Creatures Of The Dark

The city seemed quiet and empty. Yet there’s a distinct emotion hanging in the air as the sun sinks below the horizon.

It wasn’t just the stone streets void of nimble feet from all paths of life. None stood at where the stalls used to be; showcasing a plethora of fruits, vegetables, items and other things that festooned the stalls. Lights mingled in the joyous space, encasing the looming cathedral in a dazzling array of warm colors. The cackles, the cheers, filled the air and the square too reveled in the contagious atmosphere.

That was the past of Florenca, a city noted for its fascinating architecture and culture. Yet Florenca didn’t die to time, war, or disease. Rather, the city succumbed to an unknown force.

But there’s something about the city that attracted a certain traveler; the enigma of it all, the tragedy that befell it. Something happened to Florenca, and it’s the thing that Valentina Moarv sought to unearth.

The gigantic ball of light fell back to its temporary slumber, while the darkness of the night touched everything it saw. She walked past what looked to be a tavern, clear from the hanging sign that screamed, “The Iron Rooster Tavern”, yet it showed signs of decay and long age. Something razed it to the ground, and several buildings around Valentina too experienced the same fate.

Valentina’s feet carried her down the road, her movements becoming skittish as her hand clutched her azure sweater with a brown backpack hanging by her shoulders. Her black boots kissed the broken ground as the faint wind brushed against her short dark hair. It wasn’t until Valentina halted in her tracks as her hazel eyes glanced over to something.

Behind a shop ahead stood a tall, slender figure concealed by the shadows. Valentina only saw the shadow because of the rising yellow moon. She assumed that it was a person checking on another for wounds. To her, opportunities present themselves in several ways thanks to the universe, and she already knew the next thing to do.

Here, it was ripe for the seizing.

She walked over, stopping only a couple of meters away for safety reasons. The pale glow from the moon breached the darkness, touching the gates, streets, and buildings. Even though the scenery might look breathtaking, what made Valentina’s blood turn into ice, the hair on her neck stand straight, and her mouth rushing to contain blood-curdling screams, is what the moonlight revealed.

The being isn’t human, Valentina realized. Long purple tendrils hid its body, and its entire head only resembled a brain with small spikes stretching outwards by a couple inches. The lump turned out to be a man with pale skin wearing a long black cloak, his eyes rolling upwards to his forehead as he muttered something gibberish. Two of the being’s tendrils penetrated the man’s ears, dark liquid gushing from the earlobes as the river stained the man’s shirt, and the ground, producing a small red ocean.

Before Valentina ran, the entity turned around and saw her. Its front eye kept a kind of glare which would make anyone uneasy. More of its orange eyes surrounded by darkness opened, and they all found their next target. Valentina pulled from her backpack what looked to be a short sword wrapped in brown paper, and the paper cried as it went into the wind’s embrace.

Two of its tendrils reached out to her at an alarming rate. Valentina attempted to slash at them, but the sword only cut the tip of one tendril, eliciting a shriek from the being. Her head shifted as she found the other one, preparing to slash at it.

But it was too late; it only took her four seconds to notice the searing pain that was skyrocketing. She looked down, realizing that the undamaged tendril stabbed her in the abdomen. More of them rushed forward. Not one, two, or three, but four. Valentina’s sword tried to lick at something again, but they were too fast and precise. Arrows of unrelenting pain hit her multiple times at different angles; her arms, then her legs, forcing her to kneel and to wail in response.

The harsh waves of fear consumed her mind and soul. Beneath the curtain of tendrils was a short body belonging to a woman, clad in a blue nightgown, yet her head wasn’t visible. The sheer horror struck Valentina as she realized that this eldritch beast, most likely consumed the individual’s head to dominate its mind and body.

The man in the alleyway suddenly shouted out something incomprehensible before his body violently squirmed. His teeth got kicked out onto the ground, his hair withered into nothingness, and a brain grew forth from the top of his head. His legs split themselves apart, causing purple tendrils to spawn from the insides. The gruesome transformation already implanted in Valentina’s memory to last for a while.

Her assailant kept her in place as she fought against the numbing pain to free herself. But a distinct feeling surged forth from the deepest parts of her mind, causing her resistance to ebb away to nothingness. What replaced the resistance, and the fear, was serenity, acceptance, and sympathy. Valentina looked at it with a calm expression, nodding as it told her something with words inside her head, clear by its quivering pink spikes.

It arose from the alleyway, born anew. It’s new form, more robust than the poor excuse of a husk it manifested in. Its eyes opened and adjusted to the environment, and it noticed its brethren communicating with a woman who dropped a short sword. Pink spikes pointing from its head hummed softly, the newborn taking everything in.

A part of Valentina’s consciousness that didn’t get taken over, noticed something in the cloudy skies above. Thousands of them floated in the air, the bodies dangling as they too consumed the heads. A gigantic ship loomed out the dark clouds, appearing behind the vast army of the eldritch creatures.

Her opponent told her to rest, to allow it to take care of things. It took over her consciousness entirely while it used the tendrils to draw her closer. The last thing Valentina Moarv saw was several tendrils digging into her temples. Many stars appeared in her vision before darkness followed suite.

The beings looked at the city below, then to the surrounding land. They will bless the civilization that lives on this continent, and then? The world itself.