Luna’s fractured mind was swirling with impressions - memories and nightmares intermingled with reality. A bright, white light had deprived her of nearly all her sight. She was running - running for her life across a pulverized hull. No, the seabed - the sand… yet it was not wet, nor was she wearing her atmospheric suit. Her arms and legs moved so quickly - so freely.
A jagged, brown strip of rebar hooked her foot and dragged her down to the sands where she fell face-first into a hot, dry dune of peachy brown. How had she gotten there? Was this Hell or Heaven? The last she could remember was being flung from a rapidly depressurizing hull - no, not the last thing... she'd been asleep... drifting... awakening...
She quickly spun to see that bright, white thing again - that light shining down at her from the surface, illuminating the thin, light water with the most beautiful blue she had ever seen. She had been running from something… something dangerous… something ancient and cursed - a thing that should not be. A thing that was still chasing her.
She scrambled to get back up on her feet and finally saw it. Further down on that magical strip of dust - between the tall, thick jungle of kelp and the blue layer of darker waters to her right.
The Monstrum were unlike her previous encounters with them - far more numerous than the scant few times she had seen them. The open space only compacted her woes, as she had nowhere to hide but down in the sand and, judging by their approach, she did not have time for digging.
They were of the same body-type - all clad in a thick, translucent layer of skin. Beneath the whitish membrane, powerful muscles jerked in saccades as they brought forth the bipedal monstrosities. From afar, she might’ve thought them human. But with every step closer, the absurdity of such a thought grew stronger and stronger.
Nothing on their bodies was as deformed as their faces; melted blobs of skin wrapped tightly around an eyeless cranium with nothing but sharp, long jaws of teeth to show for common features.
They made no sound as they approached - no screams, no roars, no nothing. Thirteen of them, all flexing visible muscles, all sprinting at more than full speed - all turning their attention towards her.
At that moment she froze. These beasts - the Monstrum had taken so much from her. She had never even had a chance to see the surface; these things had seen to it when they forced the Logoruum under the sea.
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She felt a rock under her right hand and clamored to it as she watched the first of them slow its approach. Its arms were unnaturally long, nearly touching the sand as it extended them to its sides.
Beneath the membrane serving as its skin, she watched chaotic life writhe and twitch; tendrilous growths pulling at bones to open its long maw, baring those fearsome teeth at her - still without making a single sound.
Then, the world exploded.
She felt the ground shake beneath her body. Her hair floated in the air as something blindingly fast shot past her head and struck the monster’s face - transferring a massive amount of energy to the interior of its skull.
A spurt of gore stood from its mouth as it staggered backwards. Had it died? Had some force come to save her from this nightmare? Or was this just a part of the process - providing her with an inkling of hope, only to steal it away from her as soon as she breathed a sigh of relief.
Its head returned up. Its teeth had all been shattered and a wide, gaping hole had had reduced its face to little more than a bloody crater, yet there was no brain. There was no nose. It was nothing like she had seen in the books - just more of those disgusting, writhing, fleshy tentacles slapping together.
“Get down!” A man’s voice shouted before another explosion shook the sands. This time, the projectile struck its chest and, like the headshot, the chest blew open to shower its kin with ribs and gore. This time, it would not have time to recover as a flash of the brightest white she had ever seen momentarily blinded her.
A dark coat appeared in front of her - a figure with long, bright-white, long knives in either hand. No- not knives… she had seen those in her books - swords. Weapons. Was the madman about to battle these beasts?
His movements were fast - well-practiced and precise. He swung out with both blades, striking the beast in a cross across the chest before kicking it backwards.
But his enemies would give him no respite, as the next soon appeared at his right flank - lunging for his shoulder.
With movements almost impossible for her to see, he jerked to the left and raised both blades outwards- slicing through the creature’s chest in two spots. It, too, fell to the sands.
The last stopped a distance away from him at an awkward angle and cocked its head back and forth, as if considering its luck against the killer of its comrades.
Luna almost retched as she saw the writhing beneath its skin grow more frantic - flowing to its neck, face and thighs. Soon thereafter, black beads; eyes cut through the flesh to stare as the black-coated man quickly holstered his blades and fingered with something in front of him.
He raised something to his mouth - a black, cubical thing with countless scratches on it.
With a mouth full of alcohol, Logan raised the matchstick to his mouth and heard the woman scream as he exhaled a powerful plume of fire- setting the beast alight by coating its thin membranous skin with the scorching, bubbling liquids.
Its eyes closed again and retracted into its flesh and in a smooth movement, it fell to its fours and pounced- straight into the stranger’s silver blade.