The Monsters Inside (Formerly Extract)

Lifeless

It was many nights before the boy returned.

Alone, I had stayed in the white room where they had left me. Alone with my thoughts, my hunger, my anger.

Alone.

At some point, an alien had cleaned the spilled life from the room, erasing the red, bringing back the white. The white blinded me. It laughed at me, shocking me with its false purity, taunting me with its light. 

It promised health and innocence and cleanliness but brought only torture, pain, and death.

I loathed the white.

The food had stopped coming. The metal contraption hanging on the door, the one that allowed food entrance into this hell, had remained quiet ever since the boy had been taken. I tore at the blood packets in the room, drinking the liquid, ravenous in my hunger. The remains laid littered on the floor. No drops leaked from their bindings; if anything spilled, I licked it clean.

My stomach clenched with hunger.

After the room had experienced darkness four times, the lock finally clicked.

I was silent as the aliens walked in. They paid me no mind, not even sparing me a glance. But I wasn't looking at them either.

Propped up between two of them was a dark mass of man. His hair, once sticky with red and hanging in disarray, was shaved to his skull, leaving only a shadow of black. His skin was a pale, ashy white, the wounds marring the otherwise smooth skin. The life liquid that had once smeared across his body had disappeared. Clean. They cleaned him.

His wounds, those that had threatened to take him from me, were haphazardly closed with thick thread in varying colors. His lips, which concealed the latest tragedy, were two thin slashes of red promising a gruesome scene.

The aliens let go of him, sliding him down the wall until he sat against it, his large black eyes open and staring, seeing nothing. He was not in the room. He was not in his body. They had kept him from his body.

No.

No. The word tore at my chest. My throat. My heart. A sound erupted from my lips, and finally the creatures turned to look at me. I spared them no glance; I was only focused on my companion. 

I shoved my way through the mass of bodies. I crouched in from of the boy, holding his face in my hands, cradling his visage in my mangled palms. His eyes, those black, soulless pits, gazed at me but didn't see me. He isn't here. He isn't here. He isn't here. They've taken him. They've taken him!

Turning towards the creatures, my body let out an inhuman sound. The growl tore from my chest, rushing past my lips, shoved the aliens back. They scrambled, sensing the danger, feeling the cold breath of my anger following them. They wee not safe until they were behind the barrier. 

When they had gone, I turned back to my companion. He had not moved since the creatures had placed him there. I scanned his chest, my eyes skipping over the marks that slashed across his torso. I looked for movement. I saw none.

My hands, shaking, reach out for him again. His cheeks were cold, and no breath moved past his lips. 

Desperate, I grabbed his neck, shaking. Nothing. I shook again, more forcefully. Still nothing. Frantic, I slapped his cheek, pounded on his chest, screamed in his face. I grabbed his hands, lifted them, threw them. I pulled at my own hair, and his. I clawed at his arms and grasped his shoulders.

The boy continued to sit still, lifeless, with his soulless eyes staring and seeing nothing.

Anguished, a cry slipped from my lips. Salt water leaked from my eyes, running down my face, dripping from my chin onto his hands. My body shook with sobs, and I curled myself clumsily into his lap. I rested my head on his chest, my sadness dripping over to wet us both.

Suddenly, against my cheek, I felt it. Pressed against his cold, unmoving chest, I felt it. The softest, gentlest brush.

A heartbeat.