Gasp!
Roy woke up with a start. His head spun in a rapid circle and a faint tinnitus kept on ringing into his ears. The first thing he noticed was that he was laying down. On his chest, with his cheek pressed against cold, damp bricks within the cracks of which water had pooled.
His chest rose and fell with a wheezing sound as he tried to adjust himself. His head hurt like never before and it still felt like he was stuck in the giant grand hall with those towering figures watching him.
He tried to push himself off the ground but his arms seemed to have turned into jelly, flopping uselessly against the ground.
His lungs burned, his head hurt and most importantly, an irritation kept on growing stronger behind his eyes like an insect was crawling beneath them, going deeper and deeper into his head.
Groan~
With a groan, Roy pushed himself off and surveyed his surroundings.
Buildings, old and new built with concrete and brick stood around him in silence. A faint yellow fog hung low against the ground. The windows and doors of most of the buildings were barred shut with wooden boards and the road itself held multiple blockades comprising barbed wires, wooden spikes, large crates and armored vehicles.
Some distance away, hanging from a rope tied to a lamp post, was a body. The rope was tied around its head and most of its mouth and chest was stained red.
"Oh no..." He looked around himself, trying to make sense of where he was. As far as he was concerned, this looked like the middle of a warzone.
"Oh no no no no no." He held his head, the pain in his eyes starting to become unbearable. He looked down. And some distance away, he found his motorcycle, laying uselessly on the road.
Roy stumbled toward it with uneven steps, nearly slipping on the wet bricks beneath his boots.
The motorcycle had fallen onto its side near the curb, partially wedged against a wooden barricade covered in faded warning signs he could not read clearly through the fog. One of the mirrors had shattered completely and fragments of glass glittered faintly across the road like frozen rainwater.
Relief flooded through him anyway.
"Thank fucking Alll-Mer…"
He crouched beside it quickly and grabbed the handlebars. The moment his fingers touched the metal, a strange sensation crawled through his body.
Warmth.
Not from the motorcycle, no — from him.
That faint heat brewing behind his eyes suddenly intensified again and Roy jerked back instinctively, pressing a hand against his face. His vision sharpened violently for half a second.
Too sharply.
He could suddenly make out tiny cracks running through the concrete walls several buildings away. Rust spreading beneath bolts holding the barricades together. Individual droplets of water trembling along strands of barbed wires.
He squeezed his eyes shut and nearly doubled over as another wave of heat surged through his skull. The irritation came in pulses, and slowly, with each pulse his exhaustion disappeared.
And what replaced it was a deep sense of euphoria.
Thump!
Thump!
Thump!
The thumping in his chest became magnified, each heartbeat ringing into his ears like the sound of drums.
The trembling in his arms lessened. The ache in his lungs faded little by little. Even the dizziness clouding his thoughts began peeling away unnaturally fast.
Roy slowly opened his eyes again.
The world looked different now.
Sharper.
Not merely clearer, but unnaturally vivid. The colours were more saturated, the definition in objects far away as clear as if he were watching them right up close. The yellow fog hanging low across the street no longer looked like a single mass. He could see the subtle currents flowing through it, the tiny shifts in movement as cold wind brushed between abandoned vehicles and barricades. Even the droplets of water gathered between cracks in the bricks reflected pale light back at him with startling clarity.
His breathing slowed.
The irritation behind his eyes continued pulsing steadily, but the pain itself had changed now. What had once felt unbearable had become strangely tolerable, almost addictive in a sickening way. Each pulse sent warmth spreading through his body like heated blood being injected directly into his veins.
And with every pulse, he felt better.
Stronger.
Roy stared down at his own trembling hands.
Or rather, hands that should have been trembling.
But they were not anymore.
"What the hell is happening to me…?"
His own voice sounded distant to him. It sounded deeper, when before it was somewhat higher pitched, his friends even liked to call it girlish.
He pressed a hand against his face again, fingers slowly drifting toward his eyes. The heat behind them remained constant now, like two tiny furnaces buried deep within his skull. He could feel them there. Not physically perhaps, but in a way that made his skin crawl regardless.
The Eyes of Sylvian.
The realization surfaced into his mind instantly and his stomach twisted.
The dream. Or maybe not. All of this was real after all... wasn't it?
His gaze slowly drifted towards the corpse hanging by the lamp post and a sense of clarity assaulted his mind again.
