There was an animal that stood in your yard and never left. You could see it move below in the darkness, white on black, catching the moonlight. It had been there for days now, ten days and ten nights, and it just stood and waited and watched.
You were beginning to think it wanted something. When it first arrived, you had just returned from school and were walking up the sidewalk and there, on the side lawn was the animal. It looked rather like a man, in fact, and not like an animal at all, and it was tall and had very muscular arms and a bare chest, and was definitely human-like. And then it had looked at you. Two eyes, cat-like and large, an unnatural, brilliant blue, stared back at you, or, rather into you, through your skin and in between your bones and past you entirely. It hurt. There was a pang in your chest like nervousness but a little too strong. You remembered wondering how you were going to get inside with it standing there, tracking you, but when you tentatively took the first steps and walked up the pathway it never moved. All the way up the path and up the stairs to the porch it just watched, and, when you opened the door and looked over at it, nothing changed. Nothing. There was a perfect stillness, and the pain in your chest was still there, and you quickly rushed inside and slammed the door shut.
You hadn't told anyone, mainly because you'd thought someone else might notice on their own, but nobody ever did. Your family walked by many times a day and never saw it. At first you thought maybe it wasn't actually there and your antidepressants were doing weird things to you. But it was so real, too real; when there was wind its hair moved and when there was rain it got wet. The animal was there, it was a thing, and at long last you realized only you could see it. There was a large, human-like animal on your side lawn and no one could see it but you.
It was hard to sleep. In the beginning everything was fine, because you thought it would get bored and leave. The next day it was still there, and the next and the next and the next. You gave up, eventually, on wishing it might leave on its own.
You sighed and pulled away from the glass, walking over to the bed and collapsing on it heavily. The bulb in your room never reached its full brightness and so everything was cast in a dim, warm light. You were exhausted, wanted to sleep so badly, and the lighting was pulling you down, and you couldn't. You had this odd fantasy that the moment you closed your eyes and fell into slumber, it would crawl right up the side of your house, crawl in your window and you'd wake up with it in your room. It was the most upsetting thought you'd ever experienced because you knew, somehow, it could happen. The sky doesn't rain fire, insects don't consume whole cities overnight, but that animal in your yard could get as close to you as it wanted if it tried. You knew this.
"________!" your mom called from downstairs. Your eyes snapped open and the world returned in a rush of color.
"Yeah?" you called back, propping yourself up on your elbows. Your head spun and that surrealistic world between awareness and unconsciousness wedged its way into your brain. You weren't even sure you were having a conversation right now.
"Dinner!" she replied and there were sounds of other conversation below.
You pushed yourself off the bed and stumbled down the hall and down the stairs to the dining room, falling into a chair at the table. Your mom surveyed you skeptically. "Tired?"
"Never not," you sighed, reaching for the closest bowl. She shook her head and sat down herself.
Through the window behind her head you could see eyes. Everything stopped. That feeling, the feeling of being hunted, was familiar but would never feel that way. The two blue points, glowing faintly in the dim light of the moon, started up that pain in your chest, that squeeze-and-release motion that made it hard to breathe.
You took a deep breath and looked at something else. Your mom was talking aimlessly about her idea to buy a farm, which was ridiculous, and you nodded every so often to make sure she thought you were listening.
All of your impulses said to look up. Every part of you, every part except that sliver of your brain that wasn't yet fried, wanted to see it. For a very long moment, you fought back and stared intently at your plate and then there was a knock at your door. In the resulting shock, you looked up and immediately your gaze went to the window.
It was there. You could see the eyes, now bigger, brighter, like electric blue spotlights. Something felt off.
They were bigger. It was closer.
You jumped up from your seat as your mom stood from hers to get the door. She opened it and you could hear the voice of your neighbor in the background. Your heart thudded in your chest wildly. It was closer. Much closer than it had been, because now, in staring at the eyes, you could see the pupils and even the whites. In fact, you could see the whole face and body, outlined faintly in the moonlight.
It was at moments like this, where fear prevented you from any other thoughts that didn't include the animal, that you wondered what it was. It was not human, and yet it was distinctly so. It had the feel of an animal, everything about it was animal, from the predatory nature to the unnatural stillness, though its chest rose and fell, but it had the eyes and form of a human. The most intensely beast-like eyes that were so familiar because they could have been anyone's had they not been so brilliant.
