The real world is where the monsters are.

  -Rick Riordan

  ________________________________________________________________________________________

  Hungry.

  Dark.

  Hungry.

  Trees.

  Hungry.

  Movement.

  Hungry.

  Chasing.

  Hungry.

  Catching.

  Tearing.

  Eating.

  The hunger gets quieter.

  Pupils, pitch dark as water under midnight, widen further, stretching out until there is no more shadow, only shape.

  Trees.

  All around, trees. The rustling of leaves. The crunch of nettles and dead floral flesh underfoot.

  There are no bushes here. No landscape. There are just the trees, and the ground, and the midnight just beyond what leaves still remain.

  And the lights.

  Far away, but never gone. Always there. Always loud. Glinting and noisy and sharp and bright, like malformed suns, stillbirth-stars cradled by cold metal and fearful flesh.

  It takes a bite. Tears away a fresh chunk, its hands pulling apart the meat as if it were never meant to be intact, simply waiting to be disconnected and made into food. It chews, and its teeth are not suited to the act. They grind and scrape against each other, and grind and scrape against the bone, and grind and scrape and unmake the strands of tissue and juices.

  Dripping noise.

  Its chin dribbles, the heat wafting away as steam from the red. Drip. Drip.

  It takes a bite, and once again there is the tearing.

  It can still see them. The lights. Stillborn stars, glinting so bright that their betters up above are obfuscated, distracted, fallen to formless dark. It smells those that carried the un-stars to term, their scent wafting even here, miles and miles away.

  Filth and decay. Ozone and oil. Grease and flowers. Flame and dripping, bubbling fats. Salts and alchemy and stranger, alien things.

  Hungry.

  It continues to tear, and continues to chew.

  What was once alive beneath it, before the tearing, before the pulling apart, had fur. It used to have fur, a long time ago. Now it is cold. Now the winter bite pushes against flesh long turned numb, shaped into leather over blubber and fat. Muscles ripple beneath the surface like leviathans in the deep, their shapes crossing each other and shaping pulleys and pistons and wire.

  It peels back the fur, and takes its time savoring it. The hint of warmth in it, quickly turning to frozen emptiness by the liquid crimson and the stillness of the torn thing. The shape of little seeds and smells, ingrained between the fibers. The smell of fear and the taste of it too, tangy and ripe and bitter.

  Hungry.

  Another leg torn off. Another bite.

  It wonders what fear is like.

  The prey was afraid, here. It is always afraid. It’s always prey. The thought idly crosses its mind to wonder if, someday, it will meet something that isn’t- but then the hunger is there, and it does not bother with the thought.

  There is alive, and there is dead. There is hungry, and there is full. There are those that run, and those that hide, and those that fight, and in the end, they all tear apart, or turn to mush, or crack and crumble and bleed.

  Fear is like bitter sweat and wide, glaring eyes and panting breath and screaming and the voiding of bowels and the frantic taste of adrenaline on the tongue.

  Fear is what food tastes like.

  It looks at the light that is not stars that is not sky that is not alive and salivates, eyes empty, as it stares towards the town.

  It has heard them make noises before. It’s learned the unimportant ones. “Help”. “Please”. “No”. It has learned the important ones: “come”. “Stay”. “Find”.

  There are more, and sometimes it wonders. Do the other words have taste? Beyond bitter-scared-bitter-dying-bitter-crying? Likely yes, but those tastes it does not know, does not need.

  It doesn’t like the not-stars. They are dull things, not as bright as day, but more frustrating than night, keeping the world away from the ease of the hunt. But there is good in this. If they see, then they run. Then they sweat. Then they make noises and fear, and then there is the taste of food in the air on its tongue in its ears in its hands, pulling tearing pulping gulping chewing-

  Hungry.

  It takes a bite. Bonier. There are no more limbs, and the spine crunches against its fangs and molars and incisors, all of them growing in forms and styles and scraping and gouging.

  There is only the middle bits left now. No legs, no head, no back. Just the purples and the reds and the pales and the shades in between, like little bubbles of flavor and juices and wriggling things that don’t wriggle any more.

  It eats them one by one, popping them between its teeth and letting the juices dribble and drool and paint.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Crunch.

  Then the food is gone, and there is just the quiet.

  Move.

  It is hungrier now. It moves more, it hears the important words more, but it is hungrier even still. Not so much that it cannot think, cannot play, cannot sneak and find and see and taste, but hungrier. It used to be able to sleep more, but now the things inside it rumble and churn and ask and plead and it delivers, like solving a puzzle, like finding the right pieces to put away and take apart and put into new shapes. It feels the burning as it moves, the pleasure of motion added to by the sting of its body pulling at itself and forming as it goes along, massive, swinging hands and thick strong legs pulling and pushing and allowing it to turn the darkness into blurry shadows as it moves.

  Hungry.

  But… manageable. Not as hungry as before. It can go a few cycles without needing more.

  Smells.

  Ozone and oil. Grease and flowers. Flame and dripping, bubbling fats.

