He is a mountain of rancid flesh and old violence, rain and blood dripping from the decaying snout, his black eyes gleaming with something personal.
Raising the massive cleaver high above his head, it feels like time has slowed around me, its sharp edge catching the grey light like a promise carved in steel.
“Here, little piggy piggy,” it screeches, its voice slicing through the rain.
My hands scrabble uselessly across the slick pavement, my nails catching and snapping against it as I desperately try to push myself backward.
Water streams down my face, mixing with tears I don’t even realize are falling, while my heels dig into the ground in a frantic attempt to escape.
But there’s nowhere to go, nowhere fast enough.
This is it. I’m going to die right here, sprawled in the middle of this messed-up town, beneath the living embodiment of everything my father left behind inside me.
Just as it’s about to bring the cleaver down, I release a muffled screech through my stitched mouth, the sound tearing from somewhere deep inside me before echoing through the empty streets.
With my eyes squeezed shut, I wait for the impact.
But seconds seem to pass.
One.
Two.
Three.
And nothing happens.
My eyes flutter open, and through the curtain of rain, I glance up at the monster still towering over me.
Black veins begin crawling across it’s cleaver, thin as cracks in ice. They spread over the metal in twitching, branching patterns, wrapping around the blade and holding it suspended above me.
The pig man’s arm trembles, a throaty squeal tearing from it as the veins continue their ascent, slithering down his wrist and winding up his arm like roots burrowing beneath flesh.
When I realize he can’t bring the cleaver down to chop me into pieces, because this thing is stopping it, I kick myself further backward.
My eyes dart around frantically as the town around me changes.
Darkness pours through the street like spilled ink, creeping across the ground in thick waves. A pitch-black smog coils around my ankles, snaking up the sides of the buildings, swallowing brick and stone beneath its touch.
Then the vines appear, erupting from the darkness itself, long black vines unfurling across walls and rooftops. They spread with frightening speed, splitting and multiplying as they scatter over every surface they can reach.
The air grows colder and thicker, and while I pant, little puff clouds escape my nostrils, chest rising and falling in desperate gasps.
What the fuck is happening now?
My broad gaze flicks back to the pig just in time to see its torso is now entirely ensnared by those writhing, eerie creepers, pinning it in place.
Knowing this is my only chance to get away, I stagger to my feet, legs trembling, and turn to bolt.
But the moment I move, something huge and black hurtles from the dark sky and slams into the pavement ahead of me with bone-shattering power.
The ground shatters beneath the impact, spiderwebbing outward as the shockwave nearly knocks me off my feet. A thick cloud of black smoke explodes outward, pouring over the street, swallowing the dim light.
And within the roiling darkness, an entity in the shape of a man rises, stepping forward slowly, smoke pouring off his towering frame in heavy, oily wisps.
The closer he gets, more of his grey-skinned and powerfully built structure is revealed. Every inch of him radiates lethal and deadly grace.
With ripped abs and a sculpted chest glistening beneath the haze, his arms are full of solid muscle.
