Monochild

The Guardian

The huge creature lifted Mono off the ground with seemingly no effort. Almost as if Mono were a leather ball that could be thrown away. Mono tried to charge the purple flame, channeling as much emotion as possible into the attack. As if already sensing this, the large creature slammed Mono down with a thud, the interruption making the flame dissipate.

Mono quickly realized that this creature was not normal and seemed to understand shadow. Rather than charging a flame, Mono tried to resort to its normal tendrils. Lashing out of its body, Mono managed to slightly gore the creature. The monster instinctively dropped Mono, screeching in surprise and anger.

Mono quickly turned around and grabbed the amulet. Its purple glow reacted almost immediately, shining just a little brighter. Suddenly, Mono was grabbed and shoved into a strange hole, dropping the amulet. Light was quickly vanishing and before long, Mono was trapped in a void surrounded by thousands of holes ranging from different sizes and oblong shapes. It was a trypophobic nightmare.

Mono quickly swam around the darkness searching for an exit. Mono found many different objects swimming around and even... is that a body? In fact, there were many brutally gored bodies all being dissolved and partly intact. As Mono started to feel a sizzle on the tips of its stubby legs, it started to swim faster.

It decided to exit through one of the strange pulsating holes. But there was only darkness and thousands of other holes waiting on the other side. The sizzle on Mono’s legs started to intensify, turning into a searing pain. It didn’t feel like a burn... it was more like a thousand needles pricking holes, slowly hollowing out your body until you are nothing left.

Mono kept swimming through the holes only to be spat out into the same void, over and over again. As Mono kept swimming, it noticed that the number of holes started to increase, the pulsating of each growing faster and unpleasant. Mono didn’t want to look at them, so it turned to the dead bodies all around. But they too started to contort and slowly hollow. Thousands of needle-sized holes appeared all around them, pulsating like a heartbeat.

No matter where Mono looked, there were just more and more and more holes everywhere. Even holes started to form on Mono’s body. Everything felt like nothing and nothing felt like everything. It was just holes. Only the infinite vastness of these holes.

Before Mono was about to accept defeat, it tried one last thing. It wasn’t even sure it would work. Mono tried to charge up the purple flame in its vision. The darkness around seemed to want to dissipate the flame, but Mono wouldn’t let that happen. The flame grew larger and hotter until it lit up the entire abyss with purple light.

Then, the fire was aimed not at one, but every single hole Mono could see. The heat was so intense that Mono was forced to let go to avoid being burned. A physical burst of purple flame appeared, like the flame in its vision came to life. The flame evolved into a flurry of tendrils and pierced through the darkness. Every hole suddenly contracted in pain. A thick grey substance flooded the area and Mono was sucked into thousands of different holes before being spat onto the hard cave ground.

Mono managed to get up and turned around to face the creature. The same thick grey liquid was seeping out of its outer holes as if bleeding. It faced Mono and gave a terrible screech. It pounced forward faster than Mono could react and pinned Mono down. Taking its long huge hands, it started to batter Mono over and over again.

Suddenly a much larger barrage of tendrils grabbed the creature from behind and threw it to the side. As Vanchana emerged, the creature quickly retaliated, pounding Vanchana to the ground. As they both brutally fought, Mono took advantage of the situation to grab the amulet and run for it. Whatever this creature needed the amulet for didn’t matter to Mono. Clearly fending off an angel had to be more important than whatever that thing needed it for.

Suddenly a hole was ripped open through the air, and out came the huge creature once again. Vanchana’s tendrils also came through the portal, but the creature quickly sealed it, cutting them off. Mono charged the flame and blasted the creature over and over, staggering it. Mono bolted for the cave exit, but the stubby legs could only run so fast before being grabbed by the creature and flung back inside.

The creature rebounded and was about to take the amulet before Vanchana hollered. “Hey! Look what I have!” In Vanchana’s grasp was a small thing. It seemed to be a smaller version of the huge creature. Mono quickly understood this creature was not mindless. It was both a guardian and a mother.

“If you don’t let us go, then it’s your little one who loses their precious life.”

The Guardian shrieked, scrambling forward, but Vanchana’s tendrils tightened around the tiny infant. She quickly halted and backed away.

“I suggest you choose. Either lose the amulet, or lose your kid,” Vanchana proposed menacingly.

The Guardian didn’t seem to know what to do. She got on her knees, very still. She clearly hated them. She turned around and glared directly at Mono with hatred for a long moment before standing up and taking a step back.

Mono wasn’t sure what to think. The amulet was necessary, but this felt wrong somehow. Maybe even cruel.

“There we go. I knew you’d choose wisely.” Vanchana chuckled before reluctantly handing back the infant. The Guardian cradled her child, staring at the two shadows begrudgingly.

Mono then got up and ran as fast as its stubby legs would take it. Just before Mono could reach the entrance, Vanchana’s beefy tendril erupted from the ground and grabbed Mono, almost strangling the little one.

“Hey! Don’t think I’m done with you...” Vanchana’s coiled-up body slithered right out of the ground. “Aren’t you just a little ungrateful twerp, now? Would you care to explain what that all was back there?”

Mono struggled against the coiled, rough grip of the tendrils. It then quickly charged the purple flame and kept blasting Vanchana over and over until Mono was finally put down.

“Okay, okay. Sorry,” apologized Vanchana. “Perhaps we should get over that. After all, it’s over anyway, right? We got your stupid artifact.”

Mono looked at the gleaming amulet. It radiated with a magnificent purple glow, similar to the flames in Mono’s vision.

Before they had any time to celebrate, a portal suddenly tore open and the huge guardian came lunging at them both, clearly not done. This time it attacked Vanchana first, who was taken off guard and pinned to the ground. Mono blasted the guardian multiple times until she finally let go. The creature quickly ripped open another portal and disappeared.

“She’s gonna be ambushing us like that, isn’t she?” sighed Vanchana.

Mono helped Vanchana up. Together they ran, searching for some refuge. This was a horrible situation. They were already being hunted by a scary death angel, and now they were also being hunted by a huge pale monster who gives people trypophobia. It’s truly just absurd, the way things play out.

As the duo braved the brambles and the thorny bushes, they found a strange wooden shack just sitting there. They approached the shack out of curiosity, making out some of the details. A large wooden sign was placed on top, and Mono had no idea how, but it could somehow read the words on the sign.

Penni’s Explosives.

It was then Mono noticed that there was a cut-out hole in the shack and a strange green creature was staring at something in its hand. Clearly this was a*****e of some sort. At first Mono was disinterested but suddenly had an idea.

It waddled over to the creature, who quickly brightened their expression.

“Hi, I’m Penni! Welcome to my explosives store! What can I get you?”

The green creature was actually covered in a sort of green fuzz. She had two black beady eyes and a massive underbite. In fact, you could even say that she was smiling with her lower teeth.

Mono looked at all the explosives in the background and saw a huge pack that had a whole bundle of dynamite. Mono grew a tendril and pointed to it.

“Oh, I can absolutely... wait, hold on. Not to judge by size, but aren’t you a little uh... young? Where’s your parents?” asked Penni.

Mono wanted to blast her to pieces and just take the dynamite at this point, but that would just be doing more harm. Mono walked over to Vanchana and signaled over.

“What, you want me to?... Fine.”

Penni looked over at Vanchana and quickly got the huge box ready.

“That’ll be 200 exoyins.”

Vanchana just stared. “Lady, I have never heard of such a currency, can we please just take it?”

Penni’s expression went serious. “You either pay or get lost. What’s it gonna b—”

Penni’s words fell short as Vanchana swooned her with a blast.

“Here’s your dynamite. Now what could you possibly need with 100 sticks of dynamite?” asked Vanchana in annoyance.

Mono gleefully took the box with a flick of a tendril and started to unpack it.