I M P E R I U M

WRITTEN BY CLOUDEDDAYDREAMER

FROM THE WORLD OF “VITA CARNIS” BY DARIAN QUILLOY

  At the click of a button, the camera sprang to life with a soft, electric hum. The little block on the digital slider to the left of the frame began to skip up the line from W to T, and the maroon-tan figure grew to fill the frame. From the waist up, it was almost human: it wore a humanoid torso, adorned with many long, hair-like spines sprouting from its porous back. These spines quivered every now and then, caught in a breeze or shivering of their own accord. From this torso emerged a lengthy neck with a vertical slit down the middle that parted and shut at regular intervals, as if drawing breath. The figure’s humanoid head had no face—it was smooth, devoid of any features and imperfections. The length of its arms ran almost to the ground, ending in long spikes sprouting writhing tendrils—three each—in place of hands. This, however, was where its pseudo-humanity ended; where its legs should be, there was a large, thick trunk, as of an oak or spruce tree. The trunk and the rest of the creature’s body was a deep crimson color, made of twisted, fibrous masses like muscle the color of drying blood—covered in places like the head and chest by smooth, tan-colored plates like hardened skin. 

   Kai pulled his eye away from the viewfinder. They were crouched behind a mass of leafless twigs and brittle branches, a few dozen feet away. The creature stood in the middle of what would be, in any other season, a sea of tall, unkempt grass. Now the clearing was washed white with a thick shield of ankle-deep snow. Here and there was another mass of dead brush, ravaged by the early January chill. Far to the North, the clearing sloped up into a hill covered in snow-capped evergreens, backdropping the monument of flesh. Less than a mile to the South, the evidences of township protruded from the pale sheet in the forms of square buildings, squat houses, street lights and plowed pavement. “You see it? You see it, right?” Kate said. Her hazel eyes gleamed behind her thick-rimmed glasses; her face was flushed and alight. Stray strings of her straw-blonde hair spilled out from beneath her maroon wool cap. Kai handed the camera back to her. 

   “I dunno. Looks like a mimic or something,” he said. At this, Kate frowned, nesting her pout behind her scarf so that only her hot gaze could glance off his from above the red knot of thick cotton ribbon around her neck. 

   “A mimic, Kai? Really?” 

   Kai shrugged. “Could be.” 

   “In what way does that thing look human? Where’s its legs? Hell, where’s its face?!” 

   “From the waist up it looks human-ish. Besides, National Living Meat Research says the mimics have started evolving—” 

   “Not like this! I’ve seen the pictures, Kai, none of the evolved mimics look anything like this! We’re talking about a potential new species here!!” 

   Kai pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “Look, Kate, there are government funded research teams that go around the world looking for these things.” He threw his arms out. “Do you really think that you and I, a couple of teenagers with a shitty camcorder, found a new species before them?” 

   “I get it’s a small chance, Kai, but it’s not in any of the documentaries!”

   “That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe they’re still studying it! Just because we don’t have a documentary tape on the thing yet doesn’t mean they don’t know about it already! They could have discovered this thing last week, last month, or hell, even last year!” 

   “I get the point, Kai, but come on! Isn’t this the least bit interesting for you too? New species or not, we’ve never seen anything like this around here! This is a huge find for us!! It’ll be the talk of the town! I mean, come on! Think about it!” 

  Kai sighed. “Look, it’s a cool find and all, but even if it's a new species, what are we supposed to do about it?” 

  Kate’s face lit up. “Document it, of  course!” 

  Kai recoiled; his face tightened into a grimace. “Kate, are you out of your mind? I’m not getting anywhere near that thing and neither are you! We’re not ending up as some meat creature’s lunch for your little science project!” 

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be such a baby. If it were dangerous, it would have done something by now. It’s just standing there…sitting there…? Whatever, it’s not moving—” 

  “No. Absolutely no way in hell am I getting within ten feet of that thing.” 

  “I never said you had to,” Kate grinned as she shoved the camera against his chest. He fumbled for it, snatching it before it landed in the snow. “All you gotta do is step out there with me and get some good footage.” 

