Prompt: It’s Out There

It’s very dark. The stars glitter with cold, unforgiving malice. The foreboding feeling in your gut grows, and you know it’s time.

 

“It’s out there,” you whisper to the woman at the door.

 

It has been out there all day, waiting for night to fall. Already, you can hear the deep roar of Its yawn, the creaking of great muscles slowly unclenching. It snaps what must be its jaws, and it sounds as though the very sky is cracking.

 

Reassured that she will believe you, you look back to the woman who answered the door, but she isn’t alarmed by the growing roar. How can she stand there, unmoved, as It raises its telltale din behind them?

 

“Sir?” she asks carefully, as though any word she says might unhinge you, “What’s it?”

 

It is the physical incarnation of nightmares; It has no name because nothing can truly capture the horror it inspires. None who have seen it and survived can describe it (though there are few who have). They walk the earth with empty eyes, and society discards them as insane. The wind whistles behind you, warm like its breath. It’s close, you realize, and you begin to panic in earnest.

 

“It’s coming!” you cry, “Please, I just need a knife. Can I borrow your knife?”

 

This is it. This is your last hope. This is the only house for miles. You stare imploringly at the woman before you. All you need is a knife.

 

“Please.”

 

She backs away from you, shaking her head. The growl grows louder, and It’s shadow falls over you, obscuring the house’s lights.

 

“You need help,” she says shakily, and you know she’s not referring to the monster behind you. The door shuts.

 

Defeated, you turn and face the behemoth. You can’t distinguish any of It’s features aside from the flash of angry red eyes, staring down at you from a height of several stories. Something cold brushes you, and the worlds grows dark. All you can perceive now is stark, unadulterated terror. It has taken you.

 

You scream and scream and scream until your lungs give out, and then you scream some more.

 

***

 

The woman hears the screaming and bolts her door. She doesn’t see the shadow that has fallen over her house or the soul-chilling roar It releases.

 

They really need to do a better job of locking those people up, she decides, picturing the young man’s crazed stare.

 

***

 

The creature raises its great head. The man who had stood before it is gone, transported to an endless nightmare.

 

It’s almost dawn. It can see the orange glow on the horizon. It yawns, and the sound alone is enough to render those who can hear it catatonic with fear.

It slinks away and waits for night to come again, where it can feed on the night terrors of the living and hunt again.