Witches eat lead.

That's the only way Ed could explain how this tiny girl weighed fucking tons.

As he stumbled past the monster buried under the boulders, something shifted under the pile, making concrete fall down in places, uncovering a broken and battered wing that tried unsuccessfully to flap. A guttural groan of pain echoed through the room.

"Go, " Emma whispered into his ear.

"There was a girl. She had a, uh, a... A ball." Ed came out of the big hole in the wall, into one of the cells. The bars were broken, some even looked molten. The wall beyond was also crashed. Looked like lion boy there rammed straight through the walls. Not that Ed could imagine him coming through a door.

"She loved to play with that ball," Emma had her eyes shut, so quiet Ed suspected that she was knocked out, perhaps forever. Then she drew another ragged and shallow breath and her cheek touched his. It was searing hot.

Ed carefully stepped across a bunch of fallen shotguns, the rounds scattered across the room like landmines. A fire blazed across the room, tinting the debris crimson.

"One day, she was playing catch with her friend—" he was cut off by a sound like tectonic plates colliding shaking the ground under his feet.

Emma didn't have to tell Ed to start running. He practically jumped over every laid piece of concrete, almost slipped and fell to his death twice, and bonked his head hard against a low hanging piece of wood before bursting out of the station.

The city was desolate, no life nor engine. The wind sang it's lifeless choir on the streets before ramming against the cloud-kissing buildings. Dark glass panels looked down like the empty eyes of a skeleton. The sky was a spotless black, yet there seemed to be an ambient blue light around. It felt as if a gloom hung on everything, feeding off its energy. A smell like dusty dew hung in the air that felt stagnantly hot to Ed.

A few paces from them, a single lamppost made a pyramid of light, and there it was.

Taller than any human could possibly be, it was as if an anthropoid hole in the very fabric of this reality. The only thing that came back were two dim dots of blue light where its eyes should be. Strings of darkness came out of the head, like flowing hair, or tentacles.

"Don't... Look," Emma held Ed tighter as if she sensed the creature, "Go...end.. Tell...tory" her breath came out with a gurgling sound, "Don't look."

There was long inky stain, provided by Emma's wound, running down Ed's tee and parts of his tattered jeans.

"Uh, yeah," Ed resumed his pace, towards the alley between Nightingale Complex and the Pizza Hut, only one and half blocks away, his arms and shoulders starting to hurt from carrying Emma for so long, "She was playing with her friend Willi, when the ball flew over the fence and landed on her angry neighbor's lawn."

Like a rabbit fleeing from a hunter, Ed glanced back at the lamppost.

It was gone. Of course, it was gone. What good tall-ass nightmare-crawling motherfucker wouldn't be gone?

"So Willi went to the neighbor," Ed passed the Infinity gift shop, the lifeless porcelain dolls, perfect as is, seemed to scrutinize his every flaw through the plexiglass window, pointing out each fear of his as a weakness. The unmoving eyes of the drumming monkies seemed to follow him like predators. "And asked to give the ball back."

"The neighbor didn't give the ball back," Ed peeked from behind a building before taking a right turn, "he told Willi that he's mad and if they tried to talk to hum again, he'd puncture the ball."

Ed's feet felt slippery from Emma's blood as he practically made a mad dash seeing the large copper bird in front of Nightingale Complex. His breathing became deep and painful as his footsteps echoed across the wide pavilion.

And it wasn't the only one.

Clinking like metal, splotching like a wet sponge. Behind him, not far away. Ed almost stumbled and let Emma fall. A guttural shriek went off, the sort of noise you'd expect to hear if you leave a beheaded chicken in a pitcher. He didn't dare to look back.

Then it was gone. Just as he passed the copper bird. Relief flooded Ed as a breath escaped Emma.

"Willi blamed... Uh, um," Ed suddenly realized he hadn't named his protagonist.

"Lucy," Emma whispered quieter than dew.

"Willi blamed Lucy for it," Ed hesitated before walking into the deep dark alley between the complex and the restaurant. It was like a large and tall screen of pure black, like the open mouth of a giant. "And Lucy blamed Willi."

"In..." Emma whispered.

Holding his breath, Ed walked into the dark alley.

The walls, they seemed to come alive around them. Pulsating and oozing, fetid and gelatinous, purple mounds of veiny flesh covered them when seen from the corner of the eye. Looking directly, however, they were just the ever known walls. Ed ducked as a swarm of invisible flies zipped past him.

"They argued about it. And seeing their friendship cracking, it pleased the angry neighbor."

Something wet splotched under Ed's foot. He shuddered but went on without looking.

"So, just to see them argue, he made a plan," Emma's breathing intensified.

"He told them to stand by the road, and when he saw a bus coming, he threw the ball in a way that it falls in the bus's way," Ed's knees were hurting like hell, and Emma's hold around his neck felt like it tightened in every moment.

"Lucy jumped for the ball, barely catching it. And she did, she was right in front of the bus," Ed huffed, the last bit of the story almost not coming out of him, "Willi jumped for her friend. She tackled her to the road and the bus passes over them both."

"The ball fell under the tire and exploded, but Willi and Lucy didn't care. They had found themselves. And then they fell in love married yada yada yada," Ed turned to look at Emma, "The end."

Emma didn't say anything, just nodded faintly.

Ed looked forward at the black brick wall that rose in front of them, "we're here."

"Clo...ser," Emma's head bobbed downward, cradling into Ed's neck.

As Ed moved towards the wall, Emma reached out and with her fingers, drew two parallel lines on the wall, and then a line through them.

At first, nothing happened. No flashing lights, no fountain of eternal life, not even a decent roll of bandages.

Then there was the sound. Like a thundering drumroll, it seemed to resonate with every beat of Ed's heart.

Like a curtain, the wall before them fell away, revealing something only out of Ed's most outlandish fever dreams.

It looked like Bigfoot and the Grinch had a baby, and it was raised in a steroid lab. And then it was... Blue.

Its lips were a thick black line across a face that was almost thirty feet in the air. Its eyes seemed like someone mixed every color of an oil set in water, put the liquid in a bulb and shone a flashlight through it.

It regarded them with those big curious eyes without blinking or taking its eyes off, and oddly, Ed didn't feel uncomfortable about it. It felt like the sun. In place.

Emma ushered it. It bent down and brought its face, almost the size of a telephone booth, down to them. It turned it's head to face its ear to them.

Ed thought he heard Emma mutter something, though he couldn't decipher what. It was fast and sing-song, like a quick rhyme. The blue giant's eyes lit up and then changed color to a vibrant yellow.

It raised its head, its eyes still glowing yellow.

Emma squeezed him tighter, which wasn't really much tight.

"Hol...on" she got out.

The giant's right palm was suddenly around them.

"Whaddya mean hold oOOO!" there was an echoing boom, and they were hypersonic.

(I used Grammarly :D)