  “You’re kidding me.” 

  “Nope.” Kate giggled. 

  “Why can’t you record it?” 

  “Someone has to take credit for the find. Can you imagine the headlines? ‘High Schooler Kaitlyn Rivers makes groundbreaking discovery’!” 

  “But I’m the one recording it! I’m doing all the work here!” Kai shook his head. “And quit making it sound like we’re doing this! We’re not!” 

  “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’ll be sure to mention your name in the email to NLMR and the newspapers. ‘Videography by Kai Ryland.’ How’s that sound?” 

  “No. No way am I playing a role in your little death-wish here. We’re going home, Kate.” As Kai stood to leave, Kate lunged at him and wrapped herself around his arm.

  “Kai, please!!” Her eyes glistened. She let go, pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, and studied the snow while making little nonsensical knots with her gloved fingers. “This really means a lot to me, you know? Please just stay?” She folded her hands together and looked up at him. “Twenty minutes, that’s all. Then we go back.” 

  Kai locked eyes with her. Something on her face was burrowing into his chest—tugging on his heart. His stomach tightened and coiled. His face grew hot. He groaned. Fine. “Ten minutes. Then we go home.” 

  Kate pitched herself into him, squealing and wrapping him in a tight hug. “Thank you! You won’t regret this, I promise!”

  They stayed for an hour, at least. Kai recorded while Kate rambled on with all the professionalism and poise of a third grade news reporter. She proposed theories, struck poses, laughed at her own jokes, and prodded Kai to get closer and closer to the thing until at last, when they were no more than twenty feet off from it, Kai stopped the camcorder. 

  “That’s it, we’re going home,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. The sun was melding with the horizon, casting pastel-pink dust over the pallid blue sheet of the sky. Clouds caught the waning light on their soft underbellies, taking flame like tufts of fur cast into smoldering coals. The wind was changing, carrying the creature’s stench with an icy bite across his nose—the stench of decaying flesh. The creature hadn’t moved the entire time, save for the slow rise and fall of its shoulders and the periodic parting of the slit in its throat. The quills covering its back were trembling like blades of grass caught in a breeze. A low buzz undertoned the motion, vibrating his skull. 

  Kate threw on a smile. “Five more minutes?” 

  “No.” 

  The smile fell off and she started to gripe. “Come on, Kai, we’re talking about—”

  “Don’t wanna hear it.” 

  Kate threw her head back with a groan. “Fine! But we’re coming back tomorrow to get more footage.” 

  Kai rolled his eyes. No we aren’t. “Sure.” He handed the camera back to Kate. 

  As he took his first few steps away, the low buzz ascended to a hissing roar. Icy cinder blocks hardened around Kai’s feet and his heart tripped in his chest. He looked back. Kate was watching with wide eyes as the spines on the creature’s back quivered with a newfound energy—a shivering surge of violence that didn’t reflect in any way on the rest of the creature’s sluggish form. 

  “What’s it doing?” Kate mouthed; her voice was lost in the roaring buzz. Kai said nothing. He strained his eyes against the waning sunlight; he could almost make out a sort of yellow-ish cloud building around the creature. The wind picked up again, enveloping them both in a fog of invisible dust as if, in an instant, they had been swallowed by airborne mold as thick as smoke—its sour pungence stinging their nostrils and flooding their chests. Kai’s lungs seized and he began to heave for air. He fell to his knees. His eyes burned and tears poured down his face; he squeezed them shut, but found no relief. Beside him, the snow crunched beneath something heavy—Kate must’ve fallen to the ground, coughing and groping around for any kind of cover. 

  Then it was over—the wind carried away the airborne pollution, leaving Kai facedown in the snow, coughing and spitting up bitter grains of something the consistency of fine, powdery sand. 

  What in the FUCK?! His gloved fingers clawed at his eyes, trying to clear the stinging obstruction from beneath his eyelids. Kate tried to choke something out between coughs. Kai managed to open an eye. The world was a blurry haze of white and black smears that used to be snow and trees. He blinked away tears and before long, the world from that eye was clear again. 

