FEED

Us and them.

Us and them.

Us or them.

Us . . . them . . .

The large figure paused just outside the window, panes green with grime, broken and cracked along the chipped frame. Its bulk was unsettlingly large, impenetrably black, with the soiled daylight - an ugly hue of vomit and pale, pale orange - fanning out behind its irregular silhouette. Its shadow was cast on the wall within the crumbling warehouse; a grotesque image brought to life in a single second, and free to stalk the earth for an entirety afterward. Because once conjured, they could not be killed. Horrors of the mind were inescapable not just because of the lingering fear and existential dread they stirred up, but because they walked the land in physical forms now. Like long, dead fingernails picking at strips of skin and peeling them back slowly, slowly so that the pain was dull, then acute, then dull again, but always constant, always there as a reminder.

The shape scratched at the glass, knocked against it a few times. A reverberating echo rang out throughout the desolate, destroyed building. The child huddled closer to the older girl, buried her head in the crook of her neck to keep from looking. The older girl shoved the girl’s face closer against her skin, willing her to be quiet. The tears were even louder than the scratches, the low, bloodthirsty grunts that whistled in through the window. If they weren’t quiet, it would find them.

The moment she’d waken from her nightmare, they’d ran. The older girl, her sister’s best friend, had been perched in the chair next to her, unable to sleep herself – fortunately. Sleep was dangerous because it was when your guard was down, and you couldn’t help the things you dreamt of. Couldn’t control whether a nightmare came or not. Couldn’t control the fear that seeped into every available crack and tunnel dug within yourself. Nighttime was when the most monsters were made, and nighttime was when most people died. Slayed right in their beds before they could even wake up and let out a scream.

“Shhh,” murmured the older girl as softly as she possibly could, her mouth buried in the child’s hair.

The creature shifted outside. They could hear the growl, the whine of hunger form deep in its throat. Its' foul breath coated the glass as it shifted once again, straining to detect a sound, however minimal, however careful.

The two girls held their own breath, hearts halted, every muscle straining, close to snapping like twine from the rigidity with which they held themselves. The rigidity of the hunted. The little girl hugged her guardian closer, fists clenched in her shirt. The older girl had closed her eyes, trying to calm herself down and hopefully, that would rub off on her charge. Please. Please.

And, from somewhere far across the space, perhaps trapped elsewhere among the labyrinthine corridors of crumbling brick and cement, rusted metal and sparkling glass flecked with cherry-red blood, a dog yowled.

The older girl’s eyes snapped open.

The monster froze.

“No!” shrieked the little girl, her round, twelve-year-old face wet with salty rivers.

The window exploded as the monster forced its ugly, bony skeleton through the opening. Large chunks of its torso were ripped off, like a dispassionate butcher just hacking away at a dead pig, caught on the jagged glass and nails of the wooden frame.

“Run!” shouted the older girl, and she yanked up the little girl just as the creature lunged at them, its eyeless sockets shining like black pools under the waning sunlight. Razor claws and antlers clanged against the metal beam they had been pressed against, scratching and biting and stabbing before it realized its prey had managed to flee.

“Come on Jia!” the older girl urged. “Come on!” She willed herself not to stumble; Jia was doing enough of that for the both of them. If she stumbled too, they would surely die.

These monsters never withered. These monsters never faulted. Swift like the shadows they were back when they haunted their minds.

The moment you summoned that fear, whatever form it took, it was made real. Day or night, sunrise and sunset, you were a slave to the thing you were most scared of. And after it feasted on your thoughts, it feasted on your body.

It could smell their burning blood, spiked with too-much adrenaline and too-much fright. Too much good flavor. That’s what she’d heard some of the lunatics sputtering, wandering the streets either drunk, careless, suicidal or some gross combination of all three. There were always junkies seeking some form of high, and what better way to satisfy that addiction than by building a monster and inviting it to find you. The creatures couldn’t die but man could - at least, that’s what everyone believed, for how could you possibly end something that wasn’t from this world? Something that belonged to a demonic realm humans couldn’t reach?

She wasn’t sure, but if these monsters could be born, they could be unborn. Right?

Jia let out a scream. The older girl had all but dragged her over a series of fallen industrial machines, and her ankle got caught in between the mouth of one particularly nasty one. Fat drops of blood spurted out from where the metal teeth had clamped around her. “Kyung!” she wailed, drawing even more attention to their whereabouts. The older girl’s spine tingled; her sixth sense pulsing wildly like a dying heart. She could sense the scrutiny from surrounding monsters baring down on the pair of them, leaden, crushing, bone-breaking and throat-cutting.

Dropping to her knees, she started tugging relentlessly at the machine, not caring in the least that her attempts to free Jia were rendering her ankle a shredded mess of sinew, muscle, and bubbling arteries. The little girl cried repeatedly. The monster barreled towards them.

Jia’s older sister Ho-sook had been killed three months ago; she’d let herself doze off whilst it was her turn to keep watch. They’d made a fire, but it had been weak and fizzled out almost immediately, dowsing the three of them in a veil of blue-veined darkness. Only the sickly yellowed eyes of the monsters were visible. Kyung had volunteered to say awake, one of the few times since this plague that she was grateful for her insomnia. Ho-sook had refused, confidently saying it was time for her to do so, since Kyung always played the part of the serious survivalist. They’d run out of dust days ago.

