Slogutis was out for a stroll one night, consigning himself to a brutal death by starvation. Such was the way of his kind, and he was ready for it. It had been coming for hundreds of years, ever since that grandmother had imported him from the old country in a box of trinkets. She hadn't meant to, and torturing her to death with alien fears had been a good way to pass the time, but each night was likely to be his last so he lived like it. What else is living for, yes?
That was when he heard someone cry out in fear and he turned his head sharply toward the sound. That sound meant food, it meant salvation. Drink it in and live another day...or finally lay down for the longest sleep? Slogutis sighed, and smiled to himself. He shifted his footsteps toward the sound, knowing he would once more choose to go on.
--
Oh...oh god no...is that what I think it is?
He could still hear Wally's laughter, gratefully receding down the dark, narrow tunnel. His shoulder hurt from where it had slammed into the rock wall, but not nearly as bad as his chest did. It ached, both soreness and burning pain. Looking down at the source of the pain, he could see where Wally had stabbed him with...something.
Is that...bone?
Sure looked like bone. Pale white, streaked with red from what had probably been Wally's bloody hands. His first thought was impulse, almost instinct.
I need to get to a hospital.
But of course, that wasn't exactly an option anymore. The first thing they'd notice was the awful stab wound, but it wouldn't take them long to see that he didn't have a pulse. And then from there it was just a hop, skip, and a jump to god knows what else. Not to mention the fact that Wally wouldn't let him go.
It's funny, but I don't remember Wally having a knife or anything.
Of course, it didn't take him long to piece it together. It was a bone, all right, but it was his own rib, the fifth from the top, broken loose and sticking out of his chest. He quickly started screaming again.
--
Slogutis stood over him, giggling, wondering how best to nurture the baby nightmare in front of him. Grow it fat enough to eat. So many options. He had just decided to take the form of the torturer, this Wally, and start being kind to this pitiful thing (the better to sour his waking from the dream) when something happened that Slogutis did not intend.
The thing looked up at him, and quieted because it saw him. Really saw him. Well that was odd. It feared him initially, which was as it should be, but on second glance it couldn't have been human. No, this was vilkolakis, a blood-drinker. But there was something else...
Slogutis looked closer. Deep into the thing's pale blue eyes. And what he saw there sat not well at all with him, no not at all. There was blood in this thing, for sure, but it was old blood. Creepy blood. Blood from all the way back in the old country. Was that...?
"Teliavelis?"
The vilkolakis twitched at the word. Through one perfect eye and one beaten black and blue, it stared at Slogutis in a way that Slogutis liked not at all. "Are...are you a Velnias?"
Slogutis chuckled. "Not the Velnias, of course, but a Velnias perhaps. Why, are you afraid of me?"
The vilkolakis nodded, and Slogutis was pleased. "What brings you into this little hole, Teliavelis, in this ugly little vilkolakis?"
It shook its head now, stupid thing. "I don't understand, I'm sorry, please can you get me out of here?"
Slogutis chuckled again, really the thing was quite funny. "No, little vilkolakis, I am not one who helps. I am Slogutis, the nightmare, and whatever it is going on down here I'm here to make it worse." He made the motion to grin impossibly wide and the vilkolakis shuddered again, violently now. Slogutis was starting to like this one.
The vilkolakis was panicking, like a rabbit seeing the knife. "No, no, no, no...no. I belong to Wally. I can't have two. I can't have two."
"Well," Slogutis said, sitting down, "You do now. Whatever that means." He grinned again, and that's when things got really weird.
The vilkolakis reached down and pulled out the piece of rib in his chest, and pointed the bloody thing at Slogutis. Before he realized what the ignorant little thing was doing, the vilkolakis stretched out its other hand in a fist, the thumb between the forefinger and the middle finger.
"By the blood of Teliavelis and the sign of the spyga, I name you Slogutis and I give you my command. Get out of here and never come back."
Shrieking, Slogutis ran from that place and he starved that night. Our hero dropped the rib and looked down at his wound, forcing himself not to scream also. The pain was unimaginable. But at least he still only had one tormentor.
No comments:
Post a Comment