Excerpt: Welcome To The World Below

It started off with shouting; loud strains of voices that peaked at every odd syllable, pulsating into his sleepy conscience like throbs of reality gone askew. Ryan continued his travelling sleep, seeking only the darkness that buried his dreams, when a loud eruption of something foreign splattered aside his sought-after peace, and he woke from dreaming with a pulsating headache, accompanied only by a yawn. The gasps vociferated like screams; some afraid, others cowering, and he saw fleeting movements of archetypal self-preservation taking place from the corners of his eyes as the individuals around him hid their faces behind hands that covered their heads protectively. He looked up from his seat, caressing his eyes from their sleepy blur with the back of his hands as he took in the lone figure standing before the passengers.

The looming figure was tall, armed with a gaze that was disconnected from this world, and perhaps the next. Its adornments were perhaps once white, now tarnished with a substance that was almost intangible – like sin, perhaps, or the fumes that lined the sky in a town lined by factories. Its eyes were unfocused, as though it was its subconscious that led it rather than anything else – and the line that formed the parting of its lips was crooked, almost as if it was an impersonation of a fairy tale villain. Head tilted, grotesque in form and frightening in being, the creature – perhaps human, yet at the same time, essentially not – sauntered forward, with movements that could almost be called infinitely graceful, if not for the horror that cascaded off its blackened lips and growling expression.

Ryan shivered as his eyes adjusted to the view, his senses guided not by his rationalization, but rather by the tension of the moment, and he found himself unable to withdraw his gaze from the creature that approached him, stalking past others who shivered in their seats, legs drawn up to their chests, their trembles muffled only by fear. He shifted his gaze as the creature glanced around, beholding the humans before him as though he was armed with some higher, clandestine purpose, and Ryan wondered if perhaps, the creature intended to harm them. A cannibal, perhaps, was the first characterization that ran through his mind – before he discarded it as a figment of his imagination, a fictional outcome of his distress. After all, what were the chances of that happening, no?

It was a loud whimper by the teenage figurine in the seat three rows ahead of him which snapped away his attention from his fantastical thoughts – she was young, attractive behind the features of distress that clouded her face, and her hands were clasped over her mouth in a manner that accentuated her horror, and he knew then that she wished her own expressions had not betrayed her. She shook evidently, and the creature paused in its steps, its feet tracking towards the female like a predator stalking its prey. Its crooked grin twisted, contorting into something that resembled curiosity, while at the same time blossoming something close to hunger, anticipation, and hedonistic excitement.

It had a look that knew the future, of what was to come; of which the human beings before it could only assume.