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Kai has progressed to that point in every shower where he's kind of just standing there and letting the water run. Enjoying the enclosed world of his bathroom's four walls.
But slowly, so slowly that he doesn't know when it starts – goosebumps rise on his arms and legs, the hair on the back of his neck stands at attention, and his heartbeat quickens. Then, very suddenly, every fibre of his being ignites the prickling sense that something's very wrong. The apprehension that comes when you are waiting for a blow or piranha to swim up to you and gnaw on your ankle. Of course, Kai's shower was not fancy enough to house piranhas. And up until half a moment ago, he had been totally zen.
The shower starts to cut out, the water goes cold, the whole room goes cold, it feels like. That does not help the suddenly weary atmosphere..
He gives the shower curtain a paranoid little swipe. It's ridiculous, but he's alone and values his peace of mind. He glances through the steam and around his shitty, too-small bathroom.
The door is open.
Every muscle in his body locked up to stare at the thing. He stares at the thing. Waiting, praying, for his vision to clear and any rational answer to come to mind. But he was left staring at the thing for what it was, trying to comprehend.
There's something in the doorway. There's actually fucking something in the doorway. Why couldn't it have been nothing? What is i– the thing flickers. It's long and lanky, an odd sort of transparent black. It's blocking the doorway, it's leering at him.
WhattheFuckWhattheFuckWhattheFUCK.
He cant move. Paralysed and useless, a wave of impotent adrenaline crashes against the shore of his skull. He stands there, dumb. So scared he's sick with it. The thing flickers again. The smoky spot that passed for its face twitches. You could call it a grin in the way you'd call a cloud a bunny. It kind of fits, in an abstract way. In a really, really sickening and smug, in his fucking bathroom kind of way. Oh god oh god- oh god.
What happens next occurs in the span of about 10-12 seconds. His brain can get a lot done when flooded with all that primal shit that made humans apex predators- drove them to hunt mammoths and pet sabertooth tigers or some shit.
He just wants it to go away. It makes a little jerk in his direction- almost like it's trying to psyche him out. Kai is gonna burst with all the blood rushing to his head. Like, he’s gonna burn up with the surge of rage that comes after a wash of pure fear.
He needs to get away. He needs to run-
But it'll chase him, he thinks miserably. He’ll run, and it’ll follow. But he can't run forever. It occurs to Kai that it won't just go away. It won't stop unless he makes it stop.
There's no time for reverie. A long tendril reaches in his direction. It stretches in an almost graceful way, telling him his time is up.
He needs to kill it- he needs to run. He needs a plan that fits both in somewhere. Fuck, ok. Fuck.
He needs to get past it. And to not get grabbed. Can the smoke-filled illusion of its body grab him? Hurt him? He takes a guess based on the I’m-gonna-kill-you-measly-human posture and the oh shit, oh shit, you’ve gotta fight instinct in his hind brain and decides: YES.
Ok. Ok. Ok. Past it. Out the door. Down the stairs. Out of the house. Kill it. What kills it? Fire? Fire kills everything! Past it, down the stairs, out the door– Kai is still very naked. Very naked. And very cold, now that he's letting himself feel it. He could cut to his room….
Another flicker. The distance between them shrinks.
OK, a very, very present threat. He will not be making any detours. Maybe he could try to grab some clothes in another room… the thing starts advancing. Clothes are not an option. Well, shit, sometimes you have to do it naked.
Past it. Down the stairs. Out the door. Find people? Fire.
Fire? How's he going to make fire? He’s gotta find a lighter-
The thing roars and Kai dives. He’s out of time. He’ll figure it out.
Kair nearly brains himself on the tiles while trying to get past it. He collides with the door frame instead. His ribs creak from the impact. His head is a hare's breath away from the creature's midriff.
All in all – from the creature's appearance to almost cracking his skull open – it may have been the most productive 12 seconds of Kai's life.
And based on the yellow-tinged water going down the showers drain, the most frightening.
His hair brushes against the mass of unknowable terror-inducing smog. It shudders forward, like it's tumbling in Kai's direction. Kai freezes. Knowing, distantly, that he needs to move.
There's a hissing sound. Then a groan. The creature lurches away from him, and Kai smells burning. He wants to look back, but realises he does not have time to waste gazing romantically at this thing. He pushes off the door frame and uses the momentum to cross the landing, darting to the stairs. And at the top, he had a heart beat to throw his eyes to the thing. It’s leaning back like a reed in the wind. Its side is smoking. It groans again, less guttural than the first time, but the pain is clear.
It doesn't reach for the wound like a human wound; instead, it reaches up its tendril towards him, and the arm stretches impossibly longer with no regard for the limits of physical form. Kai doesn't know how he expected this thing's body to follow the laws of nature, but those expectations have been thoroughly diverted.
The introspection has gone on two heartbeats too long. He nearly tripped over himself as he scrambles. He tumble-runs down the stairs and jumps over the last two. The house was tall and thin, three floors and tightly woven zig-zags of stairs and landings. Kai was at the top, and the only exits were at the bottom. Goody. .
He finds his feet somewhere between the 3rd and the second floor. Kais never moved like this before. This careless efficiency. He throws himself down the stairs, taking three or four at a time as he clears the second floor and starts down to the last landing. The animal urge to escape and the freedom of a body that's been let go of the limitations of a modern mind. But even as he clears ground and makes his way through the last leg of the stairs, the thing is zooming down behind him. Like a spectre unbound by the physical. Or the ruthlessly efficient dive of a bird of prey.
Kai is finally on the ground floor, and the source of that sizzling sound niggles at the back of his mind. The burning smoke that had come from the metaphysical creatures was a very real wound.
Kai realises as he crosses the threshold of the kitchen that he can still smell the burning- why? Why? Is it that close? No– no, it had lagged behind on the stairs.
It had followed the path of the stairs. Winding around the stairs, not over or through. It hadn't phased or teleported or anything like that. Not to mention that inconceivable, inexplicable wound. The physical must mean something to it.
Kai slammed the kitchen door behind him. Shoving the table towards it in an ill-executed but hopefully somewhat effective blockade. He began scrambling to get a lighter and out of the drawer. He can still smell the burning. He feels his hair, hot on his shoulder. He looks down at it– it's singed. Fried and bone dry. Hair? Hair had burned it? Kai looks down at the other shoulder, a bead of water slips down from a curling clump of hair onto his chest.
Water.
Water!
Kai abandons the search for a lighter and throws himself at the sink. He turns the knob, but nothing comes out. It splutters and drizzles like the shower had but ultimately refused to let out more than the barest trickle.
If Kai were an evil entity vulnerable to water he'd probably fuck with the plumbing too. Still, something in his chest tightens. What’s he going to do? What can he do?
The mindless, fearless force that had compelled him to run starts to drain from him. He starts to feel a little more afraid. A little more like a naked boy in an empty kitchen freezing his balls off.
The door creaks, and Kai's head shoots up to look at it. Reminded of the flimsiness of the barrier between him and the fucking thing ruining his afternoon and possibly the rest of his likely very short life.
There's black spotting in the centre of the door. Kai half dismisses it as a shadow before remembering the mind-bending, physics-defying creature he's up against.
It's pushing through– one thin spot of a tendril. It stutters and halts at intervals- like it's some great feat to get even the smallest bit of its tendril through the cheap fiberboard of the door. For now, it’s occupied struggling through. Still, Kai's whole body alights with fright. It’s getting through.