IX - Paige
Paige
screamed and stumbled backwards into the living room. Even in the dark she could see that there was something wrong
with the kitchen. Pots and pans
clattered to the floor as bubbles grew and warped along the walls, pushing
everything out of their way. The
bubbles moved as if something was pushing against them from the inside and
there was a noise, both organic and material, of pain and metal fatigue, which
hummed softly in the background.
Occasionally there were gasps, as if whatever lay beyond the walls was
hurting itself trying to escape, trying to breath.
They
glowed slightly, a kind of otherlight.
She
scrabbled across the floor away from the kitchen door, trying to bring herself
back to her feet. She had forgotten
about her husband now, only a strong fear, irrational yet made all too
rational, pulsed in her mind. She
breathed rapidly. Her heart pounded. Sweat broke out across her skin in ice
droplets.
And
then a bubble rose out of the floor in front of her, stretched like layers of
skin hiding an escaping parasite and then burst, showering her in pus. She screamed again, ran.
She
had seen it only as a vaguely humanoid shadow rising out of the floor, its skin
slick with birth fluids. She had turned
and leapt across the room trying to make for the door to the hall, hoping to
seal herself on the other side of it, to seal the creature in, but she tripped,
unable to see the low glass coffee table until it was smashing beneath her and
glass daggers were scratching her skin through her jeans.
There
was a high-pitched gasp behind her and she turned her head back to face the
shadow. It was rising up now to stand
like a human and its slick surface shimmered in the glow of the otherlight from
the kitchen. She saw a mouth that was
too big and eyes that were too small.
It moved like it was an alien in its own flesh, slow, jerky, unnatural.
She
climbed to her feet, trying to pick the glass out of her skin and as she did so
she heard the sounds of more bubbles bursting across the apartment, a terrible
sound, wet and loud. Then she was up
again and hobbling to the door. There
was a shriek behind her and then the door swung open only to slam shut again as
she passed through it. She flung
herself again the far wall of the corridor then slid down it, trailing the pus
from the creature's birth, and curled up, shivering on the floor, staring,
empty, at the door.
X - ???
He
watched the flames catch across the carpet, gave another brief glance in the
growing light to the marks spreading across the ceiling and then ran for the
door.
The
flames spread quickly. They traced wild
lines across the carpets and rugs which covered the floor as if fuelled by
petrol, poured by an artist. They were
faster than he was and two lines licked up the sides of the door as he was only
inches away. It burst into flames
instantly, singing his eyebrows and beard.
Lines of flame then began to encircle the walls, sealing him in from all
sides, crisscrossing the floor around him, drawing symbols that seemed familiar
to him.
Heat
built up in layers. He fell to his
knees and began to pray.
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