The creature was magnificent.

It was an absurd thought.

He was facing an abject being.

The embodiment of death itself.

She was the Blizzard of Hi, a violent promise, an icy breath, freezing bodies and snuffing out souls.

Still, he could not stop himself from contemplating its magnificence.

The creature was three times his size. It seemed only made of bones and muscles. It had four limbs, similar to legs and arms, but at the extremities of those almost humanoid appendages, what it used as toes and fingers was far from it. On each hand, on each foot, eight long claws created some sort of arachnid-like tendrils. The scaly skin covering those ignominious things was covered in frozen blood, blood belonging to the unfortunate ones that had crossed its path. This solidified liquid formed a reddish veil around it.

Its face, if you could call it that, was such a sight it could only have crawled out of the nightmares of the traumatized.

But in spite of all this, the real pinnacle of horror wasn’t its blood-covered body, wasn’t its claws or dagger-like fangs. No, what would render you mad, what would haunt you beyond death, were the eyes.

Its eyes were ocean blue, unfathomable and breath-taking.

Sole token of beauty, pure and innocent, in the middle of a face that gave glimpses of hell.

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It was like seeing a euphoric child cooing inside a battlefield littered with dead bodies and rotting bowels.

It was like seeing a happy, smiling mother swinging her dead baby by the foot.

“Run!”

It had been the last request given to him by his kind.

The echoes of the screams that had followed did not last long, replaced by the ghostly whine of the wind rushing through the mountain pass.

However, even after having fled, even after having stopped and hidden inside one of the numerous caves of the Canyon of Sables, he could still hear them scream.

Why choose this cave and not another? He did not know. He did not even understand why he had ceased his running, why he had disobeyed.

He never disobeyed.

The only thing he knew now was this: It, who never should have walked this earth, was looking for him, the last survivor.

He was certain of it.

After what seemed like an eternity, he saw it. For the first time, he was able to admire the machine of death that, in its macabre glory, came to end its hunt. It was not a shadow around the campfire anymore. There, at the entrance of his sanctuary, it stood, unveiled by the glimmer of stars. Obsidian scales glazed in red were reflecting the silvery glow of the night.

This was where he understood that this creature was not something that should exist.

This was when he found the devil magnificent.

“I will fiiind youuuuu.” The monster’s voice was not strident or cavernous. It was normal. You could have confused it with one of a woman or a child.

He could not have imagined more terrifying.

He made no noise, cowering himself further back on the rocky wall of the cave.

His sanctuary had become a prison, where he was waiting for his inevitable execution.

The creature stepped once. Towards him.

Something absurd happened. The creature’s claws pierced the rocks like they were soft snow, sinking deep and fast, destabilizing the beast. It hit its head violently against a stalactite of ice, which broke instantly upon impact and shattered on the ground. After the deadly silence that had reigned until then, the noise was deafening.

An abomination of a sound followed the noise of shattering ice, like chalk on a blackboard. It was the creature roaring in anger. Each time it tried to remove one of its grotesque limbs from the stone ground, another sank in.

Ultimately, it broke free. The monster looked around, gazed upon the dark cave…then went away.

Did it decide that the cave was not worth it anymore?

He did not care; he could finally breathe again.

The scene had gone from horrifying to ridiculous in an instant.