Quick Warmup WIP

This was something short I did as a warmup for class, but I ended up liking the concept and needed somewhere to put it till I feel like reworking it and fleshing it out.

He carefully turned the key in the lock and slowly opened the door. To his horror, he saw it. Hanging from what remained of the ceiling, a slick black mass contorted and writhed slowly. Hiro fought desperately to keep the contents of his stomach from rising upwards and outwards so as to not alert that.... thing. Somehow, in spite of everything else he'd seen since waking up here, Hiro had yet to become numb to it all. Each new body, creature, and act of violence he witnessed only served to add to the feeling of despair welling up inside of his chest.  

The young teen squinted in the darkness to get a better look at the atrocity blocking his path. Save for a few, the ceiling tiles above had all fallen out, revealing the broken pipework and vent system overhead. It was from the grid where the tiles should be that the oily tendrils gripped, holding up the creature. The outside was fleshy and reflecting the very little light within the room, and below its surface lay a sea of squirming tendrils, threatening to rip through the flesh of the beast. Worst of all was the oppressive odor filled the air. It was nothing like Hiro had ever experienced before- it was sickly sweet with a hint of iron.  

Quietly and slowly, Hiro crept further into the room. Looking around, he noticed that this room was much, much bigger than he originally thought, comparable to the floor of a department store. There were objects laying all around- tables, mattresses, cloth and rubble were scattered around the area. The only sources of light were from the door Hiro had just opened and a single arcade machine turned on its side a few yards away from the thing. At least, that’s what Hiro though, until he spotted near the very end of the vast enclosure- a hole that seemed to lead outside, with stars in sight. Could he finally be able to leave this nightmare? Since waking up here and watching the countless murders of friends and strangers, and his lover, Katrina, he’d begun to feel as though there truly was no way to escapes the twisting liminal chambers he and the others had been trapped in for who knows how long. Feeling the spark of hope light up in his heart again, he slowly made his way around the edges of the room, careful to avoid wherever the tip of the creature was pointing as it slowly writhed around. Eventually, he made it to the arcade machine, and began to make his way past it and towards a column he could hide behind and form a plan. 

That was when it happened. As he crept past it, the machine began to make a noise as if to signal to a nonexistent player that coins were to be inserted should they wish to begin the game. Just like that, the creature whipped what Hiro guessed could be considered its head around to face directly at him. Immediately, its tip opened up from the center to reveal an opening as it let out a deafening screech as it stretched the few feet over towards Hiro, who was rendered immobile by the pain of the sound and the primal sense of dread he felt. He stared into the opening, and in the light cast by the machine’s screen, he saw its inside. A familiar face, eyes glossed over and mouth wide open in a scream trapped below the tar-like surface of the creature. Tears began to fall as the realization washed over him. 

“Darling, so that’s where you’ve gone?”