The pair of eyes floating before the singular teen in the haze looked amber and sharp. They fixed the boy with a mirthful glint, before a voice sounding too deep to be natural and surrounding every breath of the space around the teen; making no space feel safe from its voice. The haze pressed in close to the teen, feeling like the smog was trying to push him closer to the creature.
“I thought you had strong conviction, young one. In your faith, and in your god,” said the voice, the lilt at the edges of the sentences betraying barely contained laughter. The eyes never faltered in their stare, never moving a fraction inside of their place in the haze.
The teen jut his chin up, the sparse stubble sticking out in uneven lengths from greasy skin doing little to bolster his intimidation. “I do.” The fear showed taut in his face — the strained twitch of the corner of one of his eyes threatening the burst of a blood vessel, and the quiver of his lower jaw. He tried and failed to breathe more than the panicked, shallow intakes in his flared nostrils.
Dark, viscous shadows crawled to the pair of eyes as the voice laughed, them clawing and whimpering and moaning as they fought in seeming death throes only to assimilate and gain form around the steady, sharp eyes. “I can feel the doubts inside you, child. You shouldn’t lie to a god.”
He pushed his shoulders back, trying to ignore the tight sting of panic settling in his lungs. “You are no god, there’s only one — and I know he isn’t you,” his voice wavered and wheezed on the last word.
Still more shadows clawed and amassed themselves onto the pair of eyes, growing more and more solid. It had too many limbs already — looking as an oil-thick and crunchy mess of blood and broken bones. “You are not convincing.”
“I don’t need to be convinced,” his tongue darted out in the pause before attempting to swallow the growing stone in his throat, “I know what I know.”
“You know what you are taught.” The eyes moved, cracking the shadows that had clawed, viscous and sticky, to form its head and neck — causing them to ripple and let out a tinny whinge of pain. “Please, child, you answer me just one question, and I may leave you be.”
His throat felt chokingly tight — too scared to blink, let alone breathe. A nearly imperceptible nod was all the petrified teen could muster.
Those sharp eyes fixed on him again, accompanied by a wide grin filled with too many teeth. “Tell me,” it said, smile growing wider and teeth multiplying, “does your god have as many teeth as me?”
The haze ate the screams of the teen before they had a chance to reach another human’s ears.