And that was why it was so unnerving. It looked as though someone had tried to combine animal and human forms. It felt off, unholy, and even more so because it was so real, so usual, so like any tall male human you'd ever seen, but it wasn't. You didn't know why, but it wasn't.
You realized your mom had returned to the table and the neighbor had left. She was sitting there and staring at you oddly. "________?" she said. "What are you doing?" She looked over her shoulder at the window and, of course, nothing was there so she turned back around and sighed. "That was just the neighbor, you know, asking about the noises."
You fell down into your chair and looked at her. "What noises?"
"I don't know. She said recently there has been a lot of commotion in the back woods, but I haven't heard anything. Probably an animal."
"Yeah, probably an animal..." You looked down at your plate and didn't feel hungry any more. "I'm done, I think."
"Really? Okay. Just bring your dish into the kitchen." She returned to her food and you grabbed your items and dumped them in the sink before running upstairs and shutting yourself into your room. Immediately, you rushed to your window and looked down. It was back on the side lawn where it had been previously.
You felt hollow and exhausted. Sleep consumed you, and you could do nothing else but prepare for bed. Before laying down, you pulled the shades over your window as though that might stop it from seeing you, but you knew it was useless and you were too tired to try harder. You got into bed and slept.
Moments later, the alarm went off. You opened your eyes with a snap and sat up in bed. Looking over at the clock revealed it was actually morning and not late at night. You shut your eyes and placed a hand over your chest to try and stop the rapid thumping of your frantic heart. None of the past days had been good for your cardiac health.
A quick peek out the window told you the animal was still there but that was not news. You sighed and moved to the bathroom to wash up. After dressing, you did a quick check-over of your backpack and went downstairs for food.
Your mom was in the living room drinking coffee on the couch. You put your bag by the door and shot a glance out the window. From this angle you could see the animal, standing casually in your yard, staring at you with that usual unreadable expression and hunger. You shuddered slightly and went to the kitchen to eat.
Morning and daylight hours were actually pretty exciting, and in a way you could not describe. At night, it was horrific, with its hulking shape and glittering eyes and dangerous presence--there was a constant sense of impending attack or of something awful. In light, though, it was much different. The animal remained imposing, but it was other things, too. It had blue hair the same color as its eyes, which you found confounding, and what looked to be the razor-sharp teeth and jawbone of some vicious creature attached to its face. And then there was the giant hole in its abdomen. You spent a lot of time wondering what in the hell that was and why it wasn't bleeding out on the ground or at least trying to hold its intestines in. None of this made sense and you had no answers or even beginnings of answers.
On the way out, you paused on the path and observed it warily. It first turned its eyes to you and then its head. You were aware of the ripple of muscle in its neck and the slight flexing and unfurling of its hands and the movement of its temples as it clenched its jaw. You could almost imagine the pulse in its throat.
In the early morning sun, its eyes were radiant and glittering. There was something odd there, a wash of mania just under the surface that send the whole image into a tailspin. You felt the pain in your chest and stumbled back from the force of it. Fear, like a stifling pall, was cast over you suddenly and it wasn't majestic or even interesting anymore, it was just terrifying.
The horror must have shown up on your face because, for a moment, it looked confused. Almost taken aback. You watched its expression change slightly, the set of its jaw shifting, the light in its eyes flickering. It turned toward you, actually turned, and you could see the vast expanse of its chest, all pale skin and muscle and that gaping black hole. Something very close to hunger seemed to explode through it, and for a long moment it looked ravenous, wild, and its mouth turned up into a wide, manic grin, baring sharp teeth.
You turned and ran.
School felt safe and placid the moment you stumbled into the entry. People stared at you as you bent over to collect your breath and you just thanked all the gods that ever existed that you hadn't gotten hit by a car on the way here.
"________?" your friend said, sidling up to you. "You okay, girl?"
"Yeah," you gasped. "Yeah, barely."
You spent most of your class time staring into space and pressing at your chest where a faint squeezing sensation still remained. At one point your friend leaned over and asked why you were groping your breasts. You had no idea what she was talking about until you noticed other people staring at you.
"Oh my god," you breathed, closing your eyes and letting your head loll back as the teacher prattled on about trigonometry in a slow monotone.
A loud, sharp screeching noise broke the quiet. It dragged on for a long few seconds, and people screamed, ducking beneath their desks and jumping from their chairs. When it stopped, you opened your eyes and stood back up from where you had been crouching behind your desk.
