a monster made of corpses

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

Tom's body convulsed, groans coming from his mouth as the lights continued to flicker. Alina watched, horrified, and grabbed her brother's hand, the two of them backing as far as they could away from the corpse. And that was when his face began to morph, swelling up with black and purple and red, until, after a few seconds, it no longer even resembled the human Tom Holloway had once been. It was completely and utterly the Mind Flayer's creation now, the thing that had guzzled chemicals to create a reaction inside of the body. As Alina stared, nausea broiling up in her, she thought that she might've finally felt out what that reaction happened to be.

Tom's body continued convulsing, like he was having a seizure or something, and then something worse, more terrible than the trembling and the swelling happened. There was a squelching, and a reddish liquid began to ooze from his face like blood, except this was more of a jam in texture. It smelled like rotting corpses, blood, and raw sewage, and, even as whatever it was squelched out of him, Tom continued to choke and wheeze on the ground. Alina stepped back even more, staring at the strange creation with horror.

"What... what the hell is happening?" she asked.

"I-I don't know," Jonathan admitted, stepping forward so as to shield her body with his own. Considering the fact that Alina was the one with superpowers, she usually would've found this a little insulting, but right now she was secretly glad for the barrier. She didn't know what was happening, but her stomach was queasy and even more vomit was threatening to spew out of her, so she just peeked over Jonathan's shoulder, her whole body still in a tremendous amount of pain, and attempted to warm up her palms again, just in case.

The ooze was completely covering Tom's face and hands now, shielding them from view, great globs of it in red and black sliming its way out of his body. And then, with one final squelch, Tom Holloway melted into a puddle of the stuff, which percolated out of his hospital scrubs. It almost looked like he had deflated, but it sounded more like he was crumbling, all of his bones and blood and tissue and organs mushing together. Alina found herself shrieking at the sight of it, convinced it was going to seep its way over here, and Jonathan stepped back, his arms still out, protecting her from horrifying creation.

But the slime, goo, ooze, whatever it was that remained of Tom Holloway did not make its bloody way over to them. Instead, the goo, almost like it was alive, began to squelch its way to the door of the hospital room, bubbling. Leaving a thin layer of slime behind it as it did so.

Alina shrieked again, and, without thinking, shot a beam of energy at the pile of goop. The light crashed right into the middle, singing a sizable, blackened hole in it, and the goo let out a high, inhuman screech before it simply slurped right back together, sealing up the hole and continuing to move away from the siblings.

Alina tried to puke, but there wasn't anything left in her stomach, so she just ended up gagging instead. Her stomach was twisting and she thought she might faint, but she didn't. Instead in complete silence, Alina Fairgrieves-Byers watched the goop ooze its way through the crack beneath the door, making its way into the hospital halls where Nancy had gone.

Still shielding Alina, Jonathan followed the strange thing out the door. Alina went after him, her heart pounding, both curious and repulsed by whatever this creature was. The two of them were still in an enormous amount of pain—their breaths were heavy, and each slow step brought shooting pain rocketing into Alina's entire body—but they followed. Even though Alina's knees were knocking together and her left one was swollen to nearly twice its size. Even though her arms were twitchy, and her vision occasionally flickered.

Then the two of them saw it. At the end of the hallway inched another pile of the goo, around the same size and same constantly contorting and bubbling shape as the one the siblings were following. This one was followed by a battered-looking Nancy, who, Alina was pleased to see, didn't look like she had sustained many injuries. She realized that this must've been the other flayed man, who also seemed to have melted, dissolved, crumbled. Any of those words worked.

She couldn't help, in this tense moment, to remember what Tom—the Mind Flayer—had said to her. That it missed her. That it wanted her to come home. It wanted her to become like whatever this was, wanted to change her into whatever this was. Wanted to morph her until there was no return this time, no coming back, until, perhaps, she, too, was a pile of goop on the floor. The thought made her even more sick than the actual slime had.

The three of them—Nancy, Jonathan, and Alina—stared at the piles of slime, which seemed to be growing now as they inched their way towards each other, squelching and bubbling the entire way. The acrid stench of it overwhelmed them, but none of them could even move. All they could do was watch as the goo met up in the middle of the hallway... and collided.

It joined into one, and then, if what had just happened wasn't horrifying enough, it began to grow. Chittering and squelching, insect-like legs burst from the goop, other fleshy appendages beginning to form as it got bigger and bigger. It got bigger, and bigger, and just as it nearly was up to the ceiling, the lights went out. The glow of the emergency exit sign behind them faded to black. And then Nancy, Jonathan, and Alina, were standing in the dark, listening to growls.

Alina closed her eyes, trying not to cry out, and then began to form a beam of light on her hands. She knew that whatever this was, it wasn't good, and they were going to have to get out of here as soon as possible. With blood gushing from her nose, Alina formed a red ball just as the lights flickered back on.

And what stood before them was a monster. There was no other term to describe it. With six legs, spikes jutting out of its back, its fleshy appendages in the color of flesh and blood, still reeking with that horrible smell, the monster roared. Saliva dripped from its mouth and it gnashed its teeth, because the monster did have teeth. Oh, it had teeth. Horrible, terrible, sharp teeth. And its roar told Alina it promised to use them well.

Gabriel Burton had not been having a good time waiting in this room. The receptionist wouldn't stop chattering away on her phone, Mike had kicked him and Will out of their seats so he could go talk to El (he'd given her M&Ms and asked if her "species" liked them. Which Gabe thought was weird, because he remembered that conversation the day after the mall, where Mike had been complaining about the breakup and Mike had said that women were a totally different species. El had not been there for that. Also, to make the matter clear, Gabe had disagreed with that notion—if anything, it was men who were Other), and it was taking way too long. He didn't know how long, exactly—it could be anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour—but that wasn't the point. The point was it was taking forever. And—another downside—Alina had gone to the bathroom a while ago, and she still hadn't gotten back.

