Six massive arms jutted from its shoulders and sides, all wrapped in pulsating, purple-blue veins like cursed Christmas garlands. Its legs split at
the ankles into two bare feet each, toenails long and nasty.
And the head. Flattened like someone sat on a snowball. Pure white. No hair. Eyes bulging out like rotten grapes trying to quit their job.
It looked like a melting snowman that had seen things.
And I didn’t want to be racist or anything, but damn — this thing was ugly. I left it to Antwan to say what we were all thinking.
- This .. revolting. - He offered with a full-body shiver.
Bits of the monster kept falling off. Literally. Limbs and heads just detached themselves and flopped to the ground, crawling away like guilty secrets. The worst was a bald man’s head that slithered out of its stomach, leapt up, latched onto the barrier with its tongue — and started winking at me.
Flirting.
- So, do we fight or…?
- Valid question, - said -Do you want another fight?
- Honestly? Not Even for me — and my PTSD bingo card is full — this was pushing limits.
- Then we wait. Maybe it gets -
- I’mma go make tea, - Julia muttered, barely hiding her - I need peppermint to forget this... thing.
Antwan took over, voice crackling privately in my ear.
-Ali, try throwing something. Classic movie move. Might work.
I silently scooped up a handful of pebbles and flung them in all directions. Nothing. The beast just kept staring. Tongue sliding across its lipless gums.
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We had a standoff. Me and Mr. Human-Buffet.
I considered just beheading it outright. If the head was the control center, maybe I could one-shot the whole Frankenstein mess.
But then… I heard it.
A roar. But not from the beast. From everywhere.
Like a thousand mouths speaking over one another — laughing, coughing, whispering, yelling. The ground shook. The air rattled.
The meat beast responded with a pained snarl, joined by its dozens of hitchhiking heads.
Every face on its body joined in. Some screamed. Some sobbed. One sneezed.
My hair literally stood on end.
Then — silence. Apparently, the noise pissed it off too, because it turned and slithered away. Back to whatever pit it called home.
-I’m back! What’d I miss? - Julia asked, cups clinking in the background. Antwan slurped audibly.
- Just more of that crowd-chant noise. Remember?
- What is that?
- Won’t know unless I keep
- Then march on, Commander,- Antwan said, full military
- Okey-
I gave the area one last paranoid sweep. Nothing too cursed in sight. And then I stepped past the barrier…
…Straight into a concert.
Suddenly, my vision snapped into HD. I could see everything — a hundred steps ahead, two hundred. Farther.
And there they were: people. A sea of them.
Human silhouettes packed shoulder-to-shoulder, all facing a distant stage. On it, a wild mashup of instruments played: electric guitars, violins, harps… and a freaking bassoon.
The music shouldn’t have worked — but it did. Ethereal. Haunting. Almost beautiful. But I didn’t come here for a cultural experience.
I moved through the crowd. Pushing deeper.
Even with better sight, the world beyond the crowd was still cloaked in fog. So I had no choice but to keep weaving between the bodies. Close. Tight.
Silent.
And then…
I looked at the people around me. And something inside me — snapped.
Nope, this time, I wasn’t spooked by monsters or shadowy beasts. What I saw were regular people—frozen stiff in place, their faces glued into expressions that didn’t twitch a single muscle. The audience was stuck like statues, a gallery of human emotion caught mid-pose.
Someone had a hotdog halfway to their mouth, a bit of bun jammed in their teeth. Another one was trying to drink from a cup, and the liquid just trickled endlessly down onto the ground. There were even couples—one guy had his girl up on his shoulders, or a dad holding his kid high—and they were frozen like that, just freaky living sculptures.
Some smiles stretched so wide they looked painful, and those lifeless eyes didn’t reflect a damn thing. A few folks were stuck in dance poses like they were mid-social media, but forgot how to move to the next beat.
Brrr... I could feel my brain slowly bailing on me, so I asked my friends: – Am I the only one seeing this?
Silence. No response. The built-in wave transmitter wasn’t working. I tried
a few more times, but nothing. Radio silence.
So yeah, I was completely alone. Just me and a thousand mannequin-people with expressions that looked like they were bought in bulk.