What kind of insanity did you get yourself into this time, Scarlet? I hadn't had time to think too much about the situation when the universe started to tear itself apart at our feet, but I understood that there were two paths I could take. My compass told me that the right thing to do was to follow the others, to stand by their side and help each other get out. But in the heat of the moment, that mechanism's advice was lost in instinct. The better chance for survival was to break off from them. After all, Coraline would certainly fall behind and become the ideal target for the monster in a straight sprint and with Thomas apparently hurt by its earlier grab, they would be the more appetizing target, right? But I guess otherworldly monsters don't follow the logic of hunting the wounded and sickly, because the screeching horror from another world was right on my heels. I should have listened to my moral compass. My learned sense of what's right and wrong knew better. It always knew better.

I skidded at the corner of an unfinished gray concrete hallway, cursing myself for wearing flats instead of sneakers to what I thought would be yet another ridiculous social ritual that normal people my age did to bond with one another. This was just meant to be another in a long line of what I thought were complete absurdities that served no practical purpose, but everyone insisted were necessary exercises to build trust. How was I supposed to know that I would be sprinting away from a horrible empty monster today. I would have laughed at the comparison to myself if I weren't in mortal peril.

I could hear the thing right behind me. It had changed itself. It was constantly changing itself from when I first laid eyes on it, and now I could hear the piercing crashes of its many newly formed pinpoint legs planting themselves rapidly into the ground, like some kind of giant demolition insect, as it tore chunks from the hastily-poured concrete and picked up speed. Was it learning? I couldn't just keep sprinting in a straight line like this. The monster was quickly turning itself into a destructive freight train barreling haphazardly down the hall at frightening speeds.

Judging by its first actions so far, though, it wasn't smart. I needed to out-think it.

I could practically feel the wind created by its rushing limbs approaching me, so I grabbed the edge of a bare wall and swung myself into a side room, almost failing to stop my inertia from slamming me back into the doorway again. The creature slid past and I heard a screeching crash as its legs frantically ripped into the concrete in a desperate attempt to correct its course, only managing to drag itself across the wall and fail to slow down at all, its limbs continuing to carry it down the hall. I was right; it didn't understand momentum. But it would learn. I probably shouldn't try that again. I ducked back into the hallway and began running back the way I came, carefully avoiding the thick trail of destruction it had left on one side of the floor.

Could I still reconnect with the others? Should I reconnect with the others? I took a breath and consulted my compass, a complex mental structure I'd built for logically analyzing my actions from what I understood about normal emotional responses. I trusted it more than myself on interpersonal matters. If I came back to them now, they might be able to help. They might know more than I do about whatever this thing is and deter it or maybe banish it back where it came from. They might have had more time to think than I did and come up with something to do about it. Then again, if they didn't, I'd be leading a monster right into them. I could use that to get away for myself. I shook my head. No, not that. Not helpful. I had to lead it away. Sometimes I hated doing the right thing.

I panted loudly as I came back to the room it had all started in and froze in place for a crucial moment. Black cracks were slowly spreading out from where the portal had opened, not splitting the concrete, but swallowing it up like the material had dissolved away, or it had never been there in the first place. Was it annihilating matter? The cracks were seething with some kind of malevolent magical energy. That was probably bad. So magic seemed to actually be real, and it was definitely not something we should have been messing around with so haphazardly. But this probably could have been worse. That monster was connected to something way bigger before Thomas had scuffed his sneaker across the outer edge of the circle and broken it after that thing grabbed his ankle. That's when the portal collapsed, after all. If he'd been standing back like he was supposed to, he couldn't have broken the ritual. The moron probably saved all of us from facing something much worse. I never liked dumb luck, but I appreciated it when it worked out in my favor.

For good measure, I stopped for a moment at the center of the room and kicked even more of the archaic chalk symbol apart as best as I could with my inadequate soles, hoping that might disrupt whatever residual effect was happening here. But it wasn't long before I heard the creature's terrible pincer legs crashing into the ground again. It had figured out turning around, it seemed, and probably had finer control now. I couldn't stick around to destroy the circle completely, so I kicked it one more time for good measure, then took off running through the opposite door.

Unfortunately, the building was a little less maze-like than I hoped for. There was only a single, long, identical hallway out from the room we started in, and it lead outside. That meant that Coraline and Thomas could be anywhere in the industrial park by now, and there weren't nearly as many places to hide. And who knew how that thing would fare out in the open air? It might grow wings or start climbing taller structures for a vantage point.