Girls like to hang out in bathrooms, Gabe had thought to himself, but never for this long.

And then, to make matters worse, the lights had started to flicker. For a few minutes, Gabe had convinced himself of dying bulbs and other unlikely scenarios, because he didn't want to deal with this shit on what had already been a completely horrible day, but then Will had stood up, his eyes widening, and he knew that this was supernatural-related. Which was just perfect. A big middle finger to Gabe on this already shitty day.

Now, the entire party stood back to back, staring up at the blinking lights, and then Will put a hand to the back of his neck, his tell for the Mind Flayer's activation. "He's here," he said breathlessly, his voice rattling with horror. Nobody had to ask who.

"Alina," said Lucas in horror. "She must've—she must've sensed that something was up. We have to find her! We have to find Nancy and Jonathan!"

El narrowed her eyes. "Come on," she instructed, and then they were all tearing down the hallway. The receptionist attempted to call after them, her voice rising to a frustrated yell, but none of them listened, instead making their way to the elevator. But the buttons wouldn't work, and they were wasting time. So the stairwell it was.

And as all of that was happening, Alina was standing in the hallway, frozen, listening the monster's roars. She thought it might come for her and Jonathan, but she was wrong, because it instead began to hurl its way towards Nancy, its shrieks tearing through the air. It moved almost puppet-like, uncaring about whatever it bumped into, and Jonathan, his eyes wide, yelled his girlfriend's name.

"Run!" Alina urged, and run Nancy did, sprinting across the hallway towards the emergency exit door. Her hands fumbled to the handle, but as she tried to push the door open, it stuck. It was being blocked by something. And the monster was getting closer.

"Hey!" Jonathan yelled in a fruitless attempt to draw the monster away from her, and then he darted back, attempting to find something he could use as a weapon. "Come on!" he continued to scream. "Hey!"

Nancy whimpered, shoving all of her weight against the door as the creature got close, and Alina continued to scream her name, her hands trembling too much to even form a glow. And just as the creature nearly reached her, Nancy burst through the door, escaping, for now, the monster's wrath.

It seemed that the monster wouldn't give up so easily, however, as it followed her. And that was when Alina realized she'd just been standing here, tears frozen on her cheeks, her mouth open in a desperate scream. It was a lot to take in, because everything had gone by so quickly—she'd been catching M&Ms with Lucas and Max, then following a flayed man, then being attacked, then fighting for her life, and now, watching a monster form.

Jonathan seemed to have found a weapon, a pole thing Alina didn't know the name of, and he began to limp after Nancy. Once he noticed Alina, who'd finally unfrozen, was beginning to follow him, he shook his head. "No," he commanded. "Al, you need to run. You need to find your friends. I'll find Nancy alone."

"I'm not leaving you!" Alina cried. "Not to this!"

Jonathan pursed his lips, but he seemed to realize there was no point in arguing, because there was nothing he could do to stop her. So he let her follow along, limping after him, the two of them heading through the door Nancy had slipped through. Alina's stomach was doing gymnastics, but her palms were itching a little, and she knew she could at least form something close to an attack.

They turned the corner in the hallway, where they immediately saw the monster pounding at a door. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Nancy had locked herself in there. And that was when the monster collapsed itself, oozing right back into the liquid it had started as, and seeped its way through the vent at the bottom of the door. Jonathan, in a panic, dropped his makeshift weapon and began to limp a little faster towards her.

"No! Nancy!"

"Jonathan!" came Nancy's scream from inside the room. Alina and Jonathan arrived there right as the monster had fully seeped its way inside, and the two of them began to immediately pound at the door, wanting to get to the girl. Alina was close to blacking out, now, and everything rattle sent pain licking down her body, but she wouldn't stop, because Nancy Wheeler was about to die.

"NANCY!" she screamed, slamming her fists against the wood. "NANCY!"

"No, no! NANCY!" Jonathan yelled. He was sobbing now as he rammed his body again and again against the door, attempting to fruitlessly get to his girlfriend, trapped in the room with the monster. There was no running in here. There was nowhere for her to go. No way for her to fight. She was dead meat. And even now, she could hear a thud.

Alina pounded again, and wood splintered under her hands, her palms stinging as shards buried into them. It wasn't even close to getting through. Jonathan was now trying to find some way to break the door down, and Alina continued to pound, again and again, screaming her name. "NANCY! NANCY!"

And then, before she could react, Jonathan was shoving her out of the way. Caught unawares, Alina skidded onto the ground, where she thought she did black out for a second. When she finally regained her bearings, she looked up at Jonathan, because she knew he wouldn't have done this without a reason, and found him slamming against the window beside the door with some kind of metal cylinder, trying to break it open. He did it again and again and Alina could do nothing but listen to the gurgles and Jonathan's frantic breaths, because any minute now whatever the hell that was would kill Nancy. Or flay her. But those were practically the same thing, now.

The window cracked, and Alina's heart leaped, but it didn't shatter. It cracked more, and more, and Alina knew in her heart that they were too late, when something happened that she didn't expect.

Miraculously, the door to the room burst open, flying off its hinges. 

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

a/n: this chapter SUCKS and i am so sorry lmfaoo. i'm literally so bad at writing scenes like this, which is why it turned out so bad. and sorry for the weak cliffhanger, too, the chapter was getting too long and i had to split it into two ahaha.

anyway, alina's powers don't seem to work on the slime monster, do they? i wanted to do this to show that she has limits, and there are definitely some things her powers can't take care of (as well as letting el have her scenes, and not having alina steal them). she's powerful, but she's not overpowered, hopefully :)

'till next time!