*Rated 18 for blood, gore, violence, and some disturbing imagery.
Monster, part three
Flashback
Our hero had found a gap in an otherwise smooth face of a large boulder that formed a sort of cliff. Curiosity had compelled him to go in, as it was large enough for a man to enter. The gap had widened into a much larger interior, and finally a cavern. He had used his flashlight to look around at the ceiling and walls. There wasn’t anything really remarkable about it, save the object in the middle of the cavern’s dry, sandy floor.
A rock, some might have called it. Others would have said a piece of machinery. Our hero had neared closer to it, not daring to touch it just yet. There had been no sign of life or movement anywhere around. But when he got closer, he had suddenly heard a gasping noise, like something in its last stage of life, so close to death.
Cocking the hammer of his gun, he had moved closer with a beating heard and hesitant footsteps. He had been met with the sight of a pair of eyes; they were deep, dark eyes, almost black, but with a ring of white around them. The eyes were in the face of a human. Or perhaps not. It didn’t look completely human.
Our hero had started at the sight, and aimed his gun. But as the humanoid hadn’t given any indication of rising or attacking in any way, and still lay on the ground, gasping for air, he paused.
The human, if it could be called that anymore, had grossly misshapen legs and arms. The skin was a very dark, almost purplish color that was streaked with blood. The face had been somewhat distorted. The eyes were bulging, almost looking as if they could pop out at any moment. Blood poured freely from the crooked nose, and the mouth was opened wide. The lips were shriveled and the teeth were missing. Blood trickled from the corner of its mouth.
Our hero had stood in silence and disgust, taking in the wretched being. Its lips twitched and a faint sound that wasn’t a gasp grated in its throat.
It was as if it were talking, our hero had realized with some surprise. Very slightly encouraged by the thought, he had lowered the gun fragmentally. “Can you talk?” he whispered, his voice seeming to echo off the walls.
A gurgle came from the throat, and a gush of dark blood welled up. Our hero instinctively stepped back. The human’s hand came up and pointed to him.
“Me?” he asked. “What do you want with me?”
The human had then stuck its thumb up and straightened its pointer and middle finger together, so that the hand formed a gun. Laboriously, it moved its arm until its fingers were pointing at its head.
“You want me to shoot you?” our hero asked, slightly bemused.
There was a pleading look in the human’s eyes, and our hero hesitated. This human was certainly in its last stages of life, almost dead now. It was evidently in great pain, too. It would be an act of pity to put it out of its misery. And yet, our hero hadn’t brought himself to pull the trigger.
“I can’t do that,” he had murmured apologetically.
The eyes grew bigger, if that could have been possible, and our hero thought that there was a glint of hunger in them. He drew back and aimed the gun again.
The human opened its mouth, and more blood gushed out. Our hero backed up in disgust, and suddenly let out a cry as one of the eyeballs seemed to explode. There was a splattering of blood and he dropped his flashlight, startled.
An unearthly scream left the lips of the human, and in the faint light of the flashlight that was still pointed at the creature, our hero saw the arms raised to the sky, fingers curled in agony. He had pressed himself back against the cavern wall, terrified and yet unable to move.
Before his eyes, the human body seemed to bulge and writhe and the scream continued. The skin rippled as if something inside it had moved, and our hero watched in disbelief as the human was torn apart from the inside. The scream stopped as the face was ripped into pieces.
In the dim beam of the flashlight, our hero saw something that resembled a human in limbs, but was covered in a black, shiny skin. Its head was like a giant black skull, from what he could see. He stayed against the wall, paralyzed in terror. Only one word had echoed through his mind at the time.
Monster.
!!! 
