THE BEINGS
1179 Words
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The day started like all the others.
Gray skies. A strange, electric pressure in the air. The kind that makes the hairs on your arms stand up before the thunder ever rolls in.
Julian felt it the moment he stepped outside.
The hum in the back of his mind was louder now. Angrier. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was coming
—something he couldn’t stop.
By mid-afternoon, the sky cracked open. Thunder snarled in the distance, and rain poured down in sheets. Students ran for shelter, laughing, shouting, pulling their jackets over their heads. But Julian didn’t move.
He stood in the quad like a statue, drenched, eyes unfocused.
The world felt… thinner today. Like a veil was stretching—and would soon snap.
He didn’t know what would happen when it did.
“Come on, man. Don’t make me drag your corpse to the gym. You are going.”
Aaron’s voice cut through the haze like a lifeline. Always too loud, always unreasonably enthusiastic.
Julian blinked, returning to the moment.
“Aaron, I’m not—”
“Nope. No ‘not tonight,’ no cryptic emo bullshit. It’s prom. You need to be around people who aren’t dead in your dreams.”
Julian almost smiled. Almost.
Aaron grinned. “I even got you a damn tie. And yes, it's black. Because I know you're allergic to color.”
Julian sighed. “This is a terrible idea.”
“Those are my favorite kind. Let’s go.”
The gym had been transformed, sort of.
String lights hung like stars on the ceiling, casting a soft glow over the sea of cheap tuxedos and rented dresses.
Music thumped from the speakers, echoing in Julian’s chest. Laughter and chatter filled the air.
For a moment—just a moment—he almost felt normal. He leaned against the wall, watching Aaron awkwardly dance with a girl whose name he’d already forgotten. People twirled. They cheered.
They lived.
Julian closed his eyes.
And then—
Everything stopped.
The music cut out.
The lights flickered.
And the air turned cold.
People murmured, confused. Some pulled out their phones.
Then the void came.
It didn’t walk. It didn’t move like anything that should exist. It unfolded from the center of the gym, peeling reality back like wet paper.
The floor cracked open in a spiral of shadow and out poured a black smoke so thick it swallowed light. It hissed. It groaned. It hungered. From within that smoke, a figure emerged—not born, but assembled.
Nine feet tall at least, its limbs were wrong—too many joints, the angles reversed. Its body looked like something wearing human skin as a costume, stretched too thin, too loose. The flesh was grayish-purple, veined with black rot. Its arms dragged across the floor, dragging claws that sparked against the tiles.
But its face—if it could be called that—was what tore into Julian's sanity.
It had no eyes.
Only an open mouth, enormous and jagged, filled with hundreds of shattered, twitching teeth that constantly shifted positions—clicking, grinding, whispering things no one could hear. Blood dripped from its gums even when it didn’t move.
The moment he saw it, something deep inside Julian broke.
He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t move.
Panic erupted all around him. Screaming. Shoving. People ran for the exits, trampling each other. But Julian stood frozen—heart hammering, chest tight.
It was looking at him.
The creature glided toward him, limbs twitching, mouth widening like it was smiling.
Then—
“Julian, MOVE!”
Aaron tackled him from the side, knocking him to the floor.
And in that instant, Julian saw it happen.
The thing didn’t hesitate. Its claws speared straight through Aaron’s chest, lifting him off the ground like a ragdoll. Blood sprayed, catching in the light like dark stars.
Aaron didn’t scream.
He just looked down at Julian from above, impaled, bleeding out—and smiled.
“Told you... " his hoarse voice broke, Aaron continue.
"I’d always drag you out of hell, i***t…”
Piercing the sound so intense, Julian couldn't only stare at Aaron body.
That sound left Julian in a gasp of grief.
A flash of memory:
The day Aaron found him sitting on the rooftop freshman year.
“I don’t want to talk,” Julian had said.
Aaron sat anyway.
“Cool. Then let’s not talk together.”
Their late-night coffee runs.
Aaron forcing him to watch bad horror movies.
Julian laughing—really laughing—for the first time in years.
Aaron, who stayed. Who never asked for more than what Julian could give.
Gone.
Julian screamed, crawling to his side, holding his friend’s body as the monster loomed.
And something inside him responded.
The grief wasn’t just grief. The pain wasn’t just pain.
It was rage.
And power.
A low, pulsing hum grew in his ears, louder and louder—until it wasn’t sound anymore. It was vibration. Pressure. A heartbeat that wasn’t just his own.
Shadows bled from his skin—alive, coiling, reaching outward like living smoke. They wrapped around his arms, spiraling up his neck. Something inside him wanted to get out. Something dark.
The creature paused.
It felt it too.
But before it could take form, before Julian could rise with that power, the creature lunged, a massive claw closing around him.
Pain. Lightning pain. Bones cracking, soul fracturing.
He couldn’t scream.
And then—
“Get your filthy claws off him!”
A silver arc carved through the smoke with a howl of energy.
The monster reared back, screeching—a guttural, demonic sound that shattered windows.
Carmella.
She descended like the reaper herself.
Wearing a short, pleated black skirt that fluttered in the chaos, thigh-high boots laced tight, and a cropped leather jacket covered in strange silver runes. Her eyes burned like molten silver. And in her hands—
A scythe forged of black metal and flickering light, the blade pulsing like a heartbeat.
She danced around the monster, moving with elegance and precision. Her skirt spun with each step, revealing the sigils inked on her legs, glowing faintly with arcane light.
“Touch him again, and I’ll take your head too.” Her voice was steel.
The creature lunged.
Carmella met it with a whirlwind of strikes—her scythe slicing through its limbs, severing tendons, tearing through its otherworldly flesh. The monster screeched, black ichor spraying like oil across the gym floor.
Julian, half-conscious, watched through blurred vision. The pain in his body was fading into numbness.
He heard her voice, faintly, as if underwater.
“You weren’t supposed to wake up yet.”
“...He’s dead,” Julian whispered. “Aaron’s dead. I couldn’t—”
Carmella knelt beside him, her expression uncharacteristically soft for just a second.
“Damn, I was late.”
His vision darkened. Her face was the last thing he saw.
Black hair tangled in rainwater and blood. Silver eyes burning like fire.
Then—
nothing.
- Writer
