Page 3 of Light Leech

A voice spoke to the deepest part of my conscience. “This is your reality.”

“No.”

My son turned to look at me, confusion coloring his face. I had but a moment to glimpse him before a metallic tentacle, pulsing with black aura, wrapped around his waist and cut him in two with a rapid constriction.

Naoma screamed. I didn’t know how to react. Nevertheless, I ran to her side.

“Petya!” she cried as multiple smaller tentacles wrapped around her face. I reached out, ready to pull them apart, but they sliced my love’s face into pieces. Brain, eyes, and bones fell onto Syla, who screamed without her mother to hold her. I reached for my child, holding her, but could not lift her. My wife’s remains were too enticing.

A tentacle wrapped around Syla, then another. I did not care to touch them, only to pick up Naoma’s bloody, perfect teeth, and put them into my mouth. I screamed, bawling as I chewed. The imp within me savored the crunch and pop of each tooth as my conscience screamed for an end to my suffering.

I picked up the rest of my wife’s teeth, chewing them and longing for more as the tentacles split my infant into gory fragments.

I have no humanity and I must scream.

Chapter two

I’m Done With Tentacles

Everything in my vision changed. Warped. Distorted into reality.

A man stood before me, his mouth flayed open to reveal metallic tentacles that glowed with black light.

“Syla!” I screamed with enough force to tear my vocal cords. There was no physical ailment to cripple me, yet the agony of my family being murdered was enough to make me fall. I collapsed to my knees, looking up at the man approaching me. His tentacles were like those that had killed my family. If I had the will for justice, I would reach out to fight him, but their death was my failure. If not Naoma and Devóne, at least Syla. A hunger most vile had taken me away from one of the most beautiful beings in existence. If they had died, so should I. What reason was there to live?

A white tentacle wrapped around the man’s waist. I saw the end of the white line, realizing that it was no tentacle, but a serpent’s head.

I held onto the hope of that white light.

Someone else stepped before me, the serpent connected to her arm. She swung it like a whip and threw the tentacle-faced man into the wall, shattering a screen that advertised an antidepressant.

While the man struggled to move amidst the debris, the other person reached out her hand. Her skin was soft, pale, and the fingers familiar. Two rings on each hand and chromatic nails, they were the same that had held Syla. I looked up to see a much younger Naoma than the one who had been my wife.

“Get up!” she shouted, forcing me when I did not move of my own accord.

“How are–where are our kids?”

She furrowed her brow, a smile battling with confusion and a sense of duty. She opened her mouth to speak, but her eyes shot towards the moving abomination as it stood with a groan.

“Do you miss them?” he asked with a coarse voice, looking at me.

“Ignore him, Pet,” Naoma said, standing defiantly with the white serpent now coiled around her hand.

“Is that what he is? Your pet?” He laughed, brushing dust from his suit with his hands and tentacles. One shot at my wrist as I began to stand, then another at the other.

A pig snorted its laughter. A dark light, one purer than the abomination’s, covered my hands. Claws extended from them like rakes.

“Woof.” I ran at him, cutting off a tentacle with the swipe of my claw but as one fell, another grew. Severing it and the next few was easy, yet I felt the dark light drain from me with each cut. Pure dark light against this other light took its toll, adding to the emotional ache of my murdered family.

Multiple tentacles shot at me, many falling until they overwhelmed me and held my arms tight against my body. The dismal memories of my family flashed across my mind anew as the abomination stared into my eyes. His tentacles spread and I could see his tongue flick, ready to speak, just as Naoma’s white serpent dove into the whole of its mouth.

Cocksure eyes shifted to a frightened stare that lasted for a second. His gaze shot up, just as Naoma’s had. She cried out, not in pain, but in fury as the serpent continued to thread its way down his throat, expanding as it did so.

His eyes widened, his mouth dilated, his abdomen bloated. The serpent erupted out of his stomach, bursting out with an intestinal explosion in sync with the violent pop of his head and neck as the serpent expanded beyond his human capacity.

The serpent retreated and Naoma caught her breath, sweat dripping from her forehead.

I stepped towards her, ready to laugh in relief despite the grotesque display.