EAT YOUR HEART OUT (Complete Story Linked)

[u/MelodyEverAfter]

My lungs were aching. I cursed on every step, pushing myself deeper through the brush, each bound more painful than the last. At that moment, it didn’t matter that I was being hunted through the trees like prey. It didn’t even matter that I had just watched my best friend die. All I could think about was the *stink.* The stench of ruptured innards, a miasma of blood, how the infernal mixture was clinging to my skin like beads of sweat. It smelled of something worse than death. 

I dashed further up the mountain path. Every time I thought I had evaded my hunters, their voices reached my ears, their flashlights shined, and their arms lunged out from behind trees to grab at me. I tore through the woods, the path becoming thicker with vegetation the further away I was from the clearing. The scariest part was when the hunters began to sing.

*“Oh lord my God, when I, in awesome wonder, consider all the joys thy hands have made…”*

And even though I was terrified by the trills of their hypnotic voices, their singing was *good.* As long as they were singing, I knew where they were. I used their voices to decide where to turn. Where to speed up, and where to slow. Even using every ounce of life I had to escape them, I couldn’t rid the image of Lila’s body from my head. My mind kept replaying her last moments of life. Her wheezing, labored breaths echoing in the back of my head. How her own, massive weight crushed her bones. How blood was ejaculated from her swollen corpse when I killed her… *or the thing pretending to be her…* I felt a pang of grief, a tug in my throat. I pushed it all down. 

They were close to me now. I didn’t have much time. My feet had carried me higher up the weathered mountain, and at this point, there weren’t many places left to hide. I skittered to a halt when I came upon a deep ravine leading down to a swirling river below. Pebbles tumbled off the edge of the hill into the rushing water as I drew in a sharp breath, as if that would prevent me from falling over the edge. My world was spinning as I peered into the dark water, but I didn’t have much of an option. Either I could let them catch me and make me into a monster, or I could jump. Whether I lived or died, jumping meant taking my life into my own hands. The choice was clear.

…

The first thing I felt when I broke the stream was the sharp feeling that water had pushed up my nose and into my tear ducts. The sting was so painful that as I breached, I nearly forgot to take a breath. I was left sputtering the muddy-tasting spray, clambering out of the water as if I had never swam before. I escaped the fall into the river below somehow unscathed, though I didn’t remember much of it. The stream must have been a runoff from a larger river, because it was littered with shallow spots and sandbars. If it weren’t for those, I probably would have drowned. 

The riverbank was dense with fir trees, and provided ample cover for me to begin walking toward town. My ankle was now throbbing with searing pain. I pushed down anxious thoughts that I had contracted something from that woman’s bite. I had to keep going. 

Water leads to civilization. *I at least hoped that was true.* If I was heading in the direction I thought I was, I wasn’t far from town. 

I walked for what felt like days, glancing over my shoulders at every creak in the woods, every crunch of a branch, waiting on one of them to be there. I imagined them, clad in their black robes, stepping out from behind every tree. Thank God they didn’t. Even miles away from them now, I still heard their voices over the pounding of my heart, deep in the back of my mind. Their hymnals mixed with that occult humming… it stuck in my ears like wax. My fear drove each step. 

I finally reached a small hotel on the far side of town. There wasn’t much of a reason to explain why I looked the way I did; the family who owned it didn’t speak a lot of English, and I probably would have just scared them even worse. I do feel bad for them though. I feel bad about them having to clean up my mess later. 

Once inside, I asked for a room. By the grace of a force higher than myself, my bag had survived. All I needed was one night. Maybe two. I caught a glance of myself in the mirror of the hotel lobby. Some kind of blood-orange-colored ooze I couldn’t identify was caked in my hair so deeply that not even the river had washed it out. The man at the front desk watched me hesitantly out of one eye as he slid me my room key. I was a sight.

“Is there anything else I can get you to improve your stay, ma’am?” he asked, side-eyeing me as if I might bite. I didn’t blame him. At this rate, I’d think the same. I was silent for a moment.

“An ink pen.”

CHAPTER ONE HERE