It was just a dream.

 

Yet, as I sat up peering around my room the sweat pouring down my brow and the steady thumpety, thump, thump, thump!

 

If you have ever heard the drowning sound of your pulse pounding in your areas only amplified by the bewildering of your heart beating wildly against your ribs - that was the condition of my present state. My eyes frantic and fearful from what I'd dreamed - wandered aimlessly, raking in every crook, every cranny, and every formulated shadow that existed in the space.

 

Four walls - a box that held me trapped amid pitch black save for the flickering reflection of the tiny nightlight I left on nightly. There was a strange, and sudden prickling that arose upon the nape of my neck.

 

A chilling feeling that I couldn't shake though I tried - and the creeping drip of my sweat slowly dripped into my eye blinding me from the salt nearly instantly.

 

Reaching for my phone, I shook my head and attempted to blow it off.

 

Whoosh!

 

A sudden rush of air blew over my hand and the phone fell to the floor with a loud thud. I groaned and stood slowly, weakly, from my bed, squinting at the floor only to feel that sudden rush of air now steadily flowing against the nape of my neck. A sound not unlike bones cracking began to snap behind me, and I felt myself instant upturned as a coiling appendage swept me off my feet. I screeched - only to find my mouth suddenly invaded by a coiling and inky whip-like tail with a forked end that hooked into my throat and left me dangling and gagged while I began to drool - spittle and blood suddenly mixing to pour down over my chin and bathe my throat in the thick, sticky fluid. A raspy breath hit my ears and unable to move as I was bound, I whirled around in the air only to come face to face - my eyes wide as quarters and white as the starkest walls as they fell upon my captor.

 

The reality of what I had run from in the dark recesses of my greying nightmare now had me in a wretched position, writhing as I slowly began to suffocate, and the stench of putridity hit my nostrils causing me to feel both nauseous and light-headed.


The creature, a thing I could not identify as anything other than a cryptid had fangs as long as my forearms, and the saliva that dripped from the being’s teeth dripped with the odor of sulfur. Just like one might imagine the scent of fire and brimstone.


Putrefying and intense, the creature stared back at me with deep-set eyes – a dark crimson, near-inky pigment that filled the entirety of its eye sockets and stared back at me with an empty, grimacing almost smirk-like expression. I felt a sudden wetness flick outward at me, sure that I had been spat upon, and squinting my eyes closed the next thing that drew over me was a slimy, slithering appendage and I grunted, feeling my Adam’s apple press into the tightening appendage around my throat and mouth and to my horror I realized it was the serpentine creature’s tongue!


My hips began to wiggle, as I attempted anything to move away from the disgusting-smelling tongue, but it was useless. My body simply twirled around like a lopsided Piñata having been beaten half to death. If I hadn't already been scared, I was now experiencing sheer terror with palpable and stifling certainty.


The creature's tongue slithered continually across my face - a wet and sickening feeling washing over me with every flicking trace. It was as if it was savoring the taste of my skin - and with every motion, I could feel my heartbeat intensify such that I now wondered if it might explode. A welcome escape from the dreadful and antagonizing fear that now held me in the wrenching grasp of the entity.


Panic had me now so paralyzed that my former movements completely ceased, yet my eyes still felt as if they had been peeled back against my eyelids - nearly popping from my skull.


And still, the coiling appendage that had first gagged me seemed to tighten expelling whatever remaining bits of air that had ballooned within my lungs. Another wave of nauseating breath from the entity hit me in the face then and then with a sudden lurch I watched in horror as the creature's jaws began to separate - further revealing those needle-sharp fangs that now seemed to be as close to my face as my nose and I could feel the pricking pinpoints of one as it slowly scraped against my flesh.


. I suddenly blinked my eyes closed and prepared for what I knew would be the inevitable and it was then that everything faded into black.


My ears, prickled at the sounds of crunching bones and in my mind, I knew the creature’s jaws had separated even more – my suspicion solidified when the tearing of my skin suddenly broke through the muscle, and I heard a new snapping sound. The eerie sound of my skull splitting, and I knew the entity had bitten into my head now, but I had no way to fight it off.


“Am I going to die?”


I wondered, then hoping that the pain I was feeling as my brain was penetrated at last by the creature’s canines, I felt a sudden sensation of euphoria.  


Crunch – the sound of my skull collapsing was all that I could hear now though my pulse had accompanied it like a low drumming accompaniment to the main acoustics that banged in my eardrums. On either side, I felt as if my entire head was now inside the beast’s maw and any hope I’d had of an escapade from my nightmare upon waking instantly faded – as did my consciousness and the creature consumed the essence of me in one chomping bite.


The End.