The yard outside the building was a mess of abandoned materials. Pallets of cinder blocks and mounds of dirt, sand, and gravel were most of the materials left behind. Heavy, cheap materials that would have been too much effort to salvage for a failed construction company. At least it made for plenty of low cover to weave around and lose my pursuer.

I couldn't keep running forever, though. And who knew if hiding would even work against it? It might see through walls for all I knew, and if it had adapted to all the physical senses, it could probably trace me by scent. Even if I lost it, what then? It wasn't just gone. That thing would get into the city and start terrorizing other people. It could tear people out of their cars and trample a crowd of unwary students under those horrifying pin legs. It would probably take some serious firepower for the police to bring it down, if that would even work against it. Then people would start asking questions, and the three of us would... I don't know, get abducted by some secret government magical society and we'd be blamed for this. We were to blame for this, but if we could take care of the problem here and now, it would be a lot less of a headache.

I didn't have much choice anymore. I had to get to Coraline, and we had to figure something out with that book. Unless Thomas was hiding a gun somewhere on him, we didn't have significant physical force on our side. All we had was magic. Even if we didn't know what we were doing with it. My compass was confused now. There was no clear, logical, righteous path for it either. I hoped I was doing this the way I was supposed to.

I took off across the grounds, head swinging back and forth as I searched for my companions, ducking and weaving between stacked piles of PVC piping and empty cable spools. The monster was distant, but I could still hear that horrible stabbing clatter against the concrete and gravel. It was searching for me.

That's when I heard a different noise in the near distance. Yelling. "Hey! Big scary shadow monster! Why don't you come back here and pick on someone your own size!?" It was Thomas. The giant idiot was trying to run distraction. Should I just let him? It'd get the monster off my back for a bit, and if he had the nerve to come back, his injury must not have been as bad as I thought it had been. He was also far more athletic than me, so he could keep it away from him for longer. I had to argue with myself for a moment. There were two choices: I either let him take over monster duty or I stand up right then and keep its attention on me. I managed to convince myself it was not only right, but the best strategically sound option if I could get around the monster and reunite with Coraline while Thomas played interference. I ducked behind a pile of sandbags and looked back to take stock of the situation. The monster was right there, and its... head, for lack of a better term, was raised toward Thomas's voice.

Actually being able to stop and take stock of the creature now, I got a better look at it. It was like one big hunched over solid black neck, tendril-like and lined with rows of eerie yellow eyes. They were lined up in two neat rows, so it seemed to be figuring out binocular vision, but it still just had dozens of other eyes randomly plastered around its body. It hinted at some kind of intelligence, but also a carelessness in its own shape. The thing wasn't truly moving with what I could describe as legs. It was more like it was rolling itself forward, retracting what it was standing on before back into its mass and then regrouping new limbs at breakneck pace to shove into the ground and continue forward. If I didn't think it was trying to kill me, it would be fascinating to watch.

It twitched and stepped toward Thomas's call with a hint of hesitation. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief that it wasn't fixated on me anymore, trying to control my breath so I could calm down before I found an alternative route around it. Shifting to the side so I could relax for a moment, my leg bumped into something. I looked up just in time to see a bundle of loose steel pipes leaned up against a wall. Wide-eyed with panic, I lunged toward them, but I was too late to stop it. Several of them dropped, knocking more over with the sound of ringing metal crashing against hard ground, and the creature looked directly at me over the mounds of construction fare. It unleashed another otherworldly scream, its mockery of a mouth opening wide as it began to clack loudly toward me once more, dirt and gravel shooting up in its wake once it had built up momentum again. I cursed and sprinted to the nearest building, a warehouse with a large sliding truck door wide open to the yard.

Out in the open, I didn't stand a chance. It would just run me down. But at least in here, I had the chance I could outsmart it again. I dashed through the large loading bay, ignoring the two shipping containers left open and bare. It would be too easy to get trapped there. I picked a hallway, finding more blank grey, this time pockmarked with bulletin boards, discarded wood pallets, and bare peg panels, and darted as fast as I could toward another door, hoping it led outside again.

I pulled down on the handle and my heart stopped as I felt an awkward clunk and a heavy resistance in the handle. It was locked. This damned half-built waste of space and materials actually had a locked door in it. I glanced around, eyes growing wide as I realized where I'd placed myself. A dead end. The door was metal and far too heavy for me to force in, so there was nothing more I could do in this hall. I swallowed and began to walk back, hoping I could still circle around the monster.

