Shorts stories & Creepypastas

Who is the monster? (School of Bermuda)

(Character from The School of Bermuda : https://www.wattpad.com/story/359083187-the-school-of-bermuda-volume-1-the-hunter%27s )

I was born in Persia. I no longer know the exact year. It was a long time ago. I lived with my parents and my two twin sisters. I don't remember their names anymore. I don't even remember mine, to be honest. However, I remember the warnings from my mother and father. We had to stay away from the monsters. The monsters who claimed that we were the monsters. The monsters like you.

However, Dad was content to hunt animals in the forest. Sometimes he managed to fish. He never attacked them. He didn't even approach their dens. He was very strong, but he preferred to hide to protect us.

Ah... those days are so distant. My sisters and I playing in the mud while Mom mended our worn-out clothes. And Dad coming back from the hunt, dragging the corpse of a stag by the horns. The stag was my favorite meat. Dad said that the monsters tasted good too, but if we started hunting them, they would come after us. They were less strong, but much more numerous. They didn't have claws or fangs, but they had wooden and metal spikes. Dad called them weapons. So, we were ordered to avoid them at all costs.

And yet... yet the monsters came to hunt us. Dad stayed to confront them, while Mom took us away. I never saw my father again. I was four years old.

We had a hard time finding a new home. They were often already inhabited, or too close to the monsters' dens. So, we kept traveling. I could see, despite my age, that Mom was worried. She looked behind us all the time. She listened to every sound around us, while watching over us.

We managed to escape them for a whole year. But Mom didn't let her guard down. If she had relaxed, that night, we would all have died. I might have preferred to die. According to Dad, the monsters don't eat us. They just kill us. Just like that. Because it pleases them. Because we are not like them. Because we scare them. And that, even if we don't attack them.

That night, Mom woke us up in the middle of the night. The moon illuminated the sky. I loved looking at the sky at night. But I didn't have time that night. Mom didn't even take our blankets and clothes. She took our hands and we ran. We ran as fast as our little child bodies allowed us. In a short time, I started to hear screams behind us. When I looked, I saw flames. They were far away. But close enough to frighten me. The monsters were behind us.

Mom barely caught up with me, because I was running straight towards a ravine, without seeing it. We had reached the edge of a cliff. The sea below crashed with force on the rocks. Mom looked back. She listened to the shouting and raging cries that followed us. She then held us in her arms, crying. I thought we were just going to stay there. Wait for the monsters to catch us. Or maybe, they wouldn't hurt us when they saw that we were scared. But then Mom pushed us into the void. The three of us knew how to swim, but in the surprise, I almost drowned when I hit the water. I could barely hear my mother shouting from the top of the cliff.

"Swim! Swim straight ahead! Don't stop!"

We were triplets, but I was the first of the three, as Dad often said. So I grabbed my sisters and started swimming, dragging them with me.

The last look I cast back only allowed me to see the monsters pouncing on my mother, piercing her with their weapons. They had seen us, and were starting to throw them at us, but we were too far away.

Unfortunately, I lost my sisters. I don't know if they survived.

I don't know how long I spent in the water. The monsters tire quickly in it. How long can you swim before collapsing from exhaustion? Oh... sorry, you can't answer that, can you? Oh... humans. I can't believe that such a weak species as yours managed to annihilate an entire family of manticores. We are stronger, we master many spells, we have poison... how is your sting by the way? Ooh... it's ugly to see. This is the first time I've stung a human, you know? You're the first one I've actually met. Those, who killed my parents about three hundred years ago, I only saw them from afar.

It's really no luck. You managed to survive the crash of your plane, and you fall directly on me. I didn't even think, and I immediately stung you.

Normally, Mom and Dad taught me to eat right after. They taught me not to make my food suffer, because it's not as good when it's tense with pain. But you had time to ask me what I was and what I was doing there before collapsing, so there you go. Now you know. Too bad the poison petrifies you to the point of preventing you from speaking. I would be very curious to know exactly what you're feeling. Dad told me that the body dissolves from the inside, so slowly that it can take days while the victim, you, remains alive. It seems that the pain is such that you just want to die quickly, that you don't even think about healing yourself. You're there, and you're listening to me. You can't do anything else.

It's nothing personal, as you must have understood.

I'm just hungry.