EnEmE: Fall Of Man Read Free Page B

for me to catch part of its profile.
     
    It was a wrinkly, yellow, humanoid blob with big black eyes, minute nose and mouth, and long brown claws for fingernails that were scratching at the stainless tool cart that was serving as Banyan’s shield. It was the thing from my dreams. My eyes looked over it and I realized that the lower half was still covered in a gooey looking transparent sack of tissue with a cord trailing off of it. My eyes followed the cord and to my growing horror, it led to the gaping wound in my side. The creature and I were attached.
     
    I was repulsed in disgust and the true horror of the situation began to sink in.
     
    “I must be having a nightmare.” I realized.
     
    Truly, I felt there was no alternative. I must be lost in a nightmare. One of those really shitty ones where you think you’ve woken up, but you just woke up in the dream and the nightmare continues when the killer with the machete bursts out of your closet. I found some measure of comfort in the realization that this was all a dream and that it was some mental manifestation of my guilt over my father’s death. It wouldn’t last long.
    The wrinkled yellow thing trying to savage Dr. Banyan turned, looked right at me and slowly blinked.
     
    “Yes, you are!” It said in a gravely, inhuman voice before swiftly turning back around and renewing his attack on the tool cart with a renewed fervour.
     
    I noticed the cord attaching us was pulled taught, the reason that this creature hadn’t just moved around the cart or thrown it aside. It couldn’t reach. That was the searing pain in my side, the cord being pulled tight, likely pulling on the sack of organs inside my body. The creature tugged and an intense, burning pain radiated through my side.
     
    The intensity reduced a few seconds later. Long enough for me to analyze and process the situation. The creature had gotten enough slack to get closer to Banyan and managed cut a long, bloody gash across the back of his left hand, causing him to let go of one side of his protective cart.
     
    As the creature began moving toward Banyan’s other hand, I recognized what I had to do. Turning away from the horrible scene, I reached one arm out as long as I could, gripped my fingers into the hard linoleum floor as best I could, and pulled my body across the floor. My arm muscle strained, pulling my body weight and dragging my legs as well as the horrible creature attached to me. My side erupted in searing pain. I moaned. And I’d only moved an inch. That inch however was enough to pull the horrible yellow creature far enough that he could no longer attack Dr. Banyan.
     
    The creature snarled in frustration and tugged back, making my internal organs part a macabre tug of war.
     
    I reached again and pulled. This time I gained 6 inches, along with a searing pain that overshadowed all the previous pain I had felt. This time I screamed much louder. The bug-eyed alien turned and looked at me with frustration and a heavy dose of contempt, then turned and dug his claws into the linoleum and pulled back.
     
    “Aaaah! You fuckin’ piece of shit!” I screamed.
     
    Fuelled by my own abhorrence and anger, I gripped the floor and pulled again, dragging myself another foot away, while the creature from inside my own body was digging in its nails, trying to move in the other direction.
     
    “AAAAAAH!” We both screamed at the same time, me in pain and the creature in frustration.
     
    With that, the beautiful figure of Dr. Kiebler burst into the O.R.
     
    “Jace!” she exclaimed, before stumbling back, aghast at the scene.
     
    I’d given Dr. Banyan enough room to cautiously begin creeping out from behind his hiding place.
     
    The creature wheezed and swiped its claws at Kiebler, nowhere near close enough to her to be a real threat. The action did have the effect of helping Dr. Banyan find his courage. His brow furrowed with anger and disgust as he glared at the creature. He quickly bent