The Thing: Origin

TW: extreme gore/violence warning

“You got this.” I say to Scarlet as she stands above the sheep. Mary and I hold the sheep’s legs spread eagle, leaving its stomach exposed for Scarlet. The lamb writhes in our grip, and we hold it down tighter. “Scarlet just take a deep breath.”

Scarlet nods, taking a deep breath and kneeling at the side of the bleating lamb. She takes up the knife and guides it across the belly of the creature with shaking hands. After making the incision she uses the knife to carefully carve each organ from the body. She places them neatly beside her before making work of removing the eyes. Using the knife she scrapes down the inside of the lamb, making sure it looks clean. The last step is for the heart to be removed. Scarlet reaches in hesitantly, one hand grips the heart while the other positions the knife to the aorta, preparing to make the final cut. We all hold our breath waiting for her to complete it, but Scarlet quickly yanks her hands from the body nearly cutting herself with the knife.

“I can’t do this.” She hands the knife to Mary. Mary sighs and grabs it from her, pushing her out of the way to get in a good spot. She grabs the heart and cuts the connecting tissues and vessels. She doesn’t remove it from the sheep but places it in the center of the hollowed-out body.

“There.” she snaps at Scarlet. “Go put the things where they belong.” Scarlet grabs the organs one by one and places them in the spots we’d decided earlier. Mary and I remain in our spots.

Eventually the sun disappears below the horizon, leaving us with only the light from the fire to see by. The smoke curls from within the hollowed-out body of the lamb we’d used for the sacrifice. The eyes had been buried beneath it and the organs scattered around the clearing in the shape of a pentagram. The only thing in the body was the heart, left to smolder in the fire.

“Done.” She said, spreading the last of the blood in a line to connect the pentagram. She wipes her hand over her forehead leaving a streak of blood on her face. I nod and stare back at the fire. The charred remains of the heart were going out. Once they did, this would be over. The rest of the girls sit in their spots around the fire, and we wait.

The fire begins to die down and eventually only smoke rises from the carcass. We sit in the darkness and wait for her. As the night wears on, we fall asleep one by one.

I wake up to the roaring of the fire, so hot I can feel it even at a distance. The heart of the sheep was reformed and surrounded by black flames yet unburning. The other girls turn to each other with shocked looks, and we all stand.

“I thought it wasn’t going to work.” One of them says, sounding ecstatic. We gather close and stand, hands clasped and eyes closed, around the fire. She would come soon.

We don’t wait long before the flame grows. Even with our eyes closed we can tell because of the heat coming off of it, growing with every second. It grows to be almost insufferable and just as we’re about to break our circle and open our eyes it stops. We squeeze each other's hands and open our eyes.

There she is, standing amidst the flames inside the sheep’s body. She was so pale she appeared to glow. Her black hair is deeper than the night sky itself and seemed to flow into the still-burning fire as if infinite. She looked just like a human, but you could tell that she wasn’t. She was too perfect. Angelic. We stand around her for only a minute, appreciating her beauty, before getting on our knees.

As we kneel before her she lets out what sounds like a song. She has the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard. We all look up her and then to each other. She seems to smile at us and nod. We bow our heads and that’s when she let out an inhuman wail. We startle out of our reverie and look up to see the beauty drained from our deity. Her once beautiful hair hung in greasy strands, even the fire seeming to dull around her. Her skin, looking sickly grey now rather than the glowing white we’d seen before, clings to her like wet rags. Her form is no longer angelic but still far from human.

“What are you?” One of the girls asks in a fearful whisper.

“I am your god.” The thing whispers back in a language none of us know, but all of us understand.

