Young Writers Society

“Get away!” my mind screamed at me, though in reality it was just a whisper. My thoughts were roaming, paranoia infecting every thought like a cancer. I tried to focus on where to put my feet but I just kept falling. My jeans were ripped and stained at the knees, my exposed skin black from soil and red from the torn skin.

“He’s here, he is here…”

The whispers couldn't shut up at all, and I was so nervous. Maybe that was why I kept falling? I’m not sure in all honesty. All I do know is that terror was mixed with my survival instinct, which had a sprinkle of confusion. Haha, my brain was like soup, a complicated, confusing soup.

I can hear it breathing and, oh, I fell again. My lips parted and I wanted to scream but instead I sobbed. What? No, crying helped nothing, especially not in such an awful situation, which was a mystery.

Okay, focus me. What was chasing me? I can’t remember, maybe it stole that too. Oh, white…it was white, like bleached bone. Yea and it….stank, like something old and earthy and bad. It smelled, I think my mistake was the eyes….yea, the eyes, I stared into them at the last second.

I had stopped, trying to focus on what I was doing and running from. Then it touched me. It wasn't slimy or rough, like a texture most people were frightened by. It was smooth, sliding off the fabric of my shirt and not just that but the feeling…it felt like a vacuum and it wanted to suck me into oblivion…

I screamed, like you wouldn't believe and I darted forward so fast that I tripped. I tumbled forward, turning and rolling on my side before rapidly getting back to my feet and then I continued to run. I couldn't stop, I knew it otherwise it wouldn't let me go this time.

I guess most people would go "please God, save me.” in such a situation but I am agnostic and I didn't feel anything but alone in such a moment. No divine intervention was going to save me. Nothing was going to save me.

My legs were so tired and worn from running for so long. I wanted to collapse in tears and fall into a warm bed or pool and relax. My body was just so tired and desperate to stumble upon a place where I didn't have to do anything.

How and when did I even start running? Where was I at the time? It felt like a never-ending forest of ferns and trees I was running through. All the trees were so high I couldn't see the top of them. I wanted to get out of here and just forget all this ever happened. Yet I doubted there was a way out of here.

In the beginning I tested myself to see if I was dreaming but I wasn't and then I had to run. It was such a sudden and irrational fear that I trusted it. Oh, I wished it was a dream but even my most realistic dreams felt nothing like this.

“escape. Escape. ESCAPE.”

I heard it begin behind me, starting as a chanting breath, then a raspy whisper that quickly escalated into a scream so loud it hurt my ears. I wanted to put my hands over my ears but suddenly something happened.

Well, multiple things happened all at once. The screaming chant turned into a cheer, the fear faded away and I stumbled onto a road. I fell to my knees, sobbing in relief even though I wasn't actually tearing up. My whole body collapsed on solid asphalt, everything burning in relief. I turned over, staring up to the sky with a smile.

Then something wrapped around my ankles, yanking me up into the air as another….tentacle I believe, wrapped around my arms and pinned them together above my head. I squirmed of course, mostly because I knew I was going to die and I did not want to. It had its face right on mine, breathing that foul smell all over me. I was staring into its eyes when the tentacles started tugging…

Tugging me in half.

I could feel my muscles straining to hold together but my screams of agony and best effort of struggling did nothing. My squirming was nothing to this monster. It kept slowly pulling until, with a wet pop! and spray of blood, as well as other bodily fluids, multiple snapping and a single, haunting crack! It dropped me on the pavement...in two pieces.

All my innards dropped and the pain was indescribable. I was staring at my separated body, horror in my face. I could still feel, and could completely see my stomach pulse, my organs twitch in the sudden release. There was much more room than they normally had.

I was completely ignoring the thing that did it till it leaned down and placed a hand on my dropping…well, where my lower abdomen had been. The feeling, that vacuum and awful feeling, began and this time I just could not fight it.

My whole existence disappeared into that thing.