  “Kai…?” Kate’s voice was trembling.

  “I’m here.” 

  “I–I can’t see anything.” Kai looked over. Kate was a black shape against the white snow, grasping around in the powder for something. Her glasses were gone and tears were pouring down her face. He rubbed at his other eye until the fabric of his gloves scraped his flesh raw, then forced it open. In a moment, it cleared, and he crawled over to her and began to root around in the pale powder next to her. 

  “Just stay right there, Kate, don’t move.” 

  “Kai, I can’t see…” she said. Her breathing was ragged. 

  “Calm down. I got you.” 

  “Where—” She started coughing.

  “I’m looking, I’m looking. They’re probably buried in the snow some—”

  “Not the fucking glasses, Kai. Where is that…that thing?” 

  Kai looked up, a burning hole gnawing itself into his abdomen. Even at this distance, the creature loomed over them. Its silhouetted shoulders still rose and fell with a slow evenness, as if the thing itself were completely unaware of what it had just done. “It’s not moving. We’re fine, okay? Just…focus on breathing or something.” 

  “Okay…okay…” she breathed. “I think I lost the camera too…” 

  “It’s fine. We’ll come back for it in the morning.” 

  “Are…are you sure?” 

  “Yeah,” he said. Not like you weren’t gonna drag me back out here tomorrow anyways. 

  “My dad’s gonna kill me…” 

  “Yeah, well, if he wants the camera back so bad, he can come out here and get it himself. See how he likes…whatever the hell that was…” 

  “We must’ve gotten too close…triggered some sort of defensive response from it.” 

   Kai bit his tongue. His fingertips brushed Kate’s glasses just in front of her—half-buried, bent out of shape, and missing a lens. She must’ve fallen on them. The remaining lens had a large crack across the middle—a ghostly thread that glistened in the ghastly glow of the rising moon. “Found ‘em. They’re pretty busted up, though. Here, hold still—” He moved himself across from Kate, wiping away a thin film that had formed on the lens, and slid them over her face.

   “It’s fine,” she said, “I have spares.” She blinked for a moment, then threw herself against him. “Thank you,” she whispered. Kai paused, heat rising in his face before he slowly put his arms around her. 

   “I told you I wouldn’t let you be some meat creature’s lunch, didn’t I?” 

   The evening chill was deepening. The dull disk of the dim moon was beginning to creep over the horizon. Kai’s watch beeped—it was five o’clock. His mom would be making dinner, wondering where he was. His dad would be home from work soon. Yet in that moment, nothing else mattered: not the dark, not the cold; not dinner nor his parents nor the warmth of home; not even Kate’s shivering embrace. For even in the dark, he could still make out the thing’s rough shape. For even in the dark, he could still see the thing’s body shifting with each breath. For even in the dark, he could still tell that it had, in fact, moved. Its head had turned, crooked neck twisted ever so slightly so that the dim moonlight glanced off its faceless visage as it stared at them through eyes it did not have.

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   On the walk back, Kate clung to his arm. She was silent, rolling unformed words around on her tongue behind sealed lips. Maybe it was because she was cold, or maybe it was because she couldn’t see well through her broken glasses; maybe she was scared, or maybe it was something else entirely. He allowed it nonetheless, keeping an even pace as to not leave her behind or trip her up.

  “Sorry,” she said. 

  Kai kept looking straight ahead. “For what?” he asked. 

   “You know…everything. I should’ve listened to you when you said you wanted to leave, but instead I pressured you into doing something stupid.” Kai looked over at her. All of the feverish delight was gone from her face and her eyes looked heavy, as if burdened with something she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—release, dragging her gaze to the pavement passing beneath their shoes. “I guess I just thought—” she started. “Forget it, nevermind. I’m sorry.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

   Kai sighed. “Look,” he said, “you didn’t make me do anything. I chose to stay there.” 

   She looked up at him. “We could’ve died.” 

   “That’s not your fault. It’s not like you knew that thing was gonna do…whatever the hell that was.”