Another animalistic shriek rings through the air as the thing removes itself from the abdomen of the lamb. It closes the short distance between itself and Scarlet before wrapping one gnarled hand around her neck and lifting her into the air. She thrashes around in its grip, gasping for air in place of a scream when it tears its yellowed claws through her stomach. The thing throws her to the ground, crawling over her to begin scraping out her intestines as Scarlet had done to the lamb. We all watch in horror as she screams, we couldn’t tell if the blood splattered on her face had come from her mouth or the thing messily devouring her organs. It quickly finishes and moves on to carefully plucking her eyes from their sockets before finally grabbing her heart. It rips it from her chest, gently placing it in her hands, cupped and folded neatly inside her hollowed-out stomach. Then its eyes make their way to me.

I tug my hands away from the other girls, but they all have the same idea. We all turn and tear off in opposite directions hoping to escape the thing. It screams out what sounds like a laugh before I hear it begin chasing us through the woods. I hear crashing in the brush and I can’t tell if it’s the other girls or the thing. A scream sounds out from across the clearing answering my question. Mary. Everything comes to a halt as we hear the gruesome noises of her being torn apart. When it stops we hear another shriek, almost as if in victory, before it begins chasing us again. Our running only ever stops when another of the girls is picked off. We wait as if to honor her before it tells us to continue.

Finally, I see lights letting me know I’m close to home. I quicken my pace as I crash through the fence and slam it shut. I no longer stop when the next girl screams, just continue my sprint across the backyard. I tear open the door and slam it behind me, praying that the lock will be enough to hold it off. I sink to the ground, tugging my knees to my chest as I wait. The woods have gone silent once again.

I try to calm my breathing, wiping dirt from my tear-streaked face. I manage to calm myself, but it’s shattered in an instant when another shriek finally rings out. But this time it's not from across the clearing, it's not even in the woods behind my house. Its close. Close enough that I can hear the beautiful song it used to be underneath the terrifying rasp.

It's right outside.

Against my better judgement I push myself up off the ground, keeping low as I crawl to the window. I poke my head above the sill just enough to see outside. The night seems to stretch forever, black skies blurring into the tree line. Amidst the tall, dead trees, it stands. It's greasy black hair seeming to blend into the night sky, its pale sickly skin contrasting so that it almost appears to glow again. It takes a slow lurching step towards me. Then another. Its limbs are too long, too skinny, they bend at all the wrong angles. Then you look at it altogether and it looks... fine. Normal. Almost.

It continues its slow, jerky walk towards me and no matter how hard I try I can’t tear my eyes away. I sit paralyzed with fear as it gets closer and closer. Finally, my body listens to me. I stumble back, crawling away from the window. But it's too late.

It smashes through the glass, dragging its distorted form through the window. It drops onto all fours, its limbs bending out at inhuman angles as it crawls towards me. I crawl back on my elbows but its faster. It cages me in underneath it before letting its mouth lull open. Its tongue unravels from its mouth, hanging just below its chin. It runs its tongue along my jaw as if teasing me.

Without warning it grabs me. It's gnarled hand wraps around my waist as its long claws tear into my flesh. It lifts me into the air, holding my feet off the ground as I scream. It drags me out though the window, broken glass cutting into my skin. It pulls me back into the dark night, through the trees and brush of the woods. Right back to the clearing where it all started. It tosses me into the center of the pentagram, laughing as it stands over me. Around me lay my friends, all of them hollowed out as the lamb had been.

I stare up at the thing, paralyzed in fear as it leers at me. It seems to laugh as it bends down over me. It reaches towards my face and I clamp my eyes shut, knowing what's about to happen. It digs its claws into the sockets anyways, leaving a searing pain in the place where my eyes should be. I can no longer tell if my screams make any sound, if I’m screaming at all. It's claws slice through my abdomen next and the pain becomes overwhelming. Its incisions are precise despite my writhing and it pries my flesh apart, digging into me to scrape me clean. I can only hear as it devours my intestines, feel the blood splattering over my desecrated body, drifting from consciousness as I’m torn apart.

The last thing it does is sever my heart, prying it from the delicate vessels. It places it within the hollowed-out cavity of my chest. A beautiful presentation for those who find us. A message of its arrival. This creature who we brought into this world, now set free.