Hope and Despair

(1994, Fuyuki City 23:57)

The city is lively even though its nearing midnight, the streets are filled with people, with the amount of citizen's packed into the streets, and even the roads you would think it was a festival, but no, instead it looked like something out of a horror movie, all their gazes were in one direction, they are all staring at the same thing, a 100ft tall, giant mass of tentacles sticking up from the river.

Even though a large blanket of purple mist is covering the entire river bank the monster's head still peaks up out in the open for all to see.

A couple of people standing on the sidelines have their camcorders out and are recording this, I mean you would too if a creature like that appeared. Or like a normal person, you would run for your lives, however, these people weren't normal, or rather their mind wasn't normal, for some reason they were compelled to watch as the creature moved forward towards them.

It raises one of its tentacles to crush a small group of them, finally, the people are released from their trace and look up in horror as it comes down on them, but in an instant, it's cut in half and lands in the water below.

The people look on and see a beautiful knight in shining silver armor with golden-brown hair and emerald green eyes holding a sword covered in a whirl of wind, Yet the sword gave off a faint golden glow, it was warm and comfortable, the aura the woman had was confident, yet kind. "Run" she commands, her voice although soft and sweet held authority and power unlike any other they heard in their lifetime, they couldn't just ignore it, it was as if a king was commanding them, so they did run as far away and as fast as they could.

A man with a large build, a red fur coat, red hair, and a scarlet beard and eyes, as well as a Charriot, carried by twin black bulls lands down in front of the knight as lightning courses around his mount.

Man: "A nasty foe this one" he says as eyes, both big and small of all kinds start popping up all over the monster's body.

Woman: "I am inclined to agree," she says as the tentacle she just cut off regenerates almost instantaneously and retreats back to the water.

"Its regeneration is too strong, normal attacks won't work on it" comments a short woman with long white hair and red eyes, standing next to her is a man with black hair and orange eyes with twin spears in his hands, a long red and a short yellow one. "At this rate, I'll never get through to caster," he says gripping his red spear.

"D-do you have a plan, I don't think just taking down caster will work anymore?" Says a scrawny boy with black hair as he falls out of the Charriot almost puking up his lunch.

Man: "I do have a plan" He grins at the boy who looks at him with hope

Man: "Attack" he says as he rides off in the direction of the monster, the boy's eyes dim down and he sighs. The knight looks at him with sympathy in her eyes but follows behind the man to take down the creature.

The civilians around also started to run, finally acknowledging the danger they were in, so like humans do they panicked, and screamed, as they scurried away like ants.

Far above a large group of them a reddish-black portal opens and out of the portal comes a single red tentacle 1ft in length, made out of the innards of a human body melted together. The portal closes just as quickly as it opened and the tentacle falls onto the head of a 41-year-old man.

Too scared to notice the man continues running away, but the woman behind does and was about to scream, but the tentacle quickly silenced her by shoving its way into her half-open mouth.

The tentacle went for her brain first, stabbing into it and devouring it, then it ate, it ate everything inside her body, her organs, her blood, her veins, her bones, everything the creature could wrap its mouth around it ate.

Her movements slowed, and her eyes grew dull, the people running behind tried to push past her but found that even though she was frail-looking it felt like running into a brick wall, so they maneuvered around her instead.

"Mommy?" asked the curious child as she wondered why her mother suddenly stopped running, her mother turned and smiled at her "I'm fine sweetie," she told her daughter as she suddenly turned left and started making her way to a building child still holding onto her mother's hand.

"Where are we going?" asked the child as the mother entered the empty building, "Here is fine," said the mother in a weird voice, 'that's not the same voice as mommy' thought the child as they attempted to pull away, but the grip on the child's hand was too strong.

The mother turned around noticing the child was trying to get away and grinned at her "Looks like I was found out" she says in a sing-songy voice, the child now scared tries even harder to get away "Wheres my mommy?" she asks as she finally gets away and backs up holding onto her now bruised hand.

"Here" the child turns around expecting her mother as that's where the voice came from, but finds nothing, only the twin glass doors they had entered through, she tilts her head in confusion and looks at the reflection in the glass, her eyes widen in fear as the woman's head splits open releasing a wriggling mass of red tentacles right behind her.

The child attempts to scream "Ahhhhhhhhhh-" but a tentacle piecers through her head, killing her instantly, a passerby looks towards the source of the scream, and his eyes also widen as the child is dragged into the darkness "M-MONSTER" he yells out as the mother, head still split open, comes crashing through the glass and into the crowd of people.

In an instant, one of the tentacles stabs through the head of a running civilian and everyone is sent into a state of panic even worse than before, in an attempt to run away they trample over others and trip others as the monster continues to kill and kill, its tentacles lifting up the deceased bodies and dropping them into a pit of rotating teeth as the monster grows bigger and bigger.

The woman's body completely dissolves leaving on carrion, its body comes together to form a large mass of flesh, blood, and bones, it thrashes around crashing into buildings and squishing humans who are still trying flee, with each kill it devours and increases in size.