But then the creature tore through the hallway and slammed bodily into the wall coming from the area I'd come through in the first place. Its force split the cork of the bulletin board it hit in two, and the halves fell at awkward angles away from the wall, screws bent and broken. The creature still seemed to be trying to figure out high speed turning. The creature let out a screeching yelp as it corrected its awkward, misshapen body and faced directly at me. There was no distraction or alien bodily control malfunction this time.

I was frozen in place. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. I was out of options. I frantically wracked my brain for any response at all I could do here, but I had nothing.

A quiet whimper escaped my lips. I'd never felt this helpless or small. Even for someone like me, staring your own death in the face is a powerful feeling. It may have been the most intense anything I'd felt in my whole life. I took a step back toward what I knew was a dead end wall, just to make some space between me and the monster, just another moment to come up with something. That must have been the signal for it to charge right at me, and I stumbled backward until I tripped, falling back onto my hands and trying to crawl further as it clawed its way up to me, towering over me on the ground. I held up my arms in front of my face to brace for impact.

And then it stopped. I thought it might violently crash into me and crush me in its... shape. But it didn't. It stopped over me and nudged its weird bulbous 'head' into my shoulder, quiet cracks of its cries calling out as it pondered me. It didn't know what to do. Had it not thought ahead of what it was actually going to do to me once it caught its prey? It could have just crushed me beneath those many spiked legs, but it seemed to be taking care not to, its malleable form returning to a solid mass supporting it. I had a chance to do something here, but what? I was dealing with an alien creature who, I guessed, knew literally nothing. It didn't even understand the physical world we were in. If I could outsmart it here, maybe I had a chance.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

My moral compass pointed my thoughts in a different direction, though.

Maybe I shouldn't try to outsmart it. It didn't understand. Who knows what kind of mind this thing had, but it was smart enough to learn and adapt. Was it sentient? Why did I want to give this terrifying creature reassurance?

Oh. That's when it clicked. It was like an otherworldly mirror. If I didn't act now, if I didn't guide it, it might do something terrible and hurt someone. Like a younger me might have.

I gave a deep, shuddering breath, not believing what I was about to do. Slowly, I raised my hand, and the creature's many eyes tracked it with a slight flinch. I reached up as slowly as I could, my hand shaking, and swallowed as I placed it against the thing's side. It was cold to the touch, but despite its ever-shifting form, what I felt was solid, like tense muscle beneath a layer of oddly smooth skin. It let out a new sound, a curious trilling noise as its eyes fixated back into my face again.

Okay. I still had its attention, and I was still alive. I didn't know where to go from here, so I stroked my hand back and forth across its strangely sleek skin, like I would with a dog, and it trilled some more. Some of its eyes closed, and I thought it must be working. Then its entire mass slumped forward slightly and I let out a yelp as its solid, but malleable form engulfed my legs.

I almost cried out, but I bit my lip and managed to suppress the urge to break down into terrified screams, my petting only interrupted for a moment. It didn't hurt. It wasn't heavy enough to crush me, just putting its weight down gently like this. The thing kept purring, a quiet rumble coursing through its body. It was a giant alien kitten. What was this absolute nonsense? I let out a nervous chuckle at the absurdity of it.

Then I heard a quiet clacking noise approaching. Even footsteps. A human being entering the building. "Scarlet!" It was Thomas.

The creature's head tilted like it was about to turn around. My compass told me not to let it. I couldn't risk it renewing its hunt against Thomas. I reached up with my other hand and rubbed it elsewhere, drawing a new appreciative rumble from it, its attention returning to me once again. It certainly couldn't understand me, but I still whispered to it, "Shh. It's okay. Just stay here with me. I got you. Good... thing... creature..."

I looked up to see Thomas's face peeking around the corner, horror on his face at what he saw me doing. I kept whispering to it. "Good thing... Nice... thing." while I frantically motioned with my head for Thomas to do something. He shrugged his shoulders, still looking terrified. He was at a loss as much as I was.

We couldn't just sit around here all day. I knew that this thing could be gentle now, but I had to figure out how to deal with it in a more logical way. I had to figure out a way to communicate. "Hey." I started, pushing in lightly on its sides to pull its attention to me. Its eyes all opened again, staring expectantly into my face. I swallowed down the mild spike of fear that sent down my spine and picked a pair to stare back at. I asked slowly, "Can you understand me?"

It just stared, unmoving. Unresponsive. Of course, why would it understand English? I let out a small sigh and gave it another quick pet. I'd have to figure out something else. It liked being touched. That was a motivator. You could do a lot of things with an animal if you had a motivator for it. But how could I leverage that?