Claw marks were scratched down the tall windows. The noise had been the sound of glass giving way to sharp nails. You stared at them in silent shock and then your friend grabbed onto your arm very tightly.
"_________!" she squeaked, eyes watery and reddish. "What is that?"
You couldn't find words. There was just air and very little of it. You shook your head and tried to find it in yourself to form sounds, sentences, anything.
"I don't know," you finally whispered, voice shaky.
"Probably an animal," she replied.
You looked at her and she looked at you. Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks and all around you there were sounds of fear and confusion and awe. "Yeah," you replied, barely making a noise. "An animal."
Your class was moved elsewhere, down the hall, and the school called the police so they could come investigate the claw marks. Your peers were all in a panic and talking and restless and some of them were pretty excited about the possibility of a bear in the area for some reason, but something was dawning on you.
What if that had been the animal, your animal? What if, after you'd ran, it'd followed you? What if it was here, with all these people, hunting and prowling and taking things apart with its strong arms and claw-like hands? What if it was watching, right now?
You quickly glanced out the windows and saw nothing of the sort. Your heart rate wouldn't lower and you were getting clammy. Beside you, your friend was frantically texting her mom and on the verge of tears from the shock. You didn't feel like crying, but you felt boneless, floating in space, so consumed with the idea that it had followed you. It never followed you. You hadn't thought it ever moved.
"Don't worry," the teacher said, "we're dealing with it. They called animal control."
Of all things.
Class resumed and the subject switched. Now it was literature, and you were reading a particularly gruesome fairytale from Europe, when your friend leaned over and poked you. "________," she whispered, passing you her phone under the desks. You took it and looked at it hesitantly. It was a picture, a blurry photograph of a shape. Well, more than a shape. It was a blurry photograph of what appeared to be a large, white creature moving at very high speeds. Speeds so high, in fact, that you couldn't discern any details, let alone whether or not it had blue hair.
"What do you think it is?" you asked her quietly.
"It looks like a bear to me," she replied.
"A bear?" You looked at it again. It was white, distinctly so. "What kind of bear?"
"Grizzly, probably. They're huge and
fast." She said this last word in a emphatic rush, and her eyes widened. You stared at her. Then you realized the two of you weren't looking at the same picture.
"Oh," you said after a moment. "Yeah, that makes sense." You felt your hands start to shake and you took a few deep, measured breaths to try and calm down. "Hopefully they catch it," you said with a wan smile, handing the phone back to her discreetly.
"Yeah," she breathed. "It could hurt somebody."
You nodded and looked down at your book. The next few hours were quiet and normal, you were very glad the rest of the day was passing without incident. You went to chemistry, you went to lunch, to history, and nothing happened. You found yourself glancing at the windows constantly to check for eyes, but there never were any and eventually you just stopped and spent most of your time with your eyes directed downwards.
You were outside for free time, sitting on the bench near the school garden with your friend, and she was chattering excitedly about her upcoming vacation. "It's going to be warm," she was saying, "and everything will be in bloom!"
"That sounds beautiful," you said.
People behind you were talking about the claw marks and one of them said, "They're just gonna shoot it down," and the other said, "I hope not. Wouldn't it be so cool if they put it in a zoo? It'd be huge!" You turned around in your seat to look at them but they didn't notice. A sort of anxiety welled in your stomach.
They couldn't put it in a zoo. It wasn't that kind of animal. It would do something awful, it would kill people who came to look at it. You knew, for some reason, that it would do that, that it would go crazy in a cage, and that, instead, it needed to go far, far away and back to wherever it came from, which was definitely not around where people lived. And they couldn't kill it. It wouldn't die. Yet again, for some reason you knew this, knew that it didn't work like that, that it might not even bleed, that the bullets might not even go through its skin. That it would just kill the people that tried to kill it.
You felt nauseated. Your friend looked over at you and made a sound of worry. "________! You okay? Do you want some water?" She handed you a bottle and you drank from it mechanically, and it made you feel a little better but not by much. "I'm sorry you're not feeling well," she said sadly.
"It's okay," you replied, trying to smile at her.
There was a pain in your chest again. You jumped and shut your eyes in discomfort. A loud crash, a sound as loud as thunder, but very close by, ripped through the air. Your friend screamed and so did some people around you.
You opened your eyes and your friend dragged you to your feet off the bench, and pulled you away from the sound. Looking over your shoulder, you could see dust and dirt billow upward in a giant cloud, revealing a gaping hole in the side of the building.
