Harry pauses and holds his breath. The creature's head bobbles in front of him, consuming his vision. He stares straight into those many milky eyes. Within them, he sees swirls of other worlds, glittering with life, and hears a humming of a far off sound—a melody that sounds familiar and strange at the same time.
The creature reels back, suddenly and sharply. Harry hears the click of a rifle. He turns to see Mike taking aim. Time slows; he can't breathe. He tries to yell, but the words die in his throat. The creature bellows a fierce scream that rings against his ears. One long, stout arm swings wide and collides with Mike’s body, flinging him far from sight. His scream follows him as he flies.
Harry sees the rest of the group crouched far away, but not out of reach. The shadow of the creature's arm falls over them, and he finds his voice, screaming for them to run. They scramble, darting left and right. The creature's arm slams the shore with the force of a crash, parting the people like waves in the ocean. His ears are still ringing; he doesn't hear their screams, but he sees the strings of blood and gore streaming from the creature's arm as it lifts and slams down for another strike.
A guttural, bowel-emptying scream erupts behind him. He turns to see Evie fall to her knees, wailing as she clutches her stomach. His own stomach rolls in response to her pain. He watches as the creature's arm hovers over the survivors. They run, fruitlessly, to escape its impossible length. Lynn and Marv sprint toward the horizon, and Julia drags Owen along with them. He's crying, stumbling as he is dragged away.
The creature releases a wail akin to the pain in Evie's scream but edged with a hard anger. It's other arm swings, low and to the right. Harry dodges to the side, avoiding its swipe, but as he rights himself among the shifting sand, he feels a tremor beneath his feet, a sizable earthquake as the creature's other arm hits its mark.Â
His ears pop. The world hums its silence in his ears. He can't turn; he can't look to see the four bodies he knows now lay in fragments across the beach. Evie's scream tells him enough, and her voice scratches against his skin like rusted nails, sinking deep to his bones.Â
He forces himself to look, to find Evie. A shadow falls over her as she sprints along the beach, slowed by the sand, desperate to reach the bodies on the other side of the gap—to reach their son now lying lifeless as a smear of red against the golden sand.
Panic strikes through him like lightning. He runs for her. He hears the creature yell, feels the weight of its arm bearing down on them. Yet he continues. He throws himself forward, clutching his pistol with one hand and reaching to her with the other, outstretched and yearning. His body collides with her, shoving them both to the ground. She squirms beneath him, but he pins her flat and rolls over, aiming to the sky with both hands steady in their grip against the pistol.
His mouth parts, and he releases a scream he doesn't recognize. He squeezes the trigger and empties the clip into the creature's arm. It stops; it growls from the pain. Dark-colored blood, iridescent and slick like oil, drips from the wounds, coating his body. The blood feels cold and slimy against his skin. The creature screams in rage and swings its other arms toward them.
Harry shuts his eyes and braces for impact—for death. He sees the stars beyond the darkness, the brilliant sun he would see no more, the crisp air he would no longer breathe. He lets himself weep in his final moments; not for his death but for the death of his team, of his son—of a life ripped away by his own hubris.
A feeling of serenity consumes him, calms him. He opens his eyes and sees his body bathed in the black, inky blood of the giant. But there is no shadow looming over them. The creature is gone, vanished as if it were never here.
He rolls forward, lifting his body off of her. Evie pushes herself onto her knees and vomits onto the crystalline sand. Her palms are red and speckled with dents from the grit as she lifts them to wipe the flood of tears from her cheeks. He looks toward the horizon, to the clear skies overhead and the red sun shining brilliantly; he cannot look at the devastation and death; he cannot bear it.
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Today I woke up fairly early so that I could be ready by eight. I didn’t know where I was going, because it was a surprised. The thing is, I suck at being surprised. By that I mean, I find a way to figure out and ruin every surprise anyone tries to plan for me. (Read my proposal story if you want an example). But, miraculously, my baby sister (Rosie) managed to plan a surprise breakfast picnic…
She lifted her eyes to his, and he stumbled when he saw the tears in her eyes. “Marriage changes people, Nash. It makes them complacent and lazy and greedy. Suddenly, what we have won’t be good enough any more. All the little things we don’t let bother us will nag at us. We'll fight over shit that we don’t even care about just to hear the sound of our own voices, just to yell, to have something new to do. We’ll be bored, and we’ll grow apart. And I don’t want to wake up one day and not recognize you when you’re lying next to me.”
Caroline to Nash, Straitjacket Sisters (doing some rewriting, hoo-ah!)
"And I see her, lying there--lifeless and gray--among the downed brush in the murky water. I see her. Every day, I see her. In that damned yellow sundress, I see her."
At the End of Everything (working title) | Story Aesthetic
Andrew has the perfect life: a magnificent home, a beautiful wife, a baby on the way, even a white picket fence and a dog. But when his pregnant wife disappears, Andrew is thrust into the spotlight overnight, becoming a national obsession. He garners sympathy from the nation--until his secrets start to unravel. A dissolving marriage, a distant husband, a distaste for fatherhood, a brazen affair.
Questions turn to accusations. The neighbors gossip. Public pity turns to hatred. The media casts him as a monster, criticizing his every word, condemning his every action. The police rip open every faction of his life. Reporters converge on his home, his workplace. His whole life becomes hell; he knows no peace.
And when his wife's still pregnant body is discovered in the shallow shore, the nation ignites. Andrew is arrested the same day and walked from his home in handcuffs in front of a screaming mob. And the fight for his own life begins.
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She was exhausted; they both were. The day had been long and tedious and tiring. He lay her against the mattress and drew the covers over her, sheltering her from the shifting cold in the room, but he found little comfort himself. He sat up at her side, resting against the headboard, too charged to sleep. He stared straight ahead into the void of darkness that swallowed the rest of the room whole. If she shifted at his side, fitful in her sleep, he would stroke his fingers against her shoulder or across her cheek, and she would settle. Each time his touch calmed her, he smiled, but sleep avoided him even longer.
“Gods,” he asked in a trembling whisper as he looked at her. “Why must I burn like this?"
Kingdom Beneath the Tower, Vincent reluctant to accept he loves Natali
Today I woke up fairly early so that I could be ready by eight. I didn’t know where I was going, because it was a surprised. The thing is, I suck at being surprised. By that I mean, I find a way to figure out and ruin every surprise anyone tries to plan for me. (Read my proposal story if you want an example). But, miraculously, my baby sister (Rosie) managed to plan a surprise breakfast picnic…