   “But—” 

   “Just forget it already, Kate. It’s in the past. Besides,” he nudged her with his elbow, “we made history today. How many people can say they got gassed by a meat monster?” 

   Kate let out a quiet laugh, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes met his. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” 

   “So,” Kai continued, squirming and shifting his gaze to the street lamps passing overhead, “what are you naming it?”

   “What?”

   “You heard me. Every scientific discovery’s gotta have a name, right? So what are you naming it?” 

   “I don’t think I’ll be allowed to name it,” she chuckled. 

   “Nonsense! You found the thing!”

   “No, no. Like you said, they probably—” 

   “Eh, fuck that. If they’d found something like that, I think they would have at least said something by now, you know? So tell me, what is ‘Highschooler Kaitlyn Rivers’ naming her ‘ground-breaking discovery’?” 

   For a moment, Kate just grinned—the light crept back into her eyes like a wick taking flame. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll call it…a ‘Watcher’.”

   “‘Watcher’?!” Kai laughed. “Kate, I don’t remember it having eyes. I don’t think it can watch anything.” 

   “Okay then, smartass,” Kate said, jabbing him in the arm, “Let’s hear you come up with a better name!” 

   “How about…’The Guardian’? Because it’s, like, standing guard over a territory, spraying anyone who gets too close?” 

   “Good lord, that’s edgy.” 

   “So is ‘Watcher’!” 

   “No, like, hear me out here! It fits with all the other nam—”

   The crash of thin metal on concrete split her sentence before she could finish getting it out. Kai’s heart seized and staggered. A tingle raced from his neck to his heels. He became aware, for an instant—aware of the cold biting his cheeks; aware of the nylon fabric of his coat chafing his neck; aware of a feeling like hundreds of needles pushing into the bones of his feet; aware of Kate’s grip tightening around his arm; aware of something moving in the pocket of pitch black pushed between two buildings, just a few paces ahead. A groan like a pained child strained out of the dark, repeating louder and softer and louder at random. It was no animal, it was something alien, something crying in the agony of hunger or sorrow or both. Kate released her grip and stepped forward. 

   “Kate!” Kai whispered. “Kate, what the fuck are you doing?” 

   She put out one hand, motioning him to stay without looking away from the alley. She took one step. Then another. She drifted closer to the darkened maw between the two shops. She stood before the blackness—small before the shadow that veiled the unknown. 

   A small, blood-red, bulbous body came rocketing out of the alley, wailing like a wounded pig. On six stumpy legs, it skittered across the street, disappearing into some bushes with one last squeal and the rattle of barren branches and snapping twigs. Kate half-sighed, half-laughed. 

   “Ignavus Carnis,” she breathed. She laughed. “We’re too on edge tonight.”

   “Goddamn Trimmings,” Kai said, the tension and awareness flooding out of him in a wave of heat that leaked through his skin. “The little fuckers are everywhere now. Just last week my dad had to clear a nest from our attic. Our town needs an exterminator.” 

  Trimmings were more-or-less oversized, hairless raccoons, with too many limbs and a face plastered with a perpetual grimace. They were common nocturnal pests, rooting around in trash bins and making nests in basements and attics, where their deathly cries would keep families up until someone was called to deal with them. 

   “Don’t let my Pipsqueak hear you say that.” 

   Kai shook his head. “Why you would ever keep one of those nasty things as a pet is beyond me. They eat trash, Kate, trash. And those noises they make are the worst.” 

   “They’re not so bad,” she said. “Besides, they’re adorable!” 

   “One of these days that ‘adorable’ creature of yours is gonna grow into something big and eat you. Or worse, it’ll have babies.” 

   “Trimmings don’t have babies,” Kate said, “they spawn from the Crawl.” 

   “Whatever, you get my point. They’re not dogs.” 

   “Sure, I mean, it’s not your traditional pet, but they’re here now.” She tilted her head back and gazed at the sky. “They’re a part of the ecosystem. There’s no changing that fact,” she said. “We might as well learn to coexist with them. I mean, people own spiders and snakes. Hell, some people own tigers in other countries. Why should Trimmings be any different?” 

   “You don’t find it strange that all these creatures just…appeared one day without warning or explanation? I get the fascination behind it all, I do, but you're not the least bit suspicious?” 

   “Come on, Kai, you make it sound like an alien invasion.”

   “Is that really out of the question?” Kai shrugged. 

   “They didn’t come from another planet,” she said. 

   “That we know of,” Kai added. “They had to come from somewhere, Kate, they didn’t just appear from nothing.” 

   “So what, then? Some higher power put them here? There has to be a more realistic explanation. This is science, not some sci-fi, cosmic horror shit.” 

   “Kate, we just got skunk-sprayed by a monster made of meat, but aliens or gods are out of the question for you?” 

   “New species are discovered every day, Kai. Who knows how long these things have really been around anyways? And besides, it doesn’t matter where they came from, only that they’re here now and we have to live with that fact.” 

   “I understand that. I’m just saying, I don’t trust it. I don’t like how quickly everyone is just accepting these…these things as normal. They aren’t normal.”

   “Change takes time to adjust to, I get it,” she nudged him with her shoulder. “I know how weird it all is. Even I’ll admit it’s a little too weird for me sometimes. But just think about how the world could be bettered by these discoveries, Kai! Ecosystems around the globe are thriving because of the Crawl! Think of the long-term implications this has!” 

   “I’ll take your word for it,” Kai sighed. “But when this turns out to be aliens and we’re all screwed, don’t expect anything other than an ‘I told you so’ from me.” 

   “Deal.” 

   Before long, the squarish stacks of bricks that made up the faces of shops and diners turned to squat, rectangular boxes adorned with slanted, shingle hats. Windows peered at them from behind trees and snow-capped bushes, casting their yellowish glow over sparkling snowdrifts. Veins of Crawl crept up the face of a home here and there, spreading its crimson tendrils out over the wooden slats like an infection. The air was saturated with the musky scent of burning wood. Kate took the lead now, humming to herself. Her breath drifted from her parted lips, forming abstract phantoms before disappearing into the night. Here and there, she’d reach out and run her hand over the top of a fence or hedge, creating massive cracks in the buildup of snow and sending clouds of white powder floating to the ground. Sometimes she would wipe it clean off, exposing the ugliness of a wood-rotted fence or dying bush, the coat of snow plummeting away without so much as a whisper. She drifted back to Kai, a few turns later, and leaned against him, shivering. Her house was just around the next corner. 

   “Thanks for staying with me today,” she said. “It really meant a lot.” 

   Kai’s lips crept into the beginnings of a smile. “We certainly had quite the little adventure today, huh?” 

   Bits of ice and salt crackled beneath their boots like dozens of little firecrackers. The sound mixed with that of their breaths, escaping in unison from their lungs into the frigid air. It masked the sound of little red birds snuggling themselves deeper into their nests and the sound of Trimmings emerging from crawl spaces and tipped trash cans. It muffled the sound of pine trees drawing shuddering breaths through their branches when the wind picked up; the sound of mothers and fathers and children gathering around tables, shouting, talking, praying, crying, laughing. They bathed in the ambience as they walked, the billions of little cracks of lightning beneath their feet, winking at them in artificial light; the whispering, the rushing, the rustling. Neither spoke, even as Kate’s hand found Kai’s, even as they crunched their way up her driveway and she hugged him one more time, even as they parted and she nodded and smiled at him, even as she mouthed a “goodnight” at him and vanished behind the parted door, even as that door clicked shut, and Kate’s muffled voice announced her arrival, and Kai was alone, with only the ghostly traces of her warmth on his side to keep him company on the walk back. 

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   “I’m home!” Kai called as he stepped through the door. Bits of snow broke free of his boots and skittered across the laminate floor. Warmth washed over him in unseen waves, setting his skin ablaze with tingling heat. He shed his layers of coats. His arms struggled against him as he tried to hang them from the hooks on the wall. His muscles were filled with lead and each joint in his finger was filled with cotton—every movement was as if he were pushing through thick water. As he passed through the hallway into the kitchen, the air became pungent with the stench of onions and the aroma of stewing beef. His mother, a taller, thin woman with brown curls that bobbed about her ears, turned and smiled at him. Her face was flushed from steam and the smell of rosemary lingered about her like an unseen spirit.

   “Kai! I was just finishing dinner!” Her blue-gray eyes searched him up and down. “Where have you been, out so late?” 

   “I was helping Kate with a—” Kai paused. “A science project. Sorry, Mom.” 

   “Kate?” His mom raised her eyebrows and turned back to her pot, producing a wooden spoon from her apron. “The Rivers’ girl, right?” She began to ladle stew into bowls set out on the counter. “She’s a nice girl. Very polite.” 

   “Smart, too!” His father chipped in from beyond the back of a recliner across the room. The top of his newspaper crested the head of the chair, and Kai squinted to pick out the headlines. 

   “Are you two—”

   “Mom, don’t start.” 

   His mother shook her head, making her curls bob like snakes dangling from her head. “I’m just saying, she’s a pretty girl, she’s your age, and she’s very nice…” 

   “It’s not like that, Mom,” Kai said. The warmth still lingered at his side. His face grew hot. At least, I don’t think it is. He clenched his fists—his fingertips were filling with static fuzz. He couldn’t feel his toes anymore. He squirmed and leaned on the kitchen counter. The warmth pressed itself into him, resting its invisible head on his shoulder. He really must have spent too long in the cold… 

  His Dad scoffed across the room, rescuing him from the topic at hand. “Parker’s in the paper,” he said. 

   “Oh? The butcher?” chimed his mother. 

   “That Meat Snake thing of his, that he feeds all the unwanted cuts to? Apparently it broke out last night. There’s a picture here—giant hole where the back door used to be.” Kai sauntered over and leaned against the back of the recliner, studying the paper over his father’s head. Indeed there was a picture: the back of the butcher shop had been replaced with a gaping hole, punched out from within. Splinters and jagged points of wood rimmed the circle like sharks’ teeth. A dark trail of slime oozed from the wooden maw like drool, leading out of the shot. Kai shuddered. Thank god it wasn’t THAT thing in the alley… 

   “Those Vita Carnis,” Kai’s mom spoke up, lifting the bowls from the counter, “repulsive things. I’m convinced that creature of his is the reason poor Mrs. Rosenworth’s dog disappeared.” She carried a bowl over and passed it to Kai. “You promise me you won’t get involved with those things.” Kai just smiled and carried his bowl to the table. “Todd, put down that paper and come eat. Dinner’s ready.” 

   The paper billowed and folded on itself as Kai’s father rose from his chair with a grunt. He was a short man with thin hair and thick-rimmed glasses. Freckles sprinkled his face and arms. He waddled over to the table and sat. Kai took one of his mother’s hands while his father took the other. They closed their eyes and began to say grace—but Kai kept his open. He stared into the bowl before him. His head was beginning to pulse to a foreign beat. The edges of the bowl began to sway and dance and mingle with the kaleidoscopic pattern in the wrinkles and folds of the tablecloth. Spices rested atop brown liquid like bits of dirt floating in a roadside puddle. Soggy carrots swam next to bits of soft celery, soaking up the brine. Chunks of meat stagnated in the broth, where they clung to themselves by failing strands of sinew and fat. The world began to lean noticeably to the left and his chair felt crooked beneath him. The pulsing in his head quickened and flashes of white pain scattered off colored spots through his vision. His brain began to swell in his skull. His legs were tingling. The warmth at his side was pressing harder now. It crushed his lungs into the back of his ribcage. Cold rods from a million unseen eyes forced themselves between every joint in his body. His stomach tightened. His mother finished saying grace in the distance. Yellowish bile shot up his throat and spewed between his teeth. 

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   The toilet bowl reeked of porcelain, which only made his head spin more. Kai coughed and spat. His mother pressed a cool rag to his neck—water droplets crept out of the fabric and crawled down his neck. His stomach was a mass of writhing flesh, twisting and rolling on itself in his belly. Sour mucus coated his teeth and tongue. He heaved again, but nothing boiled up in his throat. 

   “Go lie down in your room. You need to rest,” his mother prodded. 

   He lifted himself from the toilet with weak arms. His hands were shaking. He tried to mutter out an apology, but only slurred drivel fell from his tongue. He stumbled his way out of the bathroom, the rag slipping from his neck like a slug and landing on the floor in a slimy pile. He shut his door behind him and collapsed onto his bed. In the darkness, something like TV static flooded his vision. His head throbbed as his brain continued to swell and deflate in his skull. His tongue parted his lips, cleansing them of bitter bile—the taste made him want to vomit again.

   It was the creature’s doing—he knew this. Whatever it had sprayed them with was probably poisonous. He needed to tell his mother, but he couldn’t sit up now. His skin had been injected with concrete and he was slowly sinking into his mattress. Somewhere in a snowy field, it was still staring at him. It knew him. It knew where he was, what he saw, smelled, and touched. It knew every fiber of his body, every inch of bone and flesh. He shut his eyes. Its branding gaze spread fire through his muscles and his stiff body refused to move. He squeezed his eyes tighter until tears crawled out from beneath them. Then, he began to see.

   First it was darkness. Then a red flash, followed by another, another, and another—a crimson fog, flashing like bloody lightning. It beat in the rhythm of a drumming heart and dark lines began to swim about like backlit arteries in the red haze. His head pulsed to the beat with a pain that rocketed down every nerve in his body, leaving sharp pin-pricks at each of the hundreds of thousands of endings in his fingertips. This world of red light and black, arterial branches spun and swirled like a slow, spiraling storm or the peaceful eye of a hurricane or the silent center of a tornado. Heat gnawed at his flesh, pulling it away from the bone and devouring every bit of him. His stomach churned, extending invisible claws and pulling itself from his body. The light was brightest at the center—at the center of the storm, at the center of himself. There was the heart of it, he knew. He swam through lukewarm water to reach it, pulling himself along by the veins around him as a diver in a cave of alien coral. Each branch he gripped, he felt nothing but warm air and the current of blood in a greater being—of blood in a greater god. His shape folded on itself—joints rewelding in new places and flesh rebinding in new form. Seven giants of sinew with hollow triangles for heads rose before him as gatekeepers, blocking his path to the heart. The heart was not for him. They spread their many tendril arms and joined themselves together as the air filled with a droning hum and the light pulsed dimmer and dimmer and the pain faded from his head and the heat seeped from his flesh and—

  He opened his eyes to his alarm clock, painting plaster walls in a bloody glow. 2:49 in the morning. His stomach gurgled, demanding to be filled. Something was bound to his gut, like an invisible tether, pulling him upright in bed. The traces of sleep evacuated his body. His bare feet found the carpet and his hand found the doorknob. The house was dark and empty. His parents breathed in the room across the hall. His legs carried him to the front door and the carpet became icy concrete—he forgot his boots. 

  He no longer recognized the houses around him as he walked—their glowing windows were long dark, cold and dead. The streetlights guided him like a trail of warm stars, hovering over the glistening sidewalk. His feet began to ache and his muscles tightened around cold bones. He passed the turnoff to Kate’s house. The air on both sides of him was empty and cold, and his skin yearned to be touched. A rattle up ahead pulled him from himself. A Trimming, bald and red and squealing, came rushing out from the depths of a hedge and darted across the street, where it retreated into a Crawl-filled den. As he watched it go, something began to open in the back of his skull, like a blooming rose, and his mouth twisted into a smile at the corners.

  He understood now. He tilted his head back and grinned. He was right about it all. Don’t you see it, Kate? Indeed, a higher power did exist but it was not the gods of the earth or the kings of men. It was a sleeping prince, now awake in a strange land—a displaced ruler. It resided everywhere: it stretched its tendrils up walls and scurried beneath floorboards. It was the brain in a larger body, and every living thing was a part of that body—every eye, every mouth, every ear, fingertip and hair follicle. It resided deep within the pulsing red and the blackened arteries of a lukewarm ocean, guarded by towering pillars of sinew and tendon. Kai laughed.

