LILA
“You think you’re special,” Hannah growled as she stepped toward me.
Something dark and wet rested in her hands. At first, it looked like nothing more than mud scooped from the ground, thick and heavy between her fingers, but the longer I stared at it, the less natural it seemed. The substance moved in slow, unsettling pulses, bubbling and sliding over itself as if it were breathing.
My body refused to move.
Every instinct screamed at me to turn and run, yet my feet remained planted to the ground. The darkness around us pressed close, swallowing the edges of the world until only Hannah and the strange mass in her hands existed.
The mud writhed.
Slowly, horribly, it began to change shape.
My heart hammered in my chest as the shapeless lump stretched upward, its surface rippling.