Okay... he breathed. I gotta move.
He crouched down at his motorcycle and gripped the handlebars, carefully lifting it.
He was not weak before, but he certainly was not strong either. Years spent buried in books and computers had ensured that much.
Yet the motorcycle felt lighter. Without thinking about it too much, he checked the motorcycle. One of the mirrors was shattered and one side of the metal frame had been scratched badly and the clutch lever hung loose at an awkward angle. The front wheel looked slightly bent towards the right as well, likely from impact.
"Great..." he muttered to himself and crouched down to inspect the engine.
But just as he did, he heard it.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Footsteps. Approaching somewhere farther from the street.
Roy frozen in tracks and for moment, he didn't know what to do. And then his mind entered a state he could only describe as subdued panic. He gently lowered the stand on the bike and left it there. Then, he moved behind one of the armored vehicles, one parked right beside a building at an awkward angle making a small alcove for him to hide in.
Tap.
Tap.
The footsteps kept on getting louder as they approached. Roy was hearing a lot of things now — the wind dragging itself across the streets, his heartbeat hammering against his ribs, the blood coursing through his arteries, even the faint shifting of fabric whenever he moved too quickly.
But the footsteps remained the loudest.
Roy slowly crouched lower behind the armored vehicle. The metal beside him smelled faintly of rust and old rainwater. Through gaps in the barricades, yellow fog drifted lazily across the street.
Tap.
Tap.
Closer now.
Roy swallowed.
Very slowly, he leaned forward and raised his head just enough to peek over the hood of the vehicle.
And instantly regretted it.
A man walked through the fog.
If that could even be called a man.
The creature had stopped near the middle of the street.
It wore the remains of a dark red police uniform stretched tightly across a body that had swollen unnaturally beneath it. Thick leather belts crossed over its torso and bits of old police equipment still hung from its waist, though most of it looked damaged beyond use. One sleeve had split open entirely around the shoulder, exposing flesh underneath that no longer resembled flesh at all.
The skin looked burnt.
Not charred black, but hardened into glossy reddish layers resembling melted wax fused over muscle. In several places the surface had cracked apart, revealing wet strands of twitching tissue beneath. Blisters covered parts of its neck and jaw while thick veins pulsed visibly underneath translucent patches of ruined skin.
On the right side of its body, above and below the shoulder, it felt as if the arm had split into two, each carrying a baton.
And then there was the head.
Roy felt his stomach twist violently.
The creature's skull bulged outward beneath stretched skin, warped into a shape that no longer looked human. The top of its head had swollen smooth and round like melted wax left beneath a furnace while the lower half of its face had split apart i7nto layers of exposed gums and oversized teeth.
Not rows.
Layers.
The mouth extended too far sideways, torn open until they stretched from ear to ear... at least the ears would have been. Wet gums flexed constantly around massive blunt teeth packed together so tightly that some protruded outward through the flesh itself. Saliva dripped steadily between them in long translucent strands before splattering softly against the road beneath its feet.
Its nose had almost completely collapsed inward, leaving behind only two dark holes twitching faintly with every breath. And there no eyes on the creature, yet it seemed strangely aware of its surroundings. The head constantly looked around as it stood in the middle of the street.
A single thought came to Roy's mind.
A monster.
Roy waited with baited breaths, a hand clasped over his mouth in case he was breathing too loudly. At this moment, he fully cursed his new, enhanced vision.
Suddenly, the thing sniffed the air.
How it could even do that with his face in such a state was beyond his ability to reason.
The Bobby stood there motionless for several agonizing seconds before its head suddenly snapped toward the armored vehicle.
Toward him.
Roy felt his heartbeat stop.
The creature twitched once. And again.
Its three arms tightened around the batons with enough force to make wood creak audibly beneath its grip, or maybe that was just his newly enhanced senses doing their work. A low clicking sound escaped from deep inside its throat as its ruined mouth slowly opened wider and wider.
Roy instinctively lowered himself further behind the vehicle.
Please don't see me.
Please don't fucking se—
CRACK!
The Bobby's neck jerked violently sideways.
And then it screamed.
The sound tore through the silent street like rusted metal grinding against exposed nerves. Roy physically flinched as the monstrous thing broke into a sprint straight toward the vehicle.
"Shit!"
...
A/N: Tell me your thoughts until now.