Kyung hesitated but eventually agreed, snuggling herself up to Jia and telling her some far-fetched story of a sugarplum land where the only creatures that lived there were magical and silvery and drenched in rosy hues as opposed the morbid, unnatural beings that shared the earth with them. Ho-sook had wandered off to keep watch near the roof’s edge. It was easier to see Seoul from there. A good point of view to map out particularly dangerous streets and alleyways they should avoid. They were on their way to the Seoul National University Hospital; they’d heard rumors that dust was there, and they desperately needed more of the drug.

Jia called it pixie dust because it was silvery and sparkled like the discarded remnants falling off of fairies’ wings. It sounded prettier when she put it like that. In reality, it was just as dangerous as any other substance. The side effects were horrible - continual vomiting, headaches, nosebleeds, bleeding from your ears too, and, increased cravings the more you swallowed it - but none of that mattered because it kept you awake for twelve hours. And if you were awake, there was less of a chance you’d dream, and therefore more of a chance that no more monsters would be made. All you’d have to do is discipline your mind to ignore the temptations of fear, and that was much easier when you were conscious. Monsters didn’t appear if you were anxious or frightened of riding the subway for the first time or scared that your blind date wasn’t going to like you. It was bigger, disgustingly real, and absurdly terrifying things that came to life. Werewolves, cannibal clowns, golems, gorgons and La Llorona herself, intent on drowning you.

Kyung was in the middle of telling a very tired, though very determined-to-stay-awake Jia the story of the Three Little Pigs for the hundredth time when a doll, prim and proper in her little dress and hair bow, manifested out of the dark air and stabbed Ho-sook to death. First in the neck, then in her left eye, then her heart again and again. Then, just because Jia screamed, the creepy doll turned its head to stare at them, huddled across the expanse of the roof, smiling almost and then buried the blade in the pit of her stomach.

Then it came for them.

The monster tore through the warehouse like a raging bull, ears pulled back, crimson-white foam dripping down its jaws. Kyung cursed to herself as she kept tugging on Jia’s leg, praying, praying, praying . . .

After Ho-sook’s murder, the two of them had been able to escape the tower and took refuge in an abandoned library. Books and paper littered the ground like snow, crinkling under their feet. That must’ve been where Jia first learned of it, flicking through the illustrations, bored from hiding out. Preternatural Monsters: Volume II: American Legends. Jia had never heard of a Wendigo before then.

That same night, Jia had drifted off to sleep accidentally; Kyung had been distracted trying to catch a cluster of rats for them to eat and hadn’t been paying attention. She should’ve been paying attention.

The Wendigo roared and lunged again. Kyung cried out as it came down upon them. She braced herself for death, but it wasn’t her the monster was hungry for: it was Jia.

“Kyung! Help me!”

Whoever conceived of the beast was target number one. Only after the monster devoured their creator did the laws of nature turn uncanny and allow them to turn on any other poor soul.

Blood rain, bitter and searing, splashed Kyung and then Jia was gone, ripped in half as the monster munched.

Kyung shook from head to toe; just heartbeats ago, the little girl had been alive and desperate in her hands, trusting her. Trusting her to save her.

And now . . .

Kyung felt numb; somehow, she stumbled away as the Wendigo took care of what was left of Jia. Jia . . .

She was alone in this alternative, nightmare world. A barbaric realm. And the saddest thing of all was that humans were still the most monstrous of entities - who else could breathe life into such horrors? No other being had such sick imaginations.

No, Kyung, you are not alone. You must come now, on your own. You must come.

Cheol. His voice was crystallized honey, calling to her.

You must come.

Another of her friends, who’d she’d run into a year ago with Ho-sook and Jia. She’d begged him to stay with them, power in numbers after all, but he’d refused. He’d needed to find his uncle. The man was a doctor and worked at a hospital in Busan, helping to administer the dust to citizens. Cheol was smart; he knew that his uncle would be a valuable man to have with them should their own supply ever run out. Not only could he get them access to more quicker than usual, but perhaps he could make it from scratch if need be.

Kyung worried for him, but he’d assured her they’d see each other again. Like a cockroach, Cheol was stubborn and hard to kill. When she and Ho-sook had heard of the possibility of a dust abundance at Seoul National University Hospital, she knew where they had to go. Not only were they completely out of the drug themselves, but there was a good chance that Cheol’s uncle had ended up there since the hospital in Busan had been destroyed. Patients on death’s door had an unhealthy tendency to think of the worst-case scenarios what with the looming chance of going to hell instead of heaven. So, there was a good chance Cheol had gone there too.

I’ll see you again, Kyung. Soon. Monsters or not.

The Wendigo howled, finally satisfied with its meal. Now Kyung was the second course.

She ran.

Ran.

Ran.

Us and them.

Us and them.

Us or them.

Us . . . them . . .

Them . . . and me. Just me now.

She pumped her arms and forced her legs to carry her away from the warehouse. Ignored the battered mess that was Jia, pushing it from her thoughts, otherwise the little girl’s corpse would be the next thing to appear.

The battle against fear had only just begun. I am the frontline, she thought as she shouldered open a door and emerged back into the war-torn, howling night.