  But no stillborn light. No filth and decay. Out here, in the dark.

  With it.

  How sweet.

  In something else, there might be challenge. There might be aggression, or fear, the scents of food and animal.

  A predator does not feel challenged for having found a fresh meal. There is no territory to be divided, no struggle for dominance to be had.

  There is food here. Away from the lights, where they cannot see it, where they will not run and will not taste of bitter-scared-bitter-dying-bitter-crying. Not as quickly.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  It has already chased, and already eaten.

  It moves a body larger than carriage or prey through woods turned just-above pitch, the glint of far-away neon and ozone echoing faintly to its eyes. The world blurs, its eyes going quiet as its other senses come alive and tell it where it is, where it is going, what it can find-

  There.

  Ozone and oil. Grease and flowers. Flame and dripping, bubbling fats.

  But faint. Fainter than the rest of their kind. They have layered dirt and sweat and autumn death on themselves, the scent of vinyl and plastic partially coated by the smells of the dark where they walk and stop and rest.

  They are resting.

  It stops, and stands still.

  It has never seen another creature do this. The prey is always moving, always active, their hearts beating so loud that they shake and shiver, their breaths fogging the air and making them expand and contract like balloons.

  It stands still.

  Three tents, shaped like little igloos of man-made matter, dripping with the smell and taste of prey. They have pissed and shat close by, recently, and before that, made a fire, and put flesh over it until it dripped and glistened and was made rich. It can see the shape of the ground where they walked, trace the pathway back to one of the many places that the metal chariots pull to before the trees block their wheels and force the prey to disgorge out of the shell.

  It can hear them breathing.

  In and out. Like bags, wheezing, inflating and deflating to pass the right gases in and out of them. One of them is deformed, its passages out of shape, and the sound it makes is deeper, more jagged. They are snoring.

  No leaves crunch underfoot as it walks closer. Its weight spreads evenly across its mass, and the padding of its limbs is shaped enough that every step falls to silence. The prey does not stir.

  There is a container here with dead food, stinking of vibrant chemistry and brightly salted flesh- but it is half-empty. The prey has been here for a day, then, and has eaten some of its store of supplies. The flame is long gone out, and what is left is ash and cinder and bits of sugar and gristle that have fallen into it before.

  They are not the only pack of these creatures in the trees tonight. They are always moving through, and rarely do they cross paths. Old words, older than its understanding of words, weave a pattern such that rarely is it even interested in the pale, fatty things.

  But rarely is not never.

  Three tents. Each with a single morsel.

  Hungry.

  It goes into the first tent.

  Soft flesh sits and sleeps, full and warm and unaware. Wrapped in cotton and linen and plastic, layers and layers, like ablative fur covering it.

  One hand, the size of the creature's head, gently wraps around its mouth and nose.

  It tries to inhale, and fails- and awakes.

  Eyes glimpse from out between clawed fingers, wide and startled and awake- and then it begins to stink of that oh-so-familiar smell.

  It cannot make noise. It can barely breathe, the air whistling quietly between its flesh and the prey’s orifices.

  Its other hand lifts the arm that tries to strike at it, tries to pull it away. Similar to its own, but smaller. Weaker. So much thinner and softer.

  Squeeze just a little, and it starts to crackle.

  The sound that the soft thing makes is muffled to nothing under its hand, as it moves its fingers and squeezes again.

  Pop.

  Pop.

  Pop.

  Its hand is wet now. The soft thing is crying very loudly, and producing quite a bit of mucus, which is making it much harder for it to breathe.

  First arm is done. No more popping noises- just squelching.

  Leg comes next.

  Pop.

  Pop.

  Crack.

  Pop.

  Pop.

  Squelching again. It’s turning a deep, dark purple, leaking in all sorts of interesting ways, going from a vaguely-shaped and functional thing to a bag of squishy bits.

  The soft thing is still crying, but it is quieter now, breathing like a much smaller animal. Fast and desperate, its heartbeat coming in through every blood vessel, a staccato rhythm that can be felt in its hand.

  It moves its other hand up this time, ignoring the way that the remaining arm of the soft thing flails at it, digs its little nails against its skin, failing to pierce.

  Up to the ribcage.

  Pop.

  An exhale, breathy and high pitched and shrill.

  Crack.

  Pop.

  Crack.

  Crack.

  Thinner here, in a lot of ways. More flexible. Expansive, so the bags that are the lungs can push against them.

  It knows where to avoid, where not to press or break. It has pulled apart enough of this form of prey to know more-or-less how much they can sustain, and which parts make them die the fastest.

  Snap.

  Crackle.

  Pop.

  It is still crying, but it is no longer squirming. The soft thing’s eyes have rolled back, and it has started to spasm, just a bit, as the mucus in its nose has begun to close off its airways.

  No need to wait around, then.

  It squeezes, casually, and pops the soft thing’s head, letting the blood dribble out between its fingers.

  It goes to the second tent.

