Of Monsters and Humanity: The Genesis

Chapter 74 - Terra

Three days after....

It was horrifying to realize that Xander's screams were familiar to my ears.

I was sitting on the white attic bed, looking over old sketches in a notebook and waiting for Xander to return to my room when I started to hear it. Immediately, I bolted from the attic and through the manor. I followed the sound of Kerensa's droning voice, Alistair's hollered pleas, and Xander's angry screams. I found myself in the kitchen, standing with three wendigos.

Two of them looked terrified as they stared up at the third angry one. Xander's body was shaking. I gasped as I stared up at his stature at least a foot taller than what I remembered it being. His limbs were long. His skin was greying like a decaying corpse.

"Xander?" I whispered.

Alistair and Kerensa's faces were exact: horrified and petrified. They both stared into my eyes as if breaking either of their gazes would trigger something horrible to happen.

As I shifted my confused, stoney eye contact from Kerensa to Alistair, I realized that another pair of eyes were staring at me.

I swallowed.... And looked up.

Standing now three feet taller than me, Xander's black oculi glared down into my eyes.

My breath rushed from my lungs and my body went cold. I felt like I was in the Pit again when Xander tried to commit suicide. This wasn't him--this was the beast.

Xander's shoulders curled back as he stood straight up, though his eyes never faltered from mine. I kept mine completely open as I stared into the eyes of the beast. I calmed my body: my heartbeat, my breathing. Anything could trigger a response. I couldn't move unless I had cover.

"Terra," Alistair spoke slowly and quietly, his knees bent as he stood at the ready, his gaze faltering between Xander and me, "slowly walk away. Go towards the front of the property...and wait at the end of the driveway. Can you do that?"

Xander seemed to hear none of it. He turned his head slowly to the side, though his eye contact never faltered. I felt like I was being challenged. The room was silent other than Xander's heavy, angry breathing.

His skin began to turn even more pale. I felt like I was staring at a growing, dying creature, as the angle between our gazes continuously changed. His lips tightened over his mouth and his skin tightened over his bones. I could hear his skin moving itself around the surface of Xander's body. There was a slight, sickening tear as the creature opened its mouth, a grin shred to shred up his cheeks. A Cheshire grin of bloody, pale skin on his face. There was a gruesome crack as he shifted his jaw from side to side.... And then his entire jaw hung from his face, lengthening and widening the Glasgow smile of black blood. Through the broken, inky-black-blood, gory, horrific scene of the bottom half of his face I saw long, threatening teeth. His black, feral eyes never left mine. His dead skin stretched across his growing bones as his body contorted--his legs shifted back and there was a loud tearing as his jeans broke apart. His legs weren't as they were before--they were longer, hind legs.

I wasn't looking at Xander. I was looking at a monster.

And he was looking down at me. There was a curiosity in the creature's gaze. It tilted its head to the side as runny, inky black blood fell onto the white floor of the kitchen. I swallowed as its gaze looked me over. A repulsive, stomach-churning stench filled the entire room coming straight from the creature. It smelled like death and decay--like a grave robbery or a murder scene. Like corruption and cannibalism.

"I--I can't," I managed to whisper out. It was barely audible.

The creature's teeth suddenly parted, and a long black tongue licked the open wounds around its face. The black blood collected around the tongue before it receded back into the creature's mouth. The wounds were left open, though no longer bleeding. The creature was taller than anyone standing in the room. It was growing taller and out of control. A tall, god-like skeleton. A corpse.