You stumbled to a stop. The hole was huge, probably at least 10 feet wide, and it looked as though something had plowed through it instead of just hit it. Your legs became so weak you had to sit down on the grass. Your friend dropped down beside you, hands gripping your arm shakily. "Oh my god," she gasped, eyes watery again. "Did... Did it do that?"
Sirens wailed in the distance. That was fast. You shrugged and buried your face in your hands. The pain in your chest was unbearable to the point you thought you might cry. The sounds of people running and talking and crying in shock surrounded you. An official-sounding voice told people to move out of the way so the officers could come through and investigate.
You looked up when something felt odd. Off in your peripheral vision there was a movement too high to be from someone on the ground. You glanced in that direction hesitantly.
The animal was sitting on the roof, its legs swinging off the side, leaning back on its hands looking incredibly relaxed. As you stared at it, it made eye contact with you. Its expression was serene, the cat eyes narrowed into satisfied slits, and all in all it looked very at peace with itself. The two of you watched each other for what felt like an hour, but was really more like two minutes. Then it smiled, grin showing sharp white teeth, and the smile was manic, was too wide to be normal, but the rest of it was calm. You were confused. The confusion turned to shock when it raised a hand and casually waved at you as though reminding you it was there, but of course you knew it was there, because there was a large, partly-naked human-looking animal with blue hair and a hole in its stomach on the roof of your school.
You stood compulsively. It raised an eyebrow and sat up straight, no longer lounging back on its arms. You had no idea what you were doing, or why you were doing it, and, really, you were barely thinking here, but you whispered under your breath, "Go away!" with all the pain and fear and shock you could muster.
You weren't expecting anything to happen. But it did. The animal looked genuinely surprised for a moment, its eyes widening and eyebrows raising. And then it laughed, actually laughed, loudly, but you knew no one could hear it but you. It laughed and then it smiled and it looked at you with those hungry, glowing blue eyes and its manic grin, and it said conversationally, "No thanks."
You convulsed with pain and bent over, wrapping your arms around yourself to try and control it. You wanted to scream, wanted to so badly, but then you just felt nauseated, genuinely, and you thought you might vomit right there on the grass. Tears didn't come and you hoped they would; there was no outlet for your pain and you wished there was.
Your friend was by your side and saying something frantically into your ear. Her hand was on your back, cold through your shirt. The tears finally did come and they rolled down your cheeks, boiling hot on your skin. You made a sobbing sound or something like it and your friend had moved away now, was calling for help, beckoning people over and someone said, "Where does it hurt?" in your ear and you wanted to show them, to open your chest up and take your heart out and show them. You couldn't do anything, though, couldn't even remove your arms from where they were wrapped around your waist like a vise. There was white noise that sounded like concerned yelling.
Then it stopped. It left you in a sudden rush, like an implosion. It just sank, the feeling, down into nowhere and you were left hollow. You felt light, cold; you were shivering, but there was nothing there now. Everything was empty.
You opened your eyes slowly, hot and blurred with tears. Carefully, you let your stomach go and crossed your arms as tightly as you could to keep the trembling to a minimum. You realized you were on your knees on the grass, curled over them, and that you were gasping for air as though you hadn't had any for centuries.
"How are you feeling?" a male voice said but you didn't want to look to see who it was. You shrugged and swallowed, tasting the sourness your mouth had taken on. A shiver wracked your body for a moment and then you just settled, feeling devoid of anything at all.
"School's ending now," someone said. "If she's feeling alright to move she can go home or to the clinic."
"It was probably the shock," another person said. "A lot of weird things happened at the school today."
"________?" your friend said softly near your ear. "Are you alright now?"
No words came to you. You nodded and rubbed your hands down your face to wipe off the tears. Gradually, you pushed yourself to your feet and stood very still, testing your balance. Around you, the police had brought in a dump-truck and bulldozer to clear out the rocky mess and it was all very loud and tense. "I'm okay now," you said in a small voice, "I'll just go home."
It took some more convincing, but eventually your friend's mom came and drove you home. On the way, you became exhausted, barely able to keep your eyes open, fading in and out of awareness. "You okay?" your friend asked and you just nodded slightly. She sighed sadly and continued explaining to her mom the events of the day.
As the car pulled up to your house, you scanned the area for the animal. It wasn't there. It took you a moment to realize this, and when you did you felt a disconcerting mixture of elation and worry. Where was it if it wasn't there?
