The Odd Ones

Panting, he ran.

He ran for all he was worth.

Picture it – a grown man – a seasoned soldier, nonetheless – running like a scared child from a barking dog. Through the steel corridor he ran, his weapon long since abandoned, his boots pounding against the metal floor, bathed in the emergency lights’ red glow. However, even the backup generator was failing, and the light only came on intermittently, only serving to augment this individual’s traumatised state. But metres away, a scientific abomination chased after him, its warped laughter echoing against the walls, mingling with the perpetual alarms.

Tears of sheer terror coursed down the man’s face, his teeth gritted in his desperation. The… thing… was closing the gap. Slowly, but surely. And this was while he was running full-pelt, with all but his pistol jettisoned. The beast, the one advancing on him, seemed to have no such problem, even when it used to walls as a floor, even the ceiling. With the energy that only comes in the throes of wanting to evade something one fears so greatly, he gained an inhuman burst of speed, the tears on his face now ones of joy as he spied the exit. Monstrous as they were, the doors had proven their worth. Tight spaces and large enemies tend not to mix.

The pounding and panting increasing beyond what a normal human should ever exert, he ran at the door, almost wrenching the handle off in the process of opening it. He was free – free from the monstrosity pursuing him, the automatic door lock making the most welcome click of his life as he pushed it closed. It smashed head-first into the solid alloy, the blockade proving too much for this weaker version of the finished product. However, something far worse greeted him – a sight that broke him, caused him to sink to the floor, weeping uncontrollably.

They looked at him – an innumerable amount of them, each in the process of dismembering a corpse, feasting ravenously upon what remained of one, or crushing the body of their kin in order to get at a particularly tasteful slop of meat. They were hideous – they were once men, once women, once children. But no longer could they even be described as human – humanoid was only barely fitting for such things as them. Their bodies, appendages, limbs… anything and everything on them had been twisted into something so ungodly, Satan himself would back away in fear.

The mutations were not just minor tweaks, either. Not just arms bending the wrong way, or extra fingers. Fingers had been stretched to the length of an adult’s forearm, the skin elongating with it, while the other hand was but a stump. Heads twisted into themselves, torsos snapped and squashed, lengthened and malformed. Even their clothing had not been spared, adjusted in the process to fit the new host. The number of disfigurations on these tormented souls was something none could fathom, but one thing remained constant. Their speech.

“Tsaef enif a ekam llahs sedisni ruoy!”

“Traeh sih em evig!”

“Eniw ym eb llahs doolb ruoy!”

They were once human, and they still retained their knowledge of whichever language(s) they spoke. However, the process had affected their speech pattern, and they now spoke their language, but the words were warped. Bent. They were speaking the humans’ language, but in reverse. Noises that a mere person should ever be able to make naturally forced its way out of their mouths with ease. And these were the last sounds the soldier heard, bar his own pained screams, as they advanced. His begging, his pleading, his crying… They did not register it. All they registered was one thought.

“Taem hserf!”