I tried to shift one leg out from under it, uncomfortable beneath its mass despite how light it was. It lifted a part of itself to allow it. It wasn't very physically dense, and it had a remarkable degree of control of its own shape. I wondered if it had to be this big. I kept one hand on it, but put the other behind me, very slowly leveraging myself up, back onto my feet, and then I returned to petting its head again, afraid it might attack all over again if I stopped giving it attention.

Thomas stepped out from around the corner at that moment and the creature's eyes went wide again. It turned around and let out a growling screech. Thomas backed up again, holding his hands up in surrender. For some reason, a few white paper packets dropped to the ground beneath him. The creature was becoming agitated again, turning to face the dumb jock.

"No no no! Don't!" I called as I hurriedly stepped back around the monster and put myself between them. It trusted me, right? I'd earned its trust, so I could communicate like I would an animal. Hopefully. It stopped growling and turned to face me with apprehension in its body language. I put a hand on it again and continued to pet it. I glanced back at Thomas and scolded him in a loud whisper through gritted teeth. "Put your hands down, you're making yourself look bigger!"

Thomas followed my instructions, putting his hands to his side and standing at attention, still in wide-eyed disbelief at what he was seeing. I returned my attention to the alien thing and gave it what it viewed as affection until it began to let out quiet trilling purrs again.

"You shouldn't be touching that thing." Thomas finally stage whispered himself, not daring to draw any closer than he already was and thankfully eliciting a minimal reaction from the creature. "Something weird is happening where it grabbed my leg earlier."

"Well, I don't feel anything strange happening to me now." I answered at a more natural volume. It didn't mind us talking, so long as it got what it wanted. "I think this thing might be a lot more docile than we thought. It didn't even know what to do when it caught me." Thomas pursed his lips. He wasn't taking that risk. Understandable, frankly. "Where's Coraline?" I asked, "And what were you holding there?"

"Salt." Thomas spoke quietly. "She said it might affect the monster. I-I managed to keep Cora from fainting. We talked about what to do for a little bit, then I left her at the edge of the park." He continued to whisper. "She might be headed home already."

That sounded like something she might do, yeah. But salt? What was that supposed to do to this big thing? Magic was weird. "We can't let anyone know about this." I told him. "And move that salt aside. If that does hurt it, we don't need it freaking out now that it's calmed down again."

He let out a groan and pushed the salt packets down the hall a bit with his shoe. "Cora said the same thing. I think we should really call the cops or something. I should go to a hospital, for fuck's sake."

"Cops are useless." I muttered, and he gave me a tired glare that I promptly ignored. "Let's see your leg."

"H-Here?" He grumbled nervously, gesturing toward the creature.

"It's harmless." I declared. I didn't really know that, but it certainly seemed easy to tame once I'd gotten a hand on it. And I wanted to see what it had done to Thomas, in case I did start feeling something off. The monster kept leaning into my hands, begging for more physical contact. This thing might have just outright domesticated itself. Did it think it was playing before, maybe? Like a dog play-fighting?

Thomas groaned loudly and took a tentative step forward. The creature opened a few eyes on the side facing toward Thomas, but it didn't turn from my touch. I shushed it quietly. "He's fine. He's... my friend. You don't have to be scared of him. It's okay." I knew it couldn't understand me, but I liked to think my words were getting through to it somehow, so I kept trying to comfort it. Meanwhile, Thomas kneeled down and lifted his pant leg, rolling down his socks to reveal... a bare shin. Muscular and toned, it looked perfectly healthy. "It looks fine." I muttered.

He scoffed. "Well, it doesn't feel fine, okay? It feels... wrong. It hurts in a weird way. We're dealing with magic here, Scarlet. What if I'm cursed or something?"

That... didn't sound like the stupidest thing to be worried about, actually. We'd all just learned the hard way less than twenty minutes ago that there are terrible supernatural things at play that none of us ever could have dreamed of before, so why couldn't there be magical hexes and metaphysical afflictions? But his logic was still faulty. "So what's the ER's standard medical treatment for curses, then?"

Thomas stammered for a moment, searching for an answer, but just held his arms out to the side in a shrug of disbelief and let out a frustrated grunt. "Fucking hell, I'm screwed, aren't I?"

"Calm down. Coraline has a lot of reference materials in that house. We might figure out what's going on with your leg there. Then again, we might all be screwed." I muttered. The creature's body seemed to slacken somehow, like it released a bit of tension. It almost seemed smaller. "I went back through the room we started in on the way here. I don't think breaking the circle completely stopped whatever we did. It's looking real... evil in there now."

"Shit, seriously?" Thomas murmured. "Do you think there's like... magic police or something we could call?"