Your friend walked you up the path and up the stairs to your room. She glanced at you in concern as you gingerly lay yourself on the bed with a deep sigh of relief. "_________," she mumbled. "Are you sure you'll be alright?"
You looked at her. "Yeah, I think it's okay." You tried to smile reassuringly. "Today just stressed me out, I guess..."
"Will anybody be home?"
You went to answer but then couldn't, and when you couldn't the fear rushed back again like a dam had broken. Your mom wouldn't be back until late evening, and your dad wasn't even in town. You were alone, and that wouldn't have been an issue, even if you were sick, except that you didn't know where the animal was. You might not be alone at home at all because it was still there.
"No," you said quickly. Panic seeped into your tone and you shoved it back, not wanting to freak her out. "No, nobody will be here."
"Do you want me to stay?"
"Yes. Yes, please." You lay back on the bed as she called her mom to let her know she was staying. You thanked her as many times as you could before she got flustered and asked you to stop. The two of you talked for a long while about school, about whatever, and it was good. You felt happy, free, with no pain and no fear, and you could laugh. It was such a relief you wanted to cry but she wouldn't understand so you didn't.
"________, has something been going on?" she asked later into the night. "You... always seem tired and distracted and... Is something going on?" She had folded her hands neatly in her lap and was twisting them nervously.
You sighed and closed your eyes. "No, it's fine. I'm fine. Really. Just a lot of stress lately."
She smiled and stood up. "Do you want to go to sleep now? It's already near nine and you need the rest..."
"Yeah, sure." She was like a mom, you thought. You reached into your side table drawer and fiddled around until you caught a hold of sleeping pills. Why you had these in there, you didn't know, but you did and that was good. She got you water and you took two.
"I'll just stay here until your mom gets home," she said. "Then I can have my mom pick me up."
"That sounds good," you said.
After a few minutes, the room was a blur and you lay down under your blankets. Sounds around you buzzed and hummed and you felt warm, very warm, but comfortable warm in your clothing. Your eyes fluttered shut and moments later you fell into a silent, charcoal sleep.
You were shaken back to consciousness what felt like moments later. Your mom gripped the sides of your arms so hard it was causing bruises, and when you opened your eyes in shock and looked up at her, her skin was sallow and grayish. "________," she whispered fiercely. Her expression contorted into devastation. "Something horrible happened..."
You didn't feel anything, just her freezing hands digging into your skin. "W-what?" you replied in a hushed tone, feeling the flutter begin.
Her eyes were wild but watery and dark. "Your friend and her mom... When they were leaving the house last night around ten-thirty, they were
attacked." She hissed this last thing in a halting manner. "By an animal, some large animal. It killed them." She was crying now.
You watched her in complete stillness. "What?" you asked softly, pleadingly. "What happened? Mom... Mom, what did you say happened?" She didn't reply and you sat up in the bed. When she finally just shook her head, you felt the thud in your chest before the heat in your eyes. "A-are they out there right now? C-can I go see--"
"No," she hissed, "it's a mess, _________. Don't go down there." She wiped at her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. "I'm going back down," she said quietly. "The police are here and I need to speak with them." She leaned forward and gripped your upper arms, staring into your face fiercely with watery, shifting eyes. "_________, don't go down there." She rose from the bed and walked out of the room, mechanically shutting the door behind her.
Dead? She was dead? An animal?
Oh god.
Nausea hit you like a train. You curled over your legs and buried your face in your hands. The tears came instantaneously, rushing out in searing hot bursts and you could barely keep up with yourself. You felt the sobs leave your mouth rather than heard them; they tore out almost involuntarily, sending your lungs into shudders. This went on for what felt like hours.
Then you felt it. The odd sensation of being watched and you didn't even care at this point, was so distressed it didn't matter either way, so you let go of your face and looked up.
It was climbing in the window. Rather, it was currently in the room, having climbed in your window, which was wide open. It stood there with its naked chest and its strong arms and long fingers, and its brilliant blue cat eyes and the gaping hole in its stomach, and its wide, wolfish smile with sharp teeth. It was large, too tall, absolutely enormous in your small bedroom. It absently closed the window behind itself with a hand. You stared at it in mute shock.
The animal walked forward a bit and stood at the end of the bed, looking down at you. Tremors started in your body and you felt immediately ice-cold, and you kept staring into its radiant eyes and so you tore your gaze away from that, and you looked straight ahead and could see your bedroom wall through the hole in its stomach. The shaking was stronger now.
