Woods of Madness

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We stared silently at this strange creature; we couldn't believe what we were seeing. Doctor Martin approached the creature, the only one who dared to come near it. "H-Hey, Doc, be careful," warned Charles concerningly. Martin nudged the beast, confirming that it was dead. A sigh of relief washed over us. "We need to dissect it," Martin said. The captain looked outside the window, and there was nothing but silence. He then looked at his watch. "The backup should be here any minute." "O-Okay, then let's just wait for the backup," Charles said nervously. "We have time before they get here, and this may be the cause of all the deaths. We need to dissect it now." No one besides Martin wanted to go near the thing, but eventually, it was decided that we needed to examine this weird being.

 So, we finally turned on the light, and all four of us pushed it to the center of the room for examination. It was heavy; we barely moved it. I don't know how we did it with most of us exhausted and Martin injured. Martin's face was one of excitement but also fright. He wanted to examine this thing, but he was fearful, especially since he nearly became its victim. "Do you... maybe have any idea what this thing is, Doc?" muttered the captain. "N-No, I-I've never seen such a creature."

The monster was the size of a grizzly bear. It dawned on me that what I saw a few nights earlier may not have been a hallucination, but this monster. Though, I'm not sure; I only pray to God that it really was this thing and that there aren't any more.

 The thing looked similar to the ones I saw in those cave paintings, just instead of being thin, it had a much more muscular build. Like those creatures, it had many tentacles, twelve to be exact, with many small spikes on each tentacle. It didn't have mouths all over its body like the ones in the caves, but it had one massive mouth filled with several shark-like teeth. Its tongue was also that of a snake. It had several eyes over its head, possibly about twenty-five, that were very small and reptilian-like. It also glowed pink, though it seemed after death, the color shifted to a bright red, and then it didn't glow anymore, and its black skin remained.

With our assistance, the doctor attempted to open up the head to see its brain, but its skull was so strong and massive that it didn't budge. We then moved to its stomach; it was easier to open since it was penetrated by many of our bullets and grenades. Once we fully opened its stomach, a massive amount of purple liquid poured out, presumably its blood. It covered the floor, and it looked like a toilet had overflowed in here with the amount of liquid there was.

 The whole room then began to smell awful; the odor was disgusting. It felt like the beast had been dead for days. I grabbed two nearby napkins and put one over my face, giving the other one to Charles. Martin's doctor mask wasn't much of a help for him, but somehow he managed, and the captain took a bottle of whiskey, sipped some, and rubbed it over his nose to fight off the putrid stench.

The creature had no internal organs; it was all purple inside, just purple soft skin. Martin poked around, trying to find anything until something slightly moved. All four of us took several steps back, almost startled by this, but there was something moving inside the monster's stomach, and a part of the skin had slithered down and fallen to the floor. We carefully walked towards it for a closer inspection to see if there was anything, and to our horror, there...

Inside the wretched creature's stomach was a completely skinless human being, laying in a fetal position. Charles couldn't bear to look at it and immediately turned his back. I too covered my eyes from this horror. Even Martin and the captain could barely stand to look at this sight. The body started to jiggle a bit, maybe it was muscle memory. We once again stepped closer, struggling not to puke, and then a large amount of purple blood exploded, landing on us.

"Ah, fuck, it went in my mouth!" Charles screamed, immediately puking and starting to shiver. All three of us came to his side to help him. Then, my heart sank as I saw a shadow being cast over us, and the shadow was that of a...human. We turned around and saw the skinless man, alive but barely standing, gasping for air, pleading, "HELP MEEEEEE!" It was the worst human scream I had ever heard. He fell down to the floor, continuing to scream horribly in pain.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God!" "Fuck, fuck, ahhhhh!" Those were the screams made by Charles and me. Even the doctor couldn't bear not to scream at this grotesque sight, which ended when the captain grabbed his sGt and blew off the skinless man's head. He screamed loudly and threw the gun, going down on his knees and starting to weep.

"When the fuck is the backup arriving?!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, storming off to his office. As we followed him, a sigh of relief washed over us when he saw that the telegram was intact. The captain quickly sent a message for help. It had been a few minutes since the backup should've arrived right after the captain had sent his message. He immediately got a response which read, "BACKUP ON ITS WAY IN 1 HOUR HOLD FIRM." The captain slammed his hand on the table.

"What the fuck is this?!" Charles muttered. "I'm pretty sure that's what those assholes said an hour ago. Did you tell them about the-"

"Of course I didn't tell them about the weird shit. What, so they think that I'm crazy? I told them that we've been dropping like flies!"

"Wait," Martin raised his hand. He leaned closer and looked at the back of the telegram. It had been busted this entire time. Even the wire was cut. It couldn't have been possible for it to work. Our jaws dropped. We all looked at each other.

"We're leaving," I said, having enough of this place.