> Smoke on the water, a fire in…

Julius’s heart was pounding, each beat crashing against his ribs. His mind, too, was ablaze, filled with nothing but raw, scorching fury. It was like he was standing on empty plains set aflame, each thought igniting and combusting as he fixed his stare on the monster before him. The brutalized bodies of his friends lay scattered around, but his mind disregarded them entirely; they were nonexistent, irrelevant to the singular, primal focus that gripped him now.

At that moment, the beast wasn’t some stranger. It was a lifelong nemesis, a force that had hunted him forever. His fight-or-flight response surged, and unfortunately he chose to fight. He hadn’t even had time to fully clench his fists before the creature lunged forward, closing the distance in one horrific bound.

Its twisted, bony fist collided with Julius’s chest, and the force ripped through him, flinging his body back like a rag doll.

He tumbled violently, smashing into the ground, his head striking the concrete with a sickening thud.

Darkness flooded his vision, blotting out the world for a heartbeat.

He blinked, vision blurry, and through the haze, saw the creature trudging toward him, each heavy footfall crunching against the gravel path.

He struggled to push himself up, his limbs sluggish and heavy, his entire body screaming in pain.

As the beast approached Julius, winded up a strike and at the perfect moment, swung.

His fist collided with the beast’s side, the impact barely registering as the creature’s skin felt like hardened stone beneath his knuckles.

The beast retaliated, its claws raking across his chest, tearing through fabric and flesh with sickening ease.

Julius staggered back, breath ragged, and swung again, landing a swift punch to its jaw, cleanly dislocating it, but the monster did not flinch.

The creature gurgled a loud roar, grabbing Julius by the throat and lifting him off the ground with ease.

Its claws dug into his skin, squeezing the life out of the battered teen.

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Julius kicked and flailed, but his strength was waning, each movement slower, weaker, as the beast’s grip tightened.

Julius was immensely dazed, his senses spinning in a chaotic blur.

His vision stretched, the edges of his sight fading into a smoky haze, warping and twisting as though reality itself was bending around him. The ground beneath him felt distant, his body weightless, as though he were sinking into a void. The world around him fragmented, the muffled sounds of the creature’s growls blending with the ringing in his ears. He reached out, but everything was slipping away, his mind unable to grasp onto anything solid.

He looked the creature in the eyes, those soulless blue orbs, empty and cold, holding nothing but primal disdain for its prey. The hatred in its gaze was raw savoring every second of Julius’s suffering. It was a hunger, a deep, animalistic hunger that saw Julius not as a person, but as a thing to be consumed, to be destroyed.

It opened its mouth wide, revealing mangled, bloodied teeth, jagged and sharp, with bits of torn flesh lodged between the gnarled, yellowed fangs. The stench of death and decay

flooded the air, making Julius’s stomach turn as the creature let out a guttural growl.

Julius fought back with every ounce of strength he had left, but it was futile.

His ribs were shattered, each breath sending waves of searing pain through his chest. Blood filled his lung, choking him, making it harder to breathe, harder to think. His vision

swam, locked onto the torn-apart corpse of Joan, her lifeless eyes staring back at him. The horror of it, the utter destruction of everything he loved, blurred his focus, drowning him

in a wave of helplessness and despair.

He was so consumed with the primal urge to fight driven by a desperate need for survival or perhaps a spiteful desire for revenge, that he couldn’t process the true extent of the tragedy unfolding around him. But now, gripped tightly by the beast, his body powerless to resist, Julius finally allowed the tears to flow. The fight had drained out of him, leaving only a hollow emptiness. His body trembled, not from pain, but from the crushing weight of defeat, of loss, of the unrelenting horror. He had no strength left to fight, no will to push back against the monster’s hold. The tears fell freely as the reality of the tragedy sunk in.

In his endless stare, Julius watched as smoke, thick and unnatural, drifted from the coastline, curling and twisting like a living thing. It crept toward him, flowing through the air with an ominous purpose, its suffocating tendrils obscuring what little light remained. The smoke seemed to move of its own volition, as if it were drawn to him. Perhaps a harbinger of the creature’s dark presence, swallowing the world around him piece by piece.

The smoke consumed the entire scene, swallowing everything in its path until the world around Julius was nothing but a swirling haze. The air grew heavy, suffocating, as if the very atmosphere was being drained of life. It coiled and shifted, flowing like liquid darkness, until it finally condensed around the beast. The creature seemed to absorb the smoke, its form becoming more indistinct, merging with the shadowy mass, until it was little more than a hulking silhouette cloaked in the suffocating fog.

Julius watched, barely able to process what he was seeing as the smoke began to twist and coil around the creature, forming thick, dark chains that constricted its massive form. The chains tightened, pulling the beast’s limbs in unnatural angles, as if binding it to some unseen force. At the same time, tendrils of smoke began pouring into the creature’s mouth, nose, and ears, flooding its body like a suffocating tide. The beast writhed, its limbs jerking violently as the smoke filled it, twisting its form further as though it were being consumed from the inside out.

The beast let out a guttural, pained cry as it squeezed Julius’s neck tighter, its grip like iron, cutting off his breath. The pressure was suffocating, each heartbeat becoming a struggle as his vision blurred and his consciousness began to fade.

Just as Julius was on the verge of passing out, he caught a glimpse of a small figure standing behind the beast. Before he could even react, the beast erupted with a sickening splat, its body bursting open in a violent shower of blood, guts, and smoke. The force of the explosion sent Julius crashing to the ground, his head slamming against the cold concrete, and everything went black.