"Hello," it said smoothly, voice calm and predatory. You tried to open your mouth to say something but nothing came to mind and so you breathed your words out on a shaky breath. Its smile widened and so did its eyes, becoming large ovals, the black pupils contracting.
You found it in yourself to form words. "Go away," you managed, voice low and as forceful as you could manage, which wasn't much. Tears were there again.
The animal got on the bed and began crawling towards you, its large body jostling the mattress. "No, stop!" you hissed, feeling the anxiety simmer in your head. It climbed over you, surrounding you completely, on its hands and knees.
"No, I won't," it rumbled, grinning with bright white teeth and jagged canines. From this angle you could look down its body and see all the ripples and ridges of muscle in its chest, which moved with every breath. This was a creature built for battle and survival, clearly.
It pressed a hand down on the mattress beside your head and you squeaked in shock. It was surveying you with shifting eyes, and you felt helpless in its power. "Go away, please," you mumbled this time, feeling tears come to the surface. It watched you cry with a bizarre sort of curiosity, its eyes widening and becoming manic, its smile fading into something more like a snarl. There was a sheen of something in its eyes. You stared up into them and they stared back, endless and cold and fiery.
It slammed a hand down on the mattress on the other side of your head. You jumped and the crying intensified, and now you reached up with both hands to cover your face as you sobbed. It didn't do anything for a little while, just observed with its morbid curiosity, but then it gripped one of your wrists in its hand and yanked it away from your face, pinning it to the bed by your head. You squeaked in shock and tried to drag your hand from under his, but its grip was crushing, iron-like, its skin surprisingly warm, but maybe too warm.
It did the same with your other hand, pressing your body down into the mattress with the weight on your wrists. The tears were unstoppable, and you wanted to badly to cover yourself, to turn away, but you couldn't and it felt humiliating. It spent this time watching you sob with its wide, wide, interested eyes.
"Let go," you mumbled, trying to wrench your hand away again. You gasped up at it and you felt your face contort in devastation. "Let go!" you cried, closing your eyes and looking away from the animal's captivating eyes and expression of curiosity.
"Humans are so fragile," it said to you, very near your ear. You hadn't sensed it lower its head near yours. "I could break you," it said, grin coloring its tone.
You shuddered and tried to bite back a sob to no avail. "Leave me alone!" you pleaded. "Get off of me! Go away!" You didn't really think about it, you weren't thinking at all about anything actually, and so you brought your knee up as hard as you could into its upper stomach area.
The animal grunted in pain and it turned into a low growl. "Human," it said with a considerable amount of derision, the wolfish smile still in place. "Don't try and fight me."
"
Get off of me," you hissed at it, tears blurring your vision. "You're heavy,
get off of me."
It shook its head, blue hair shifting slightly. "I like where I am. I'll stay here."
Some sickening combination of fear and rage and helplessness melded in your stomach and you were suddenly a shaking, angry mess. "
You killed my friend," you sobbed, kicking at it again repeatedly. It took the abuse without acknowledging it and gazed down at you with its wide, curious glittering eyes again.
"I did."
"
Why?" You ignored your tears and made a frustrated, devastation screaming sound. "
What is wrong with you? Why?"
It seemed honestly confused for a moment. Its expression was openly processing the information and then it narrowed its eyes and frowned deeply. "They were delaying me," it said, irritation clear in its voice.
"
What does that even mean?" you sobbed. "
Get off of me! Just go
away!"
It rose up on its knees and was now just kneeling over your hips. It crossed its arms over its bare chest and looked down at you with an odd expression. "I wait around for over a fucking week and then I have to wait longer?" It snarled and you jumped in shock at the animalistic quality of the sound considering how human the voice was. "I don't like to wait," it said, narrowing its eyes at you.
You stared up at it in shock. "W-what do you even mean? W-what are you talking about...?"
It bared its fangs and growled low in its chest. "It doesn't need to fucking mean anything. I always get what I want--"
"What do you
want?"
You were expecting it to say "you" but it didn't. In fact, it didn't say anything. It just stared at you with its radiant eyes and its slight frown and its furrowed brow. And then it shrugged casually and looked rather disinterested. "Doesn't matter. I always get what I want." It fell down on top of you again, pinning both of your hands over your head with a single one of its own. The weight knocked the air out of your lungs and you gasped at the sudden force.
