Oni

In the shade cast by the blood moon a chill is felt. It is the darkness mirrored of the creature beginning to stir in the crimson pools of reflected starlight.

It is a presence not felt since the ancient warriors' past, spilled blood and prayed to gods. Who replied with the wind, wishing them spill more.

A boy, nearing the precipice of becoming a man, just shy of two decades, flees for his life through the forest by the light of the moon; hot breath steaming, his legs pound against the soft ground in a familiar rhythm. Jared is no stranger to this kind of exercise; the boy is a long distance runner, but on this night he finds that it is increasingly more difficult for him to catch his breath. Increasingly difficult to keep that rhythm he’d fought all summer to learn.

Yet still the sounds from the brush behind him push him ever onward. The snapping of branches, the thudding of heavy footfalls slapping against mud.

He had caught a glimpse of the ‘thing’ chasing him and it had broken his world. To think that something so vile was allowed to exist alongside him, his friends, his family. “God” Jared thought “ don't let it catch me”.

But his God didn't listen and the ‘thing’ drew closer. Jared cursed and began to pray to different gods; none whose name he knew but any deity that would listen, any that would deign to care.

Still it drew closer, hollow clicking popped in the night air. Jared pushed his failing legs into one last burst of speed but failed to notice a branch rip against his face, leaving a slash just above his eyes. Blood began to pour like a curtain over his vision.

And I'm that moment... Tranquility.

Jared's lungs no longer burned, his legs were not sore and his mind was clear. Something terrible was happening to the boy.

Six eyes shone from the blood. And spoke in a wordless way, speaking to the mind’s eye. In concepts alone.

“...life...death...”

Jared didn't know if it was a question or a statement. But he felt an impatient pressure begin to descend on his mind.

“Life! I choose life”

The impatience was replaced with a warm feeling of contentment.

“...Fight...”

All of a sudden Jared’s fatigue rushed back and he found himself sprawled out on the forest floor.

“...Fight...”

That ‘thing’ was on him in an instant, a cavernous maw threatening to swallow him whole.

“FIGHT”

With a bestial resolve Jared launched our of the dirt, fists clashing against chitinous hide. Teeth tearing at whirring flesh.

But that ‘thing’ continued nonetheless; an all encompassing assault of whip-like appendages and piercing growths tore Jared's skin to ribbons.

His skull cracked, fists shattered, bones turned to powder. Until he was left as a broken heap on the ground.

That ‘thing,’ satisfied, or as satisfied as a being like it could be, began to retreat back into the darkness when a gauntlet-ed hand snatched its leg, cracking its shell.

The creature appeared to wear Jared's skin like a cloak, the way it lay in tatters across its armoured body. Flesh had transformed into steel like plates, covering cable like knots of muscle. Where there had been a boy before now crouched a monster, six eyes affixed to its prey.

And that, ‘thing’ felt fear.