atrox bestia (atrox_bestia) wrote in hydepark_corner, @ 2009-06-21 12:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | extreme violence, monster |
First Attack
Subject: The Monster's First Attack
Where: Whitehall
Warnings: Violence
Open to: None
It was quiet, and his footsteps echoed off the walls of the surrounding buildings as fog from the river curled its cold fingers around every street-lamp, moving through the still air like the dead. Summer nights were never truly dark, but the light from the street-lamps was pale and through the fog had become a sickly grey, only managing to reflect the wet sheen of the cobbles underfoot.
It was a terrible night to be out of bed, even the beggars had found somewhere more habitable than the streets at this hour, and he was alone. There was no other sound apart from his steps and his breathing, no shadows in the fog and nothing else living out. There was nothing to disturb him.
But he was not alone. He could feel that, could feel eyes on him, and could feel breathing on his neck but when he turned there was nothing. There was no movement apart from the drifting fog through the streets, disturbed by his sudden movements. Muggings happened here, at night, with the bankers and the businessmen going home, but this late, this late there would be no-one.
He swallowed and quickened his pace, wore soles slipping and sliding on the curved and rounded cobblestones. Somewhere, somewhere in the cursed city, a drunk was singing and the forlorn sound was indistinct when it reached his ears, more like the song of a lost soul than anything human. He pulled his coat closer around himself, trying to keep his balance, keeping his head tucked into his collar, trying to control his speeding pulse and hitched breathing.
The boarding house was not far away, and once inside its bright hall with its familiar mirror and hat stand he would laugh at his fright and go to bed. There was nothing he need fear, not in the city that he had made his home.
He felt rather than heard the sudden rush towards him, the launch of something far larger than him from the road and the sudden realisation. He turned, only to be caught side-on and thrown onto the cobbles.
There was a roar, a horrible primeval sound, one that stuck ice-fear into his heart, and claws scratched at stone as they lashed out, ripping and tearing and snagging on cloth, jaws snapping and teeth crunching down, splintering whatever claws could not, bright crimson blood welling in the hollows of the road.
The frenzy was over almost as soon as it had begun, the silence returning and filling the streets, the fingers of fog drifting back through the streets, over the still body and bloody street.