"Get off of me," you whispered around the tears clogging your throat. This was too confusing.
"What's your name?" it demanded suddenly, loudly.
You blinked at it. "__________..."
It seemed satisfied with that response. "I'm Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, the sexta espada," it said conversationally but with an odd amount of intensity. You didn't say anything, just stared up at it in frozen fear. It narrowed its eyes at you in thought. "You're mine."
"No!" you said compulsively, before you could stop yourself. Immediately you sucked a nervous breath in and tears pricked your eyes.
It didn't seem fazed. "You are. It's already been decided," it said flatly, blue eyes dark with some emotion. "I'll show you."
And it bit you. On the neck. It gripped your chin roughly with the one free hand and tilted it up, and then attacked the side of your neck with its teeth. You screamed upon contact and squeezed your eyes shut. You felt the pain, the digging, stinging pain, and the warmth of its mouth and its tongue and your blood all at once, all in an uncomfortable mixture. It stayed there, its sharp teeth sunken into your skin, for a long moment and then it pulled away. When you slowly reopened your eyes and managed to see past the blurry tears, the animal was licking its lips and making an odd sound low in its chest. A purring sound.
"See?"
"S-see what?" you whimpered, deathly confused and disoriented.
The animal ran its fingers through the blood on your neck. Before you had time to feel that discomfort, it licked the blood off and stared you dead in the eyes, its face contorting into an odd mixture of contentedness and insanity.
You felt cold and small. "I-I still don't see what you mean," you whispered, trying not to upset it further.
It looked perfectly pleased with itself. "You can't resist me," it intoned. "You're mine."
You opened your mouth to say something, you didn't know what, and it was suddenly hovering over you, its face mere inches from yours. At this proximity, you could see the lines creased into its skin from constant frowning, the concentric circles of many different shades of blue that made up its shocking irises and the wings if color at the corners of the eyes, the skin there as blue as its hair on its head. You could see the angry-looking teeth of the jawbone oddly attached to its face, bleached white and very real. You could feel the immense heat radiating off of it, too much heat, and then you felt nauseated again.
"
You make me feel sick," you whispered fiercely, voice probably on the edge of pleading. Tears pricked your eyes as the feeling washed over you again. Out of the corners of your eyes, you could see the long, ropey muscles in its arms flex and ripple. "Get
off of me," you tried again, and this time you reached up to shove against its chest which was very low to your own.
The moment your skin made contact with its, a few things happened. First, an odd liquid heat shot through your arms and the energy seemed to drain out of them, suddenly, all at once, and you felt weak and limp. Then, you gasped loudly in surprise, which wouldn't have been a big deal, except your eyes automatically snapped to its, and it seemed to have been waiting for this. But it looked pleasantly surprised as well, and immediately it gripped one of your wrists and held it there when you tried to jerk away. This all took about five seconds.
The pain in your wrist now overwhelmed you. "
Let go!" you squealed, bringing a knee up and catching it beneath the ribs. It grunted and snarled, its upper lip pulling back to reveal unnaturally sharp teeth.
"Stay still, human," it growled. "Stop struggling." Its eyes had narrowed into burning cobalt slits.
"You're
hurting me," you gasped at it, knowing that anger had eclipsed some of the panic and now you probably looked irate, but you felt like jelly, wavering and helpless, and you just wanted to get out from under it. You could feel bruises forming where its hand was wrapped too tightly around your wrist. And where your hand was pressed to its naked chest, you could feel heat, only heat and the hard muscle that pushed in and out as it breathed.
It glanced at where it was holding you and seemed to consider something. Then it let go and said in a low, dangerous voice, "Keep your hand there."
The two of you stayed there for a long moment, you staring up at it, your hand still pressed to its chest, it staring down at you, evaluating, measuring, looking hungry. You wondered why no one had come up to see if you were okay. Were they still down there? Were they still alive? You wanted to ask the animal, but you noticed it had closed its eyes and seemed to be concentrating on something, its eyebrows furrowed deeply. You closed your mouth and tried to take deep breaths to drive back the panic and nausea and fear.
Its eyes snapped open suddenly, full of blue fire. Its mouth pulled up into a grin. "Perfect," it muttered, halfway growled, the sound starting in its chest, and rumbling through your hand and down your arm. You jumped at the sensation, which continued long after the word. You focused on the feeling against your hand, which you eventually realized was a low, low purr. It was purring. You had a moment of surreality and had to bite back a sound of surprise.
