Chapter 2: Nightmares Come Alive
CH 2
Nightmares come alive
"You smell weird Ghoul, why you smell fresh?" When it finished speaking one of the entrails caught on his teeth fell to the ground with a grotesque slap.
"Fresh?" I choke out without realizing I just spoke to something from hell. I acknowledged it and now it was real. This thing was real, just as real as I was, just as real as the death in the air and the bodiless heads the thing grasped.
"You smells new. Like a baby, you smells like.." It stepped closer to me and its neck elongated across the room. This thing was going to eat me alive. I thought I wanted to die but not at the hands of this creature! "Yes! You smells like him, okay I go!" Its face or mouth thing spoke to me and its breath was hot on my face. It did something like a smile with the hundreds of jagged teeth and flesh stuck there. Its neck returned to normal which was definitely far from normal, but then it was gone. The heads dropped to the ground and rolled under a desk. The bloody mist in the air ceased, but all the damage remained.
Was that even real? Had I just seen and spoken to a creature from nightmares? It was gone and all of the proof along with it. Death lingered and the man behind me released a breath.
The hunger I had been running from swallowed me whole, the man was dead. He was dead. He was dead. Hungry hungry hungry. His soul peeled off of him confused and relieved. How did I know it was his soul? The shimmer and glow to his features, his body lying on the ground unmoving. My claws were through the soul in a second and without thinking I slurped in the sweet soul. The shivers of relief and disgust took over me. The emotions coated my esophagus and filled my energy. I could jump to the moon if I tried. The body that was now empty of all life sunk into itself. I wanted more. More soul, more death, more. My tongue rubbed against my teeth jagged and sharper than any knives I knew as a human. I am a killing machine. I need more
I need more.
No. Please.
No.
no.
I was not superstitious but I saw souls leaving bodies and demons from hell. I am either insanely crazy, very possible, or this is real. The reality was worse because I could not ignore the fact of what I witnessed.
But I would witness so much more in the future…
I had to do something now, evacuate the crime scene and run away from the horror. The people around me in the office still alive were still shivering in fear at me. They stayed under their desk and the smell of blood and pee was strong in my nose. Someone was whispering into their phone, "Please, believe me, there are monsters here in the building. Tell my kids that I love them. It is some sort of monster that eats people. There are people dead here!"
I jumped out of the window where I came in to stop hearing the last wishes of the dying.
A new voice entered my ears. Cool and crisp like a breath of air. "You have caused a mess ghoul". A man stood there tall before me and sturdy as steel. "Where are your friends, did you do this alone"?
I didn't know how to answer the man, my voice would not leave my throat. I was afraid if I opened my mouth I would try to devour him. He didn't accept my silence, his scarred face grimaced. "Leave creature, I banish you!" A bright light flashed before my eyes and burned through my skull. It was one of the most painful things that I had ever felt. The man was gone, I was gone. In some white space too bright for my eyes to open, the air was growing hotter and hotter with each second that passed. What had that man done, was he a preacher? A shaman? God?
The brightness ended and I was left in silence. I could feel myself on solid ground now, I hadn't died yet. Not sure if that was good or bad. What had that man said, he banished me? To where?
The space around me was dark and cold. I could see in the darkness but not far. Drops of cold water splashed on my skin. The sensation was new to me, I had not felt things in this body. I had not had time to process it. I had not wanted to. Now I was in a cave and darkness was my only companion. A slow popping noise interrupted my thoughts and my eyes traced the noise. My sight was enhanced to be a predator. I could see the vibrations in the air coming from my right. A dark pool was sunken into the ground. It looked like tar bubbling up and begging me to enter. The popping noise echoed in the cave, without the noise of my breath the noise was haunting me. Pop like the sound of skin ripping, pop like the heads dropping on the ground, pop of my bones and skin changing when I became a monster. A noise that I had never heard echoed out of my body. A screech of fury and pain, uncontrolled vocal cords clashing. I could not stop, much like I could not control my actions and hunger. Now my pain leaked out through my mouth with noise, and then with vomit, and then blood. My body was rejecting itself, purging me of my sins.
I scrambled around the cave trying to find a way into the sunlight. The darkness was where monsters like me thrived and I wanted to die. I needed to be in the light like a human, I needed to wake up from this nightmare. Never-ending darkness, never-ending nightmare.
There was no exit from the cave, there was only the bubbling pit. No, not that way. I need a new way. Yes, a new way, I can dig, and I can create a new path! I have the strength to use it. My laughs echoed as I used my talons to cut through limestone, gravel, roots, and stone. I was not a monster or a human I was a power shovel, a tool, a mission. Escape, escape, escape, my talons broke off and bloodied, my fingers bent and dirtied, but then there was the sky. Not the sunlight and brightness I was reaching for, but darkness and rain.
I woke up on the gravel soaked with rain and sweat. My back was aching as I tried to sit up. My anatomy was off. I didn't realize but my anatomy was right, normal, human. Relief hit me and pushed me back to the ground. Rocks were pushing at my skin and piercing me but I was delighted by it. The pain and discomfort felt so human. So normal and deserved. The last day must have been a nightmare and a vivid one at that. The aches in my body must have been from falling asleep in the woods. It all must be explained by something. Something normal. I've never been one for drinking but maybe last night I was sad. Yes, my mother died. I went over the edge of sadness. Yes.
My mother died?
A piercing pain went through my temples and I breathed.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone