The smooth, featureless head of the monster swayed slightly. It had shiny pink skin, like a massive worm.
“You just going to watch, or are you going to help me?” Chase whispered in my head. The rain, the darkness, the towering inhuman thing, all of it made me remember that night. My pulse quickened and I fought the urge to run. The monster didn’t move. It waited.
Think. I’d survived that night. I could do it again.
The creature’s face split horizontally and it took a deep shuddering breath. When it breathed out, I felt its warm wetness on my face. I’d expected teeth, but the mouth had none. Those claws more than made up for that. They were a cloudy white colour, like fingernails. Four at the end of each arm. They slid in and out slightly with the monster’s breathing.
I shivered. There was no way. This wasn’t the same as that night. The creature had been distracted, focused on Chase who was in its grip. I hadn’t even been the one to kill it, just distract it. Besides, a knife wouldn’t take this thing down. I somehow doubted even a machine gun could. Maybe I should run…
But those legs, while they lacked proper feet, they were thick and powerful and the claws gave it a raptor-like appearance. I suspected that if I turned my back I’d be chased down and mauled. The rain was coming down hard now and the cold was seeping into my skin.
I had to act. My remaining energy was fading, although the burst of fear had helped somewhat with my weakness. Suddenly, the thought of defeating this thing quickly and going to help Nell felt like a pipe dream. Now I hoped that she would come save me. Searching for her presence, I found nothing. No press of emotion, which would have felt reassuring now.
I was alone.
Antlers bristled out of my skin, forming a full shroud. The crackling of bone, sounding almost like wood being tossed into a fire, got the monster’s attention. The pink, fleshy head swayed towards me and the muscles tightened, claws extending fully. White branches curled around me, completing the armour. I left no room for movement, instead doubling down, weaving smaller branches into the gaps left by the first growth.
It took a step and let out a breath that hissed as it passed through the mouth. I remained where I was and sent out a forking branch to strike at the Tongue. The spear stabbed into its shoulder and it reared back in pain. It swiped a powerful arm, annihilating the branch. As it turned, I got a better view of the shrivelled, yet still-living body of the man who had been injected. He was indeed still connected to the Tongue. The tail of the Tongue started wide where it connected to its main mass, continuously getting narrower until the portion of the tail that went into the man’s mouth was small enough to fit. Barely. The man’s jaw was stretched to its limit, his mouth full of pink tissue, with no room to breathe. His eyes were solely focused on me.
Concentrate. I sent out another branch. The Tongue reacted to this one, slashing at the branch before it hit, shattering it into tiny fragments that clacked on the concrete.
I needed a goal, some path to victory. My eyes moved again to the tail of the Tongue. What would happen if I severed the connection? I grew excited. Perhaps I could save him. Regardless of that, it was much more attainable than somehow killing this monstrosity outright.
I sent out a third branch as a distraction, ignoring a sharp pang of hunger that began as soon as the antler emerged. The creature smashed it pre-emptively. I broke the joints of my armour and dashed around the Tongue’s side. It reacted quickly, I saw the arm move and jumped. The claw rent the air beneath me as I sailed and landed on the Tongue’s shoulder. From there I aimed for the tail and jumped-
Something slammed into my side. The rain hit my face in strange ways as I tumbled through the air. My head hit the pavement and exploded with pain.
Ignore it. I forced myself to rise, unable to see straight but instinct told me I needed to move now. But the Tongue had not followed in pursuit. I could see its body as a pink smear in the darkness. My winded lungs finally kicked back into action and I sucked in a breath. Everything snapped back into clarity and the pain became more localized. Warm blood dripped down my face. I touched my forehead and found a sharp piece of bone embedded there. I winced and pulled it out. It wasn’t deep, but head wounds bled a lot regardless. I didn’t know why the Tongue was acting so cautiously, but I’d been given a chance to think and I needed to use it.
The beast was crouched low, the claws barely touching the pavement. Its neck. I could see now how similar it was to the other appendages. It might as well have been a starfish, each appendage was equally as long as the others. It had used its neck to bat me out of the air. The creature wayed to one side with its whole body, then slowly stepped towards me with predatory litheness.
I was out of time to recover. I grunted and Shaped my armour again. It had been badly broken around my chest and face. Thankfully I hadn’t suffered more than bruises and small wounds from the shrapnel of my own armor breaking. I wouldn’t be so lucky if it caught me with its claws. I weaved smaller branches, focusing on making the weave tighter, more intricate. Hunger hit me hard and my legs wobbled enough that I fell to one knee.
The Tongue was a step away from reaching me. The man connected to it followed behind, eyes tracking me with hate.
I forced myself back to my feet as the Tongue lunged, stretching out a scything arm. I jumped backwards, spinning as the claw raked across my armour, spraying shards of bone into the river. The other arm followed and I threw myself to the side. The claw gouged the concrete, narrowly missing my legs. I shouted and painfully forced my arm to create more bone, spiralling it into a sharpened point around my arm, then plunging it into the Tongue’s limb. Blood spurted from the wound, hitting me in the face. Hunger roared as I took a dazed step backwards and the warmth of the blood quickly left as the fire ate.
The pink mass that loomed over me shifted, revealing the inhuman gaze of the man. There was a blur of motion. What felt like a hook caught me and lifted me off the ground, throwing me airborne. A moment later I slammed into the ground. I didn’t feel any pain, but my body told me that all was not well. A chilling cold had taken hold of me. I sat up and saw the two terrible cuts that ran across my right arm and shoulder. The flesh hung open and everything was already drenched in a carmine red. My head felt light. How had I bled so quickly? There was red everywhere, on my clothes and staining the grass around me. I pitched forward, sinking my face into the grassy patch that ran parallel to the concrete path and the river.
Could I stem the blood loss? It was so cold. Surely you always knew it would end like this? You were warned and you chose this path anyway. The thought startled me back from the brink.
The raindrops were heavy, driving me down into the dirt. Was the Tongue about to kill me? I couldn’t raise my head to find out.
The deluge of rain was matched by a sudden outpour of emotion.
I’m here. I’m here. Warm relief flooded my chest as I felt Nell’s attention snap to me. It felt like she was right next to me, hugging me and covering my wounds with her warm fingers.
I groaned and pushed myself up to my knees. The Tongue was still several feet away. It slashed wildly at the air, as if in a blind rage but it wasn’t getting any closer.
The skin at my shoulder was puckered and stained red, but a new colour stood out. Threads of green fibre had been woven into my wounds, stitching them up. The wounds were still bad, but they had been closed at least. The ground around me was barren, like the grass had been uprooted in a perfect circle.
The Tongue continued to thrash. I was confused. I hadn’t hurt it that badly. It was still using the limb I had stabbed. Why was it so enraged now? The monster silently raged, throwing its pink limbs around like it was fighting the rain. A small movement beyond the monster caught my eye.
The man. He was picking himself off the ground and was having trouble getting up. It wasn’t that surprising given the large weight that was attached to his head…
Why is he here? That question seemed important. Even as I remembered the Pianist, that bulging eyed monster with numbing hands, I hadn’t been struck by the oddity of it. The Pianist didn’t have a human attached to it. Why did the Tongue? The thoughts fell into place, why the man was still there and why the monster was reacting like it was. Both had the same answer.
The man returned to his feet and with effort, he raised his head to look towards me. The moment his eyes locked with mine, the Tongue moved. Muscles rippled as it drew closer. I stood my ground. The steps were drowned out by the rain.
The Tongue drew back to strike, slow and deliberate. I wasn’t fooled, it could move lightning fast when it wanted to. Instead of retreating, I moved parallel, putting the Tongue between the man and I. Then silently, I stopped, bracing for the blow. The Tongue swiped experimentally at the spot I would have been if I had continued running.
My theory was confirmed. The Tongue couldn’t see me. It was like a puppet, controlled by the man. It was a crucial weakness, one that surprised me by existing. I can’t think of these things the same as a dangerous animal. Evolution played no part in its creation.
The man stepped back into view with stilted movements, like a doll. He zeroed in on me again and the Tongue attacked. I jumped to the left as a claw swept rain against my face, barely missing. Now he was cut off from seeing me yet again. I danced a little further left, circling the Tongue, before halting as I felt a strange urge. I needed to be on the grass.
It wasn’t intuition. Nell was participating, from however far away she was. I needed to put my faith in her judgement. Stepping back onto the grass, I watched the Tongue sway its upper body so that the man could peer around its side.
Its leg muscles coiled with energy. Now. The emotion was both mine and Nell’s. The Tongue began to leap and then all was obscured by a rustling wall of dark green. I threw myself to the side, pushing through the rapidly growing vegetation and falling to the ground.