I consulted my compass. We were in way over our heads here. If someone knew better, it was probably best to defer to them. But I couldn't ignore my survival instinct. Authorities were right out on this. "What's with you and cops? If anyone finds out we did this, we're screwed. We have to deal with this ourselves." I knew it wasn't exactly the right thing to say, but I wasn't going to a supernatural prison, if that was even a thing.

He took a deep breath. "Look, my older sister's a police officer. She can be on our side for this. I trust her not to make us the bad guys here. We were just messing around with something we didn't think would do anything. It's not our fault."

My compass righted itself. I was on the right path, after all. "Well, it's certainly at least going to look like it was Coraline's fault. She's apparently actually a witch, after all. This might have done absolutely nothing if it wasn't her blood we used in the ritual. Are you saying we should sell her out to save our own hides? Because that's a dick move." I scolded. The irony that I was scolding someone on the right thing to do was not lost on me.

Thomas seemed taken aback. "I hadn't thought about it like that," he muttered.

"Leave the thinking to Coraline and I." I reminded him. Coraline was smart, and I liked to think I had a good head on my shoulders if the subject at hand didn't involve human empathy. We'd figure this out. "I have to figure out how to hide this thing. Now."

Thomas whined quietly. "H-Hide it? Can't we just leave it here?"

"It'll wander off. Hell, it's probably going to follow me now. I have to figure out a way to convince it to fold itself up. It's a shapeshifter, and it doesn't have a lot of density, so it can definitely get way smaller. If I could keep it hidden in my bag, that would be ideal."

Thomas stared at me for a few moments until I asked, "What?"

"You're so good at handling a crisis. How can you be so calm right now?" He seemed to be in awe. "And you seem way more... focused? Than usual."

Right. I'd abandoned my mask in the terror of a monster attack. He meant that I was being cold and calculating. I didn't have the mental bandwidth to deal with all of this and keep up my social persona. At least he seemed to be interpreting this as a useful stress-induced state of focused shock. I just nodded at him in affirmation, hoping he would drop it.

Thomas slowly took another step toward the creature, and it let out a much quieter warning growl this time, sending Thomas back again.

"Hey. Hey, it's alright. He's not dangerous." I whispered to the creature, taking a step back from it myself and approaching Thomas. "See? He's safe." I reached for Thomas's shoulder and grabbed hold of it, showing the alien thing that I felt safe with him. It took a step toward us, glancing between the two of us. Was it uncertain? "Touch it." I told Thomas.

"What? No, it... stung me or something, already. I don't wanna touch it." He protested, fear rising in his tone as the monster poked its tendril-head-bulge right up into Thomas's face.

I gave an annoyed huff and grabbed hold of Thomas's hand, quickly raising it up alongside my own and placing it gently onto the creature's surface. Thomas jerked back, but I held him tight. The creature's eyes shut again. It let out another appreciative rumble, and I let go of Thomas's hand. "See? No stinging. It likes being touched."

I lowered my hand, and the creature's eyes opened, giving a wary stare at Thomas, but continuing to trill as the jock pet it slowly. "N-Nice monster." He whispered. He didn't flinch away, so whatever it did the first time must not have been happening now.

Then, all three of us froze in place, as from somewhere outside, we heard another loud guttural cry. It wasn't quite the same as what this monster had done before, but there was an inhuman scream from somewhere else in the park that made my hair stand on end.

"No fucking way..." Thomas muttered, pulling his hand back from the monster and turning toward the loading bay to watch for movement.

The creature took a step forward, past us, and hunched over again, letting out a quiet growl of its own. Whatever made the noise, it didn't like what it heard either.

"We need to get out of here." I murmured. I began planning on just how I was going to sneak a giant shadow monster through the city, back to Coraline's house. If that circle had burst open again, there was absolutely nothing we could do. We needed to regroup.

"Fuck, Cora!" Thomas cursed, giving the monster a wide berth as he stepped around it and hurried out the door.

Oh. Coraline had been left alone. If there was another monster running around out there...

"Shit." I growled, following Thomas's lead.

I hoped that we weren't too late. I hoped that whatever was making that noise hadn't just destroyed that frail little girl. We needed Coraline alive. I had a pretty good feeling that magic was going to be completely impossible without a witch, and we needed magic to stop what we started. Also, she's my friend. And I need to help my friend. My compass approved of correcting the course of my thoughts.

As I stepped back out of the building, the monster followed at my heel, rapidly transforming legs stepping more carefully now so as not to accidentally harm me. I gave it a quick pet while I looked out across the industrial park. I guess I had a pet alien monster now. At least we weren't going in with nothing, it seemed.