Word Count: 1,062
Rating: T/PG-13 (for mild swearing)
Genre: Paranormal Fiction
Background: I wrote this short story back in 2009 or so. I dredged it up & edited it a bit & figured I'd post it for the hell of it. This was inspired by the Magistrate villain from the video game "Demon's Souls".
Link to Consumption
Consumption by Kelsey Teresea
"What do you want from me?!" He grabbed the nearest heavy object - a candlestick - and threw it at the advancing man. The candlestick stopped a few inches away from where the man's face would have been and fell to the floor with a loud clang. It resonated like a tuning fork.
"Heh heh!" was all the man said. It was all he ever said. And it was maddening.
Richard retreated further back into his study. He was pressed up against his large wooden desk now, the faceless man in black still advancing on him. He was incredibly slow. Richard had outrun the man at first (and many times consecutively) but somehow he always caught up. At the most inopportune moments, too.
He had first shown up while he was out on an evening stroll. Richard had lost himself in some thought and had meandered down a path he had never knew existed. It took him down under a bridge that spanned from one end of thick fog to another. The man had burst into flames with a throaty "Heh heh!" while Richard stood there, motionless with fear and wonder. Then he ran. He didn't think much of the incident until he was at lunch with Kate whereupon the man strolled up to the window and stood there, unmoving. Richard, upon seeing the man again, had threw down some cash and had left in a hurry (much to the protests of poor Kate). And then the man showed up at his job, right while he was in a very important meeting. He silently busted through the doors chuckling, "Heh heh!" Richard had nearly pissed himself. He had been running ever since.
And now he seemed to be stuck. Glued to his desk. And he had nowhere to run.
Richard took a deep breath to shout another inquisition at the man. But the man stopped.
The man adjusted his ridiculous wide-brimmed, feathered hat into a position that would allow for more vision. That is, if the man had any eyes. But Richard had a feeling this man didn't need any eyes to see with. It was just speculation, though, of course.
Maybe he was going crazy. Maybe this was all a dream and he'd wake up next to (a very intoxicated) Kate with a splitting headache and he'd have a good chuckle and then -
"Heh heh!"
"God damnit! Shut up!" Richard picked up the largest paper weight on his desk and threw it with all his might at the man, hoping against hope it would hit him.
It did. Well, it passed through the man in black and crashed into the bookshelf on the far wall. It was an improvement from the last attempt Richard had made to strike the man. But something was not right. The air felt dense, and it dripped with tension. Suddenly, the man rippled. And then just as suddenly, Richard found himself in utter darkness. And he still couldn't move.
"Balls." Richard blinked a few time. He squinted. He shut his eyes tightly for thirty seconds and then opened them up again. There wasn't any change at all. It was completely black. He sighed. This was definitely better than being chased by some thing from somewhere. At least it was peaceful. At least he didn't have to hear that infuriating chuckle. He sighed, again, a little more relaxed.
Except there was something in his eye. He blinked rapidly, not being able to use his hand to rub the speck out. It was still there. And it was getting bigger.
"This must be some unknown circle of hell," thought Richard with dismay. He resigned himself to stare at the speck. There really wasn't anything better to do. Some immeasurable amount of time passed. It could have been forty seconds. It could have been an hour. It all felt the same in this consuming blackness. He thought he could make out some sort of detail on the speck. He continued to stare, trying to make out exactly what it was. It looked almost like features, minuscule features - like those on painstakingly hand-painted miniature models of civil war soldiers and the like. Was it coming closer? It was so difficult to tell.
Richard blinked to get some moisture back into his tired eyes. It definitely was a face. And it was most positively closer. He felt a slight shiver of panic. After the ordeal he went through he was assuming it was a threat to him. A small voice in the back recesses of his mind reminded him that it could very well be friend, and not foe, and that he was judging too soon. Richard clenched his teeth. There was only one way to find out.
He blinked a few times to make sure, and yes! Every time he blinked, the face got minutely closer. Unfortunately, there was no judging distance in this hellish place (although it was milder than the scriptures would have one believe). He took a deep breath and shut his eyes as tightly as he could and waited.
He would wait for eternity, if he had to. He could wait that long. He'd done his fair share of waiting in various designated rooms for passing idle time. Places like...doctor's waiting rooms. Well, maybe he couldn't wait for eternity, if you put it that way. He opened his eyes.
Richard would have screamed and ran away at the sight of the most terrifying face only inches away from him if he were able to. Except the mouth of this face opened into an immense reddish-pink abyss and swallowed him into oblivion.
A grotesquely black, wet tongue slid out from the blue lips and ran itself down the length of the wooden desk back in Ricahrd's study. The man in black smirked as he drew the mask back over his face. There was a small creak from the end of the room with the door. The man turned slowly.
Kate stood, trembling and open-mouthed at what was once Richard's study. The thickest fog she had ever seen consumed the entire room and seemed to go on forever into nothingness. She stared in horror as the mist swirled intricately and a faceless man in all black stepped into her view. He burst into wild flames. She screamed.
"Heh heh!"
Kate turned and began running.
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