the monster got closer and closer to me.
The helplessness of her tone woke something in the darkest part of my soul. The part that usually felt like there was missing something, but I didn't know what. The part that was constantly aching in nagging pain. That pain deep inside me that had let me know all my life that I was different, but a difference that even I couldn't understand nor explain.
That part had just shifted, like a dangerous animal in its sleep.
It was the fear that set me running. Fear of the monster? Fear of myself? I didn't know, probably both. One moment I was standing frozen in front of the woman under the orange light, in the other moment I found myself blindly racing down the road, wrapped in utter darkness.
There's no hope to survive the night anyway.
Behind me, a shrill shout of anger reverberated itself in the night, followed by snarling.
Oh god, I wasn't fast enough, I had only a few-
Before I could think of anything else to protect myself, I was violently thrown to the side. My head and my back crashed against something hard and vertical, to be soon followed by the rest of my body. A red veil covered my eyesight. My head was intensely throbbing and pain was unfurling in my limbs...
Panicked thoughts flew through my mind, but I couldn't grab them, everything was so blurry...
Did I hear another snarl? Was it the faint sound of six legs made of bones that were making these noises?
I blinked a few time, trying to come back to reality, there was a monster hunting me in the darkness!
I was half displayed on the wall of an apartment, but I couldn't move, my head was so heavy... Coming out of nothing, icy fingers caressed my chin. I whimpered.
No no no no... this couldn't end like this!
The dark red glistening vertebrae of her tail neared themselves dangerously close to my neck. My hazy eyes were desperately trying to focus on the pale face in front of me.
There was a time, the woman had to be of a breathtaking beauty. Black spots were dancing in front of of my eyes, but I could still see the graceful curve of her ebony neck, her midnight black eyes... Even in this awful situation the six bony legs and the vertebrae tail were showing of some twisted elegance. She looked more like a poisonous scorpion or a white spider, but her monstrosity had something graceful, in a predatory way.
But tonight, all I saw was death. Vicious, uncontrollable death.
"Such a pretty girl..." the woman mouthed, her dark lips nearing themselves to my ears. I saw the blurry outlines of the tail with the mortal dart approaching my neck and exposing it to her. An icy draft of air caressed my throat and my whole body brutally shivered.
Her fingers left a burning trail on the sweaty skin of my cheekbones.
There were so many things I wanted to say, so many things I wanted to do but I just couldn't. My body felt like a pile of motionless, useless limbs. Every breath I took made my lungs become smaller and smaller and with every heartbeat of my heart, I was afraid that it would breake through my ribcage. Yes, that was it: I was afraid. I was scared.
I was scared that all the words and screams I had held in all my life would never find a way out of my lips. I was scared to never see my dream of opening my own restaurant come true. I was scared that I never get the chance to change - to become open, not afraid to open my mouth!
I was scared that surviving the Blackwell orphanage wasn't worth it.
The woman looked me in the eyes, looking for something she couldn't find. I felt like I was suffocating, my breath turning short, my head and back furiously pounding, my heart racing in my chest...
"Yes, you're a pretty girl, but so was Misha..." she whispered and let out low chuckle. Misha? Who was Misha? Another wave of nausea went through me. "But why would you live, if Misha couldn't, hm?" Her tone was sultry, like too sweet honey, full off anger and hope.
„She was the prettiest of all girls."
Those words were pronounced differently. All the anger, the grief... it had been replaced by something sweet and tender... love. I didn't know who Misha was - had been -, but it had to be a loved one, so loved that her death had transformed this woman in this scorpion-like creature made of bones and hatred.
The vertebrae tail rose in a quick motion, the dart briefly glowing in the orange light behind us. I let out a whimper, closed my eyes and tried to move my head to the side. A sickening wave of terror welled up from my stomach, I was so cold but at the same time I was burning...
Help. I didn't want to die like that. No. No...
The icy fingers of the monster sank further in the skin of my throat, squeezing my air pipes. My whole body was spasming, my mouth was open in a wordless scream Oh God oh god, I couldn't breath-
And the tail came down, so fast that I heard the air whistling-
Suddenly, the weight of the woman was thrown off my trembling body and the shout of a manly voice echoed in the night. The woman let out a piercing scream and her attacker pushed her with a kick in the gut under the remaining lamp of the street.
My pulse roared in my ears. What-... what happened?...
I gathered all my strength and pushed myself on my forearms to be able to see what the hell was happening. Pain shoot all the way up my back and I my head was still intensely throbbing, but my attention was completely fixed on what took place under the orange light of the street lamp.
A man dressed in a knee-long leather jacket was slowly circling around the monster. His steps were precise, every movement was quick and sharp. The woman was struggling to stand up again, her six scorpion legs were trembling and quavering.
Every time she was trying to stand up to attack the man, he managed to hit her with... a blade? I couldn't really see the weapon he was using, he was too fast and my vision was too hazy. Why was the monster not attacking him? A few seconds ago, the woman had been practically savage, more of a bestial creature than human.
„You peace of trash..." the man's word were low and harsh, and even from the distance I could see the hatred in his gaze.
The creature let out another complaint as his large blade hit her bony leg and this time broke the leg in two with a splintering sound. The woman howled in pain. Darkness around seemed to move, almost like it was a living entity that could feel her pain, and I couldn't help but flinch.
And the man continued, the leather coat flying around his muscular body. He snapped a second leg like it was a fragile toothpick and the woman hurled, the mouth contorted in scream of pain and anger. She snarled and hissed, seeming to have completely forgot how to form words with her red lips, forgot how to be human again.
„Stop screaming like you feel any of this." ,the man spit in her face. „It's not now that you have to feel pain. It was when you killed those fucking girls and toddlers!"
And he yanked his shining blade in the heart of the woman. She let out an ear-splitting scream of agony and she began to shiver, to uncontrollably tremble, her eyes so wide that all the white around was visible.
My stammering heart made my nausea worse and a wave of horror welled up from my stomach. I was frozen to the ground and my mind was being drowned in a million of thoughts.
After a few seconds, the scream of the woman lost in intensity and her body turned motionless. Her six legs fell in a chaotic sound of clattering bones and her head touched the asphalt with a dull noise. After a few seconds of heavy silent, the man pulled out his blade and there was a cracking, wet noise.
I think he just broke her ribcage.
Oh shit, I was gonna to throw up. I was not feeling well. Oh fuck fuck fuck. I curled up in a ball on the ground. The pulsing pain in my body, the nausea and all those pictures in my mind...
A mix of too-many things let escape trembling gasp from my lips.
A gasp that the man with the blade heard. He send me a quick look before kneeling in front of the corpse of the creature and cleaning the blood of the blade on the woman's naked skin.
„Sorry you had to see this." His voice was monotone, matter-of-fact and made a chill run down my body. „But to be honest, you got lucky. Congrats, you just saw your first Monster. Yay."
He firmly planted his eyes in mine with a blank face, still kneeling in front of the corpse while I was still laying on the ground.
„I just hunted down and killed this monster to save your life and the one of potential other victims. Because that's what we do. We hunt and kill those fucking things.
We're something like Monsterhunters. Welcome, honey, in the new nightmare that has become your life."
// ouuuuh, we're getting somewhere... ;)