The Initials | Nanowrimo 2023

6| The Awakening

“You’re crazy!”

“Maybe, but why should that matter now?"

Cloud scoffs. "Are you being serious! I'm not killing anyone!"

"I never asked you to." The stranger replies calmly, as if discussing a topic simpler than murder but after a long while of waiting for an answer from Cloud, he sighs, figuring out a way to overcome their impasse. "Hunter."

Cloud follows the stranger's companion with his eyes, noticing immediately how each member of the Church of Babylon shudders as the six foot two behemoth stalks towards the first person in line.

"Why is he naked?"

"Was it this funny looking man?" the blonde stranger asks without answering Cloud's question, gesturing towards the man with snot involuntary dribbling from his nose, only breaking eye contact with Cloud to pick up a bloodied shovel off the ground. "Clearly that's a no."

Cloud barely has a moment to process Hunter's fingernails growing into jet black claws before he uses them to rip out the throat of the man kneeling less than a few feet away from him. The dying man's hands immediately fly for his throat, trying desperately to cling onto life as he drowns in his own blood.

Cloud takes in short, shallow, breaths, wanting to save himself the embarrassment of throwing up at a crime scene whilst simultaneously struggling to understand what he has just witnessed.

"Hunter."

"Okay, wait, wait, wait!" Cloud pleads, holding his hands up to slow things down. "Dude, seriously, we don't have to do this! I'm alive, okay. Plus I don't even know who you are and you don't know me!"

Cloud observes the pained expression on the stranger's face, feeling perplexed about how his words could have caused such a reaction in the man who has clearly hardened himself to the world.

"I am Helel Ben Sahar…and I'd hoped we'd never have to meet again in this lifetime."

In the corner of his eye Cloud witnesses one of the cultists attempt to escape before a large, black, shape leaps into the air and strikes him down. The force behind the first snap unsettles Cloud but he officially loses it once he sees that the legs of the victim have been completely removed from his body.

He hears the dying moans of the victim as he tries to drag himself away from the beast, followed swiftly by low, thundering, growls and a definitive snap as he is mauled to death.

"What the hell is that thing?"

"It's funny you should ask." Helel replies, leaning his weight against the shovel in his hand. "Because that is a Hellhound."

The beast silhouette is formless, like a living shadow, reminding Cloud of ink in water.

Every step that the Hellhound takes leaves behind scorched paw prints as hot streams of smoke steam from its wet nose. It's almost as if its body is constantly trying to reform into a canine like vessel with amber glowing veins that resemble volcanic rock.

Cloud’s heart finally begins to settle when suddenly the creature bursts into bright blue flames, immediately turning into a giant pile of ash within seconds.

He stares at the smoking pile, perpetually rooted to the ground, every part of him screaming to run but fearing he may share the same fate as the last guy who attempted to flee.

The ash begins to shift like sand as Hunter claws his way out, still incredibly butt naked.

Cloud averts his eyes from the steaming man before his eyes accidentally see something they shouldn’t. “He was just…and now he’s…did I die and wake up in looney town?”