The ground shook as the Tongue landed where I had been. The insanely tall grass fell on it, wrapping around the Tongue, pulling it just a little bit further so that the man tripped and fell.
I ran, concentrating on forming a Shape I hadn’t used before. I slid on wet concrete and planted a foot on the thinnest part of the tail, raising my tool. It was an axe, or as close to one as I could get. The blade was formed from hundreds of tiny points, lined in a row creating a serrated edge. The handle was my arm itself, with the axe head near my wrist.
I brought the axe down and it sank into the muscle. Blood spattered the blade and my arm. I ripped the axe free, trying to cut through, but even at its thinnest point I’d only cut about a fourth of the way through.
The tail whipped upwards, carrying me and the man into the sky. I clung on to the tail tightly. Rain beat painfully against my face as the tail moved with brain-rattling speed. Several times I thought I had lost my grip, only to barely catch on to something else. When the world ceased shaking, I was dazed and simply kept holding on.
Then I felt the warm breath against my neck. Turning, I saw that the Tongue was standing over me, claws poised above my head like the sword of Damocles. Those weapons could stab straight through me and two other people and still have enough space left over to pick its teeth. If it had any teeth. My thoughts were beyond sluggish. Nell’s emotions all felt the same to me in my exhaustion. I had hit my limit long ago.
Why wasn’t I dead yet? My muddled brain mulled over the question, not coming to any answer, but I wasn’t gonna complain about the fact that I was still breathing.
Something stirred beneath me. I blearily looked and saw a hand laying on the concrete. Following the hand to an arm that protruded from underneath me. I tried to laugh and it ended up sounding more like a cough.
“Not keen on stabbing out your own eyes, huh,” I said, looking up at the Tongue as I lay on top of the man, my hands gripping his shirt. He struggled with his unnerving eyes never blinking, but he was too emaciated to pull away from me. The warmth of the tail pressed against my shoulder.
I covered the man’s eyes with my hand and climbed up onto the tail. Once my arm was fully extended I said, “You must be dizzy too. Try to aim well!” Then I lifted my hand and slapped the man before rolling further up the tail. The man’s head jerked up to see me and the claws plunged down. I threw myself off of the tail and heard a sickening sound like a butcher chopping the head off a chicken. Then a massive wet thud, followed by silence.
I rolled over and saw the collapsed body of the Tongue. It lay in a heap, looking like it had when it first emerged. Strings cut, a lifeless puppet.
I chuckled. A genuine laugh this time, borne out of relief. I couldn’t move a muscle. It felt like I had moved until the fibers had split apart.
Then I heard something sliding cross the concrete. Pauses punctuated by something dragging on the ground. It grew closer but I couldn’t even turn my head to see what it was.
A cold, wet hand slammed into my shoulder. Fingers dug in to pull itself up onto me and I felt the weight settle on top of me. Hands felt for my neck and finding it, they pressed down on my windpipe. A dark shadow choked me, punctuated by the whites of his eyes and the reddish-pink severed tongue that he sucked air through with a slurping noise. Rancid air brushed against my face as my vision swam.
I’d felled the beast, yet he still wanted me dead. My mind flipped the question over and over, finding no resolution. As the fire grew to an unbearable pain, demanding to eat the man’s fingers, I let myself think the thought that I’d been holding back. There is nothing human left here. His eyes had revealed that truth from the beginning. You. You are already…
“Already dead,” I croaked. “I’m s- sorry.”
I let the fire consume. The man’s hands sunk into my neck. Blood dripped onto my face from his cut tongue and sizzled there, letting puffs of vapour rise up like steam. It felt so good. For the first time, I didn’t hold back, not even a little. It was like the man was dipping his arms into acid.
He sank into me, face growing closer and closer as I embraced the hatred in his expression, then shut my eyes as it became too horrible to keep watching. All I felt was the warmth of his body draining into mine. I couldn’t say how much time had passed before I no longer heard his labored breaths or felt the warmth of his skin. When I opened my eyes, all that remained was his clothes. An empty white tee. A ripped pair of jeans. Expensive looking sneakers. Even the blood stains on the clothes had been sucked clean.
His hair was my colour and shaggy. I think he liked sneakers. I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to keep that in mind. Perhaps I wanted to remember him in some way. After all, I’d eaten him.
The rain would wash away the rest of the blood that ran in rivulets towards the channel. In the morning, there would be no proof that this night had ever happened. Only my memories would remain.