  He was nearing the creature now—the mere prophet of it all. It towered over him on a carpet of red, surrounded by warm bodies bowing their heads in reverence—not to it, but to the king it represented. It was merely the harbinger, an architect paving the streets to an empire of meat. As he walked, he kicked something hard and plastic—an old camcorder. He paused to look at it for a moment, the ghost of familiarity gnawing at the corners of his being. It belonged to someone he knew, but he couldn’t grasp how he knew this. The red haze of the other side he had seen filled every corner of his mind like the fog of an early morning over an empty field. It didn’t matter anymore. His body was numb. He was enlightened. He was awakened. He understood it all. He was nothing more than living meat in the body of a greater being. He approached the creature and sank to his knees before it, presenting himself with his arms wide, ready to join the greater body of flesh. 

  The thing tilted towards him, bony plates shifting and clicking over stringy tendons, until its head was level with his own. It lolled its head to one side and, with a swift jerk, plunged the spikes of its arms into his gut. The tendrils sprouting from the spikes pried open the wounds and a deep pain filled Kai’s stomach. He bit his tongue until he tasted iron and something warm pooled at the back of his throat. The creature began pulling something like bloody coils of slick rope from his gut, forcing the steaming masses into the slit in its neck. The pain spread through Kai’s body until he was no longer cold and his eyelids were heavy. Red blood crawled from the corners of his lips down his cheeks. The clouds in the sky were parting, revealing stars like spilt sugar across a black sheet. The moon stared down at him as a silver eye, then the scene spun upwards and he was face down in the crimson snow. A familiar stranger’s hazel eyes stared into his own. A sticky red haze was crawling into his vision, trailing darkness behind it. He tried to blink it away, but it clung to his eyelids and smeared. He fought through this haze to dig out the features of the face. The face was a girl’s—her eyes were cold and washed out, and her lips were slightly parted. Her skin, chilled by the winter cold, was pale and dull. In the light of the moon, it looked like plastic. Her straw colored hair was scattered and splayed out across the snow, like a golden halo in an old painting. He dragged his heavy hand through the snow and onto hers. Her flesh was stiff and cold. Kai forced a smile, hot tears crawling down the side of his face and disappearing into the snow. You lost your glasses again, dummy. He fell asleep with his eyes open, clutching her hand and smiling. 

<>  <>  <>  <>  <>

   The detective shifted, pulling his coat over himself a little tighter. Cold as hell today… He glanced across the field, beyond the strings of yellow police tape, fluttering and shivering in the frigid breeze. A patch of crimson snow surrounded a divot in the ground, as if a tree had been uprooted from the spot. Seven bodies had been found there, all disemboweled and laid out in a ring around the crater. Autopsy reports showed various vital organs missing from all the bodies. Then, there was the matter of the camera. He shuddered. 

   Men in white plastic suits were swarming the scene, taking samples of bloody snow and prodding the ground with various metal instruments. Two of them broke off from the group. The scientist in the lead shut a thick, plastic binder with a sharp clap. The detective squinted. Printed on the front of the binder was a blocky logo, almost like a ribcage, and six bold letters: C.A.R.C.A.S. The scientist handed off the binder to the man behind him and approached, smiling through the thick face-shield of his suit. 

   “You must be Inspector Maritts, yes? Thank you for calling,” he said. 

   “Yes, well,” Maritts squirmed, producing a plastic evidence bag from his coat. Inside rested an old camcorder. “The situation seemed…above my paygrade.” 

   “That it is, Inspector,” the scientist said, snatching the camera and immediately handing it off to his colleague, “we’ll handle it from here.” He turned and began to return to the crime-scene. 

   Something surged within Maritts. He couldn’t stop himself. “What is it?” The scientist stopped. “On the camera, I mean…” 

   The scientist turned back towards him with a smirk that carved a cavity deep into the detective’s gut. 

   “The future, Inspector…the future.”