It is the sound of the front door slamming into the wall that wakes Xavier from his sleep. He sits up and looks over at the clock, confused, realizing it is still the dead of night. Why would the front door be getting slammed? Balere was the only other person here, and she was asleep. He had checked before he went to bed.
Why would the door be getting slammed?
He rolls out of the bed as he hears a crash from downstairs, grabbing the bat from beside his bed as he creeps up the door. Cracking it open, he peers out into the hallway. Not seeing anything, he swings the door open and slides out into the hall. Spotting the door to his sisters room slightly open, and Balere peering out through the crack, he creeps up to her door quickly, causing a quickly stifled scream as he startles her.
"Call the cops, tell them you think someone has broken in. I am going to see if I can sneak up and see what is going on," he whispers as he creeps past.
As he nears the end of the hallway and peers out into the living room, he freezes, shocked by the scene in front of him. Half of the wall that the front door was on is now missing, bits of it scattered across the room. The front door had been torn loose from the wall, frame and all, and depositing into the far wall, as if thrown by a giant.
Through the hole, he was able to see the neighbors house on fire across the street. He watches as the front door opens and Steve runs out into the yard, screaming in panic. Above him, unnoticed, a portion of the fire covering his roof breaks off into the shape of something resembling a spider, if you made the spider out of flame and only gave it four legs. It skitters over to the edge of the roof and leaps off, landing on Steve''s back and latching around his neck. Before he can react, the air above him seems to tear and a gnarled hand, black and shiny as if made of obsidian, reaches down, grabbed him by the top of the head, and pulls him back through the tear before the tear vanished as if it was never there.
*What the fuck was that?!* The panicked thought races through his head as he hears a sound out on the street. The sound of skin on concrete, as a massive bare foot, skin a mottled violet slaps down on the road in front of the house. He ducks back around the corner out of sight as something blocks the light from the fire across the road and he hears the heavy breaths of something large in front of the building. He freezes, trying to stay quiet, the sound of his own breathing loud in his ears.
An massive voice crashes into Xavier''s mind, despite the silence of the room around him. Overwhelming in its intensity, but with no meaning to him, the random noises in a language he doesn''t recognize. The light returns through the front of the house and the foot steps continue down the road. He stands there for a few minutes, unable to move, bat clenched tightly in his fist, breathing rapidly, before he is able to shake off some of the panic from the overwhelming presence crashing into his mind.
Just as he is about to creep back towards his sisters door, there is a scream of panic from inside her room, followed by the sound of glass shattering and more screaming. He charges down the hallway back to her door, crashing through it into her room. Glass from the window is scattered across the room in shards, covering the floor and everything else near the window. His sister cowers in the far corner as an alien figure moves across the room towards her.
This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Four pointed legs attach to a carapaced body that reminds him of an insect, stretching up almost seven feet tall. Several small slits run up the side of the creature, opening and closing rhythmically, stopping short of a triangular head, large round eyes bulging out at the corners of the head that was otherwise occupied by a gaping hole filled with small sharp spines that clicked against each other as it approached. Held up tight against its body was a set of small arms with four fingered cross between hands and claws. They are overshadowed by the much larger set of arms above them that resemble the bladed arm of a praying mantis, with an actual blade glittering with in the meager light, lining the last several feet of the arm.
Without thinking he launches himself across the room at the creature, feeling the glass cut into his feet as he runs, swinging the bat at the creature towering over his sister with a scream. He hangs in the air for a moment as he flies towards the creature, shifting the bat to line up with its head. Impossibly fast, the thing spins, lashing out with the bladed arm at his head, but instead catching the bat and forcing it back, slamming it back into his body with all enough force to send him tumbling back across the room.
It follows him back across the room, pointed feet not caring about the glass littering the floor, or anything else as their sharp points punch into the bedding it crawls over in the process before it stands over him. It looks down at him, the clicking from its maw growing louder, as it takes one sharp foot and places it on his right shoulder, before pressing down, slowly, leaning weight onto the point, which pierces into his skin.
He screams, flailing against the leg with the other arm. unable to grip the bat well enough to swing it, as the pain of the sharp point sinks deeper into his flesh. From across the room, he can hear his sisters voice yelling, and then a small thud as she throws the phone at the creatures head, bouncing it off of one eye, cause the creature to pause, and then pull the claw back out as it turns back, crossing the room and lashing out as Balere, causing her to flinch back, holding her face.
He watches the creature pull back again to slash down on her with its bladed arm and grabs the bat from the floor, his hand loosing feeling against the pulsing in his shoulder, and throws himself across the bed, sliding between Balere and the creature as it slashes down, throwing the bat up between him and the blade, eyes clenched shut against the pain he knew was coming.
Instead, there was a loud peal, like a bell had been struck, and he felt a tug on his senses, like he had tensed a muscle he didn''t know he had. Opening his eyes, he saw a grid of hexagon shapes formed in front of him, as if spreading out from the blocking face of the bat, forming a shield that has stopped the blade of the creature. The room, dark moments before, is now revealed brightly by a light that seems to permeate the room, leaving no shadows behind. The creature in front of him glows with the same light tinged an odd yellowish green color, but is not the source of the light that lights up the room.
It pauses with what almost seems like shock before lashing out twice more rapidly at the shield. Xavier spins to the side slightly, deflecting the final blow off of the bat, knowing somehow the shield was going to shatter as that third blow connected with it. As he slides to the side from the blow, he notices the bat is glowing now, and swings out again at the creatures head desperately. It almost contemptuously holds an arm up to block the blow, only for the glow on the bat to explode, blowing the creatures arm off and throwing it backwards across the room, as well as throwing Xavier against the wall, knocking him in the head.
As he slides down to the floor, his vision starts to darken, his head swimming from the blow to it, he can hear as his sister rushes over to him and starts yelling at him, but he is unable to make out what she is saying before he slips into unconsciousness.