An arm suddenly slid under you, wrapped around your waist and lifted you. You were suddenly pressed to its chest, and it rose up, standing from the bed and walking over to the window, carrying your weight on one arm effortlessly. You tried to struggle but it was no use. "Put me down!" you hissed at it, hoisted over its shoulder, its hand pressed to your lower back.
It didn't seem to notice and opened the window with a hand, and, before you could register it, stepped out into the cold, black air; but you didn't plummet to the ground at all: there was a rush and you were suddenly moving very quickly, the wind whipping around you, trees and houses flying past and then you were very high. You didn't notice this until you felt weightless and the animal adjusted its hold on you until you found yourself staring up at it and realized it was carrying you princess style.
This was odd for you.
You made a shocked squealing noise and dug your hands into its shoulder and forearm so as to not topple and drop all several hundred feet to your death. It laughed, its eyes wide and glittering in the darkness. You felt your heart hammering against your chest, your skin busy with all the sensations--the iciness of the air, the intense heat of its body, the harsh biting of the wind, all of that made your head feel fuzzy and then you remembered it had bitten you and you were probably losing blood at some constant rate.
You compulsively touched the bite area and felt your fingers slide through something wet. You made a strangled sound of anguish and squeezed your eyes shut.
It was yelling at someone now. Its voice ripped across the silent night and was very loud near your head. It was saying something insulting, tone deep and displeased and animalistic, cut through with a vicious, bloodthirsty kind of threatening. You couldn't tell what it was saying, the wind being too loud, but you got a vague sense that it was giving direction, because white shapes shot past you and disappeared suddenly into nowhere.
"Fucking idiots," it scowled, voice very clear. It then seemed to remember you and grinned down at you, expression turning from crazed rage to some kind of predatory calmness. "But they won't be able to touch you, human, I wouldn't worry."
"I-I wasn't," you mumbled, trying to look nowhere but up so as to stem the nausea. The tears were gone now, replaced by a dry nothingness that was unbearable; instead, there was a panic that had settled very uncomfortably in your throat that made it hard to breathe. You took a very shallow, shaky breath in and shook your head at it. "C-can you please bring me back down?" you asked in the levelest voice you could manage, though it still shook horribly.
"No." It wasn't moving any more. It was just standing there, in the middle of the air, balancing on nothing, looking completely unconcerned. You were shaking and couldn't stop it. It tightened its hold on you by many times and you sucked in a breath at the pressure.
"I'm sick of not being recognized for my greatness," it began, voice deathly low and when you looked at its face it was contorted in the most uncontrollable rage you'd ever seen. "I'm better than them," it snarled. "I deserve more than what I have." It was at this point that the dangerous calmness left it and it let loose an immense, frustrated roar, its eyes dark and flashing with rage.
You cringed and covered your face with your hands until it stopped the horrible animal noise. You could feel it breathe heavily against you. "I'm the
sexta espada!" it bit out viciously. "I'll
kill them for underestimating me! I'm
Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez,
the sexta espada!
Who the fuck are they?" It spat this, bit it out with sharp, bared teeth, staring off somewhere into the sky, focusing on that point with an insatiable rage.
You were terrified and your skin was cool and clammy. It might drop you. It might kill you right now, take you apart, and you had no idea why.
"Stop," you said softly, pleadingly, just wanting it to calm down so it wouldn't do anything bizarre. Its skin was dangerously hot under your own, and you worried it might suddenly pass out or fall unconscious and the two of you would plummet down. This thought hit you again, very hard in the head, and when it seemed to pull in another breath to screech something else, you pressed a hand to its chest and just said, "Shhhh..."
It was the only thing you could think of to do. Tears were on your cheeks. This was overwhelming. Whatever
it was, it was overwhelming. You were so scared, so frozen that the only thing you could think of to do was to do the exact thing that might have calmed you down.
The thing was, it did calm down. Very suddenly it quieted, its chest heaving, its eyes glittering. It looked down at you, an odd expression on its face. You ran a hand down your face, trying to rub off the tears that were drying in the cool breeze.
It made a noise and you looked at it. "You're not leaving," it said decisively. "I'm keeping you."
"W-what?"
"I deserve this reward," it said with a dangerous smile, cat eyes narrowing. And then it stepped forward into a void of darkness and the two of you were gone.
