The Lies They Told Us About Balance

III

I don't know what suicidal thought crossed my mind when I heard him, but instead of turning and run for dear life, I went through the bush standing completely exposed to the creature.

I was so out of my mind that I forgot that I was still holding my breath, so I expired and found my words.

- " I was heading home, then I heard someone screaming."

- " So you thought the clever thing to do was to come closer and find out the source?" - he asked me grinning widely, and I was now sure it was mocking me.

I looked to the body lying down and noticed it was a woman, that was still alive, since she was staring at me with watery eyes. It was a whisper, but I heard it clearly.

- "Help... Me..."

My eyes widened at her plead, and I was about to say something, but my voice got caught in my throat when all of a sudden the woman's body arched and I could hear her bones c***k. It happened so fast that I didn't see it coming, and it made my insides stir, bile rising to my mouth.

- " Humans..." - it said - " So weak and temporary."

I couldn't stop looking at it, contemplating the body, the life it just took without even blinking or regretting.

- " You seem distressed, but not desperate..." - it stated whilst coming in my direction in a very crippled way - " Aren't you afraid?"

I said nothing, instead let it come to me since it was the only thing I could do. When we were face to face I could smell it, a putrid and horrible stench that was hardly bearable. It's face was also very burnt, I could tell now. He made a move to touch my neck with it's hands, and when it did something happened.

It's face became distant and all I saw were flames; in between them fragments of images would pop, I could smell blood, urine and tears; I heard bones cracking, screams and finally, a name.

When I came back to my senses, it wasn't there anymore.

I looked around, I could breath easy now and the trees were back to it's grey undertone, alive. I knew what I was looking for, an evidence of what happened before, trying to figure out if I really experienced that or if my mind was playing tricks on me.

I succumbed and fell to my knees, throwing out the little I ate in the afternoon. I stopped only when nothing else would come out, but I wouldn't stop trembling. The sounds, smells and fragments of the previous events were too present to be an illusion, even if nothing made any sense, I knew it was real and it scared me to death.

I couldn't stay there any longer, the more I looked for something, the more frantic I felt, and nothing good would come out of it. So I did what I originally was doing, I went home.

To think that I was face to face with an unexplainable situation was making me doubt everything I believed. I am not a gullible person, I used to think that all phenomenon had a plausible explanation, a scientific reason, so I could sleep peacefully and relaxed. Right now I was paranoid. Not only did I see something that I know I shouldn't, but that could bring consequences. And that thing did something to me, that vision was so vivid that I could feel it craved in my memories, only to remember it over and over again.