Chapter 1 : The Figure (Roman’s perspective)

I've been watching you, Roman."

A rough senile voice came from the shadows. The voice was strikingly familiar, but I couldn't exactly put a pin on who it was.

"Who's there?"

I shuddered and took a step back looking into the misty dark hallway. A withered man, with dull gray hair, and seemingly paper thin skin crept out of the shadows. The senior was handicapped and in a wheelchair and even though I was able to see this man entirely, I had never truly been able to see his face. He was merely a figure and something about his presence had shocked me into a paralyzed state.

"You know exactly who I am."

The elderly man used his wooden cane to pull his withering body up and steadily walk towards me. The closer he came the more still I became at the horrifying sight. He was not a man at all, he was not human but merely a figure with no face. His skin enveloped the space where his nose, mouth, and eyes should have been. He was a fleshy creature. Nothing but layers of droopy skin that made this creature look as if it was melting. His monstrous appearance somehow resonated with me causing my bones to grow stiff with age. A cold shiver ran down my spine. The monstrous fleshy mound of an old man had reached me, in my now entirely still, almost stone like state, and I could finally see him, or it, in all its grotesque glory. The body reeked of rotting flesh, the smell creating a sludgy thickness in the air that separated me from the space around and this titan that stood in front of me. Towering above like a mountain of rotting bodies, old grotesque dead bodies. The smell burned my nostrils, burrowing itself deep within my nasal cavity. Burning my lungs with the nauseating smell that I could not run away from. The putrid smell caused me to retch aggressively, the more my body repulsed the smell, the more it began to absolve me. First the smell went in my nose, burning my nasal cavity, but I could not react. I was entirely frozen by the mere concept, the mere sight of this beast that stood in front of me. After burning up my youthful lungs, I began to feel my heart slow down, with a sharp pain in my chest. I am now a shell. My body now rendered entirely useless, no longer able to control my body. The stench was so strong it burned into the meant that wrapped my bones with a crippling pain, not only was the smell suffocated but it stung. It felt as if I was being cooked alive, the creature oozed a burning heat and stench which seemed to be killing me. I could feel the muscle tissue that wrapped around my bones beginning to heat up and soon begin to burn, as i began to collapse. Only able to look down upon the flesh that had burned off my now crippled body. The creature grew completely still, Lurking above my now defeated body, like the grim reaper at my door. Awaiting my own doom.

The skin of this human-like beast was rough and thick with age. Veins of fury and wisdom perturbed through it's skin. It's skin that was almost transparent. Skin that was beyond that of a human, with a thick yellow pus that ran like rivers through and underneath the monster's skin. His bloodless skin, so pale it revealed his yellowish rotting undertones. It seemed as if there was something moving underneath every folds of elderly flesh that covered the figure. Slug-like insects began to wriggle around pushing the surface of the unsightly yellow tinged skin.

Suddenly the skin that covered the man's face began to convulse and push towards me. As if something was trying to escape, as if there were a sea of maggots running underneath the man's skin boroughing through his flesh. The maggots pushed through the fleshy mass in the man's, piercing the writhing skin. Somehow it did not ooze of blood but of a yellow gooey liquid. The maggot ate through the fleshy skin creating a nauseating smile on the face of the unsightly figure. The maggots made themselves into a formation of teeth that glided smoothly against each other. Teeth that crawled through the man's mouth eating at his every bit his seemingly rotting flesh.

"I am you."

The words burned through my brain. When did I become a monster?

I thought to myself through my body thats was merely like meat on a silver platter for the creature to consume. The figure reached out its lengthy veiny hand touching my now meaty arm as maggots ran through and out of him like a colony of ants, they covered my now bloodied flesh, burrowing into my blood and eating at me slowly. The tender meat that wrapped my bones began to burn with an uncontrollable torment. I wanted to scream out but I could not speak, I could not move, for I was nothing but a meal for maggots . I was only able to feel, to bear, this most gut wrenching sensation as they dug their bodies deeper and deeper into my body, my intestines, my organs, and all.

"We are monsters."

The agony slowly began to fade and the feeling of the slimy creatures gliding through my flesh became almost vague, not so excruciating as enveloping, comforting, warm. I was aware, more aware of the cloth that clothed my body, the warmth my body had produced as if I was leaking, a warm sweat. A sweat that almost seemed to cloak my skin gently.The sweat I had produced , the sweaty maggots suddenly stopped their squirming and absorbed the sheets that lay atop of my chest. The hairs that flourished down my chest became cold and sprang up, I breathed the cold air of an empty bedroom.

I awake, and I can breathe.

My chest rose and fell with a quick and sporadic breaths of the thick dry air that filled the room. The air was almost a substance, a liquid-like substance that filled my lungs with a gravitational pull that stretched my organ and with the exhale the substance spread around the room. The heat of my breath moistened the dry cold air. All I could see was black, as if my body was still sedentary, heavy, useless. I tried to force my eyelids open, but no matter how much focus, no matter how hard I tried, I could not open my eyes. There was just too much weight, a hefty weight that pulled my body down and sunk it into the mattress like an unwieldy block of cement. I am not awake, yet somehow I was able to make out the shadows of my room, I could see the lamp that sits on my bedside table, the book shelf that aligns the back wall, the glass doors to my left my porch, but there was something off. A shadow that had never been there before. Maybe a bird, but it was too big to be a bird, and to deformed to be a person. Somewhat of a creature, the dark creature, that lurked in front of the window, watching, boring into my stone cold body. The dark figure absorbed the porch, then the bookshelves, the floor, the windows and the walls. I was now in pure darkness, a darkness that pooled up and slowly filled my body bringing me deeper into the hollow room in which I lay. The darkness was soft, and it encapsulated me entirely.

Entirely.