  This one doesn’t wake up even after it puts its hand over the thing’s face, smothering its ability to scream. It takes until it begins to pull at the prey’s arm, slowly stretching it, being ever-so-careful not to pull too hard, too fast, for the soft thing to awake.

  This one tries much, much harder to scream. The soft thing’s little hands, scarred and weathered and aged, strike at it, and the feet kick and scrape at the tent and make the vinyl make little whisper-noises that are louder than any sound the prey can make with its mouth. Knees and joints and teeth all strike and try to pierce the skin or damage the tissue beneath, and all the while, one arm is pulled, and pulled, and pulled.

  A different kind of popping sound, this time. Not that of breaking bones, muffled by wet tissue, but that of disconnecting joints, ball-sockets and ligaments tearing and suctioning apart as it pulls.

  Louder screaming attempts- but less crying. Less mucus.

  A little further.

  A little further.

  The skin is stretching now. The layer of clothing above it has torn, and the red is starting to peek through the white tissue beneath it, little tears opening up one-by-one.

  And then, finally-

  Schriiip.

  Dripping noise.

  It takes a few more seconds, but this soft thing too goes quiet, and its airbags stop bellowing, and its heart goes still.

  One last tent.

  …It has an idea.

  It goes back to the first tent, and drags out the soft thing from there, painting a trail of splattered brain and bone through the ground as it pulls. It goes to the second tent, and drags out the second thing, the not-quite-as-soft prey, and drops it on the ground just loud enough to make a muffled thump and rustle.

  Still the third tent does not stir.

  Ah well. Maybe it’s better this way.

  It walks into the third tent, and finds the last of the soft things.

  This is the softest one yet. Smaller than the others, its muscles less developed, padded in the soft of softness that comes only with youth and easy access to the needs that come with it.

  It picks the young thing up by the back of the head- and this time, the prey wakes immediately.

  The prey emits a high-pitched shriek, a shrill sound harsh enough to make that which holds it blink in surprise. Prodigious lungs, for a youth. The prey squirms and shrieks and scrabbles and speaks words in a tone of desperation and panic- and no one answers.

  It actually chuckles as the prey almost breaks its own neck, struggling against the grip that easily wraps around the entire head of the creature.

  It lifts the soft thing out of the tent, the act taking up nearly no energy at all, and deposits the prey unceremoniously on the ground, positioned just so that its woolen outer layer touches the cold, wet red of what was once alive beside it.

  Midnight-black eyes stare at the screaming, squirming youngling as it tries to understand. It calls for help, it whimpers and scrambles- and it touches more of the wet. And it goes quiet. And it turns to look, and even in the dark, even crippled by unevolved night vision and lackluster senses, it sees.

  For a moment, there is only the quiet, and the warm smell of piss as the soft thing voids itself.

  And then…

  Something wet begins to wriggle.

  Just once. Just briefly.

  Brain matter and shattered skull… wriggle. And then go still.

  The older soft thing… hiccups. An escape of air from dead lungs that should already be empty.

  The dead soft things begin to… shift.

  It’s in small ways. Twitches, here and there. Strange and weak little gurgles, the bubbling sounds of gas inside a thick liquid, the fractional shifting of interwoven fibers and wet, dripping organs.

  The smallest soft thing is still crying, but it is no longer screaming. It is instead just… babbling. Quietly. Whispered words coming from it as the smell of fear… changes, ever so slightly. No longer blind, animal panic, nor the rational, ever-growing dread of fear. Something new.

  The hand of the older soft thing, severed entirely from its body, closes, very gently, around the hand of the younger thing.

  There’s… something. In the air. Not a smell. Not a taste. Not a color. Something.

  Pitch-dark eyes watch as the young soft-thing begs and pleads and babbles and cries… and is answered.

  The bodies begin to move, in soft, slithering motions, as if boneless, or as if incapable of remembering how all their pieces work. They crowd closer to the softest and smallest of their number, torn apart flesh and offal squirming across leaves and dirt to interpose themselves between it and the thing that watches and smells and hungers.

  A voice from a dead mouth wheezes, lungs that no longer remember how to draw in air or exhale forming around misshapen words.

  “It’ll be ok”

  The smallest thing sobs harder.

  The thing in the dark is hungry. It is always at least a little hungry.

  It leans down very, very close to the soft thing, even as bits of corpse push against it, soft pressure failing to hold it back but staining its front crimson.

  One hand, the size of the creature’s little torso comes up… and presses. Just once. Right along the curve of the soft thing’s spine.

  Crack.

  The crying gets louder again… and then quieter, as the whimpering overtakes it, and the breathing, and the pain.

  The creature makes a sound not unlike a sniff. Just once. An inhale, like a large animal learning a scent.

  It is the only sound it has made through the event.

  And then… it turns.

  And it goes to the trees. Into the shadows. Into the quiet.

  It is not so hungry it cannot wait a little.

  So it waits.

  And it watches.

  And the soft little flesh weeps, and whimpers, and eventually, goes quiet- save for the squelching movements of the dead.

  +8 chapters on Patreon and more to come!

  And just for funsies, here's the discord!