Delirium (Creepypasta x reader)

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Ragged breathing of an animal broke through the night. Despite the rapid and hoarse intake and exhale of air, it left no trace in the cold night air.

No heat emanate from the creature, the quadruped beast tromping through the foliage. Sparse, quill like protrusions lined its exposed spinal columns. Its tail was long and whip thin, carving swathes through the dirt as the beast struggled with balance. Its limbs were bent at odd angles, almost impossible degrees that didn't seem able to carry any sort of creature; yet the limbs did, red muscle twisting around each bend and encircling the bone spurs that poked out of each bend. Its legs ended in widespread claws that ripped up decaying leaves and pebbles, stained with recent bloodshed. Ferns and the spindly branches of low shrubs brushed against the skin that seemed to absorb all light. They also brushed against the fur of its prize, a downed elk once in the prime of its life; now gutted, trailing blood and shreds of organs behind its limp corpse.

The creature's pointed teeth threatened to snap through the bony antler of its prize as it adjusted its grip, tossing its head and biting down again. Slipping through bone like a knife through butter.

Its eyes were almost too large for its skull, protruding to a sickening degree and as large as grapefruits. It drew a rattling breath in through its nose, scenting the air. Retracing its steps to locate the Entrance it had come through.

The energy welcomed the beast as it drew closer, swirling around it like a blanket of dense fog.

The flat plane of the Entrance almost looked like glass, it was that still. That anomalous. Hovering just above the ground with jagged edges like a tear in a tablecloth, a rip in reality that upset the natural order of the forest and decayed the plant life around it. Nothing stood within the circle of low-hanging energy, the remnants of broken and downed trees long dead and reduced to the driest husks of bark, cork cambium stubbornly hanging onto its molecular structure. The exposed dirt and rocks were broken up only by fungi, reindeer moss and various amanita species spreading their mycelium.

The creature let go of its prey's antler in favour of the elk's neck, sinking its jaws deep into the cooling flesh. Hunger reawoken like a flame in its belly, it trudged through the fungi and touched the Entrance.

The black plane reacted, tendrils of darkness disturbing its unnatural stillness. The darkness bulged out to draw around the beast and its catch, ensconcing them in its inky depths. Drawing them in.

The beast emerged on the other side with a grunt  of satisfaction, digging its claws into the rough loam of the Gloom. Feeling its strength return to full now back in its homeland.

It continued dragging the elk away, leaving the Entrance far behind. It walked between trees of varying heights and esoteric growths, with leaves of vermillion, mulberry, and mauve. The grass under its feet writhed, strands attempting to wrap around the beasts claws and its prey. Easy grasps to ignore.

Trees turned to bushes with both constrained branches and long reaching ivy. The beast avoided those with their feelers extended. Broken up by odd rock formations, some impossible with the gravity exhibited - and yet, they persisted. Spiky rocks as thin as slivers of thorns, round rocks as smooth as silk. All sorts of shapes huddled right next to each other, as if cobbled together by a larger hand.

The beast stopped when its instincts deemed it safe, surrounded by rocks that sheltered it from competitor's eyes. Letting go of the elk with a thump, its mouth closed around the skull of its prey.

Crunch

The bone was easily shattered by razor sharp teeth, meat and skin slurped up by its long, prehensile tongue. The beast fed with vigor; clawing at the dirt in excitement, lashing its tail in pleasure.