Under Sundered Skies

Sloane dropped herself on top of her bed, she gazed at the window for a while, letting her thoughts wander while she made a plan to take action against the things invading her home.

Shadow monsters, a creature which can take on the form of someone else and turn their hands into claws, something that mainly lurks inside the darkness, and...

Sloane opened the curtains and stared out the window.

... This.

A massive white tear across the sky. It looked like a wound. It bled, too, constantly letting out a stream of white meteors that crashed to the ground.

It was by far the weirdest phenomenon that she's encountered. Monsters held nothing compared to what Sloane is feeling when she sees that the sky is wounded and bleeding, it was so large, so incomprehensible, that she could only feel hopelessness when staring at it.

Eldritch.

That is how she'd described the sight. How anyone sane would describe it really. It was beyond the natural laws, so beyond everything that humans are literally the size of bacteria when faced with the gaping wound on the sky.

Sloane closed her curtains and stared back at her room.

Even with its incomprehensibility, the tear on the sky that stretched endlessly was the least of her current problems, she had monsters to deal with, wounds to nurse, and some weird dream that needed to be understood.

Whatever was happening out there, it was bad but the things in her home needed to be prioritized before them.

And well... It's not like she can fix what's going on out there.

Sloane only saw the smoke rising to the sky because she chose not to turn her gaze downward.

She refused to see what was going on down the streets, she was too scared. An apocalypse on the same week as her parents dying was just too much.

She closed her eyes and let out a shuddering breath.

Sloane winced when her feet touched the ground, the pain on her wounds had been aching all this time but thinking about things had gotten her mind off it for long enough that she found peace. However brief.

Walking shouldn't be this bad, but the drawback from enhanced nerves reared its ugly head and made her feel everything, down to the smallest movement that happened in her wounds.

Putting pressure anywhere on her person caused the blood flow in her veins to ebb and flow, and that affected her wounds. Sloane could almost feel the cells clot beneath her skin.

And it wasn't limited to pain either, every muscle movement, every stretch of her skin, every single thing that happened within her body, down to the grueling digestion of her stomach and the contraction of her intestines.

It was like she was under the effects of powerful psychedelics, but only this time, she wasn't tripping and there was no haze that blocked the trippy sensations so they were raw and irritating.

Sloane glared at the powdered painkillers she just finished crushing while ignoring the way everything felt... So much more.

Her sense of touch was more pronounced and from just holding the fabric, she could tell all the little bumps and holes within its surface. It was no longer simply smooth.

Sloane poured the powder into a water bottle, she couldn't imagine what it would feel like to have multiple grams of painkillers on her system with her new senses. Her mind simply couldn't comprehend it.

Sloane put the bottle on top of her drawer, directly next to her gun. She looked at the door while her thumb pressed against the cap. Guess she would find out soon enough.

She went to a corner of her room and picked up her bag, she threw all the contents of the knapsack on top of her bed and glared at the ruined notebooks, the torn books, and the splotches of ink all over everything.

Sloane picked out the driest books and notebooks she could find and put them aside, the remaining paper was torn to shreds. A shaky hand poured glue all over the torn paper.

Once the bottle was empty of the adhesive, Sloane threw it away. She ignored the way it slammed loudly against the wall. Or tried to.

Sloane calmed her breathing as she fell to the floor. She held her head while in a fetal position for the next few minutes as she centered herself and searched for stability between her cries.

Her panic couldn't have subsided quicker, but after it did, Sloane went back to working, the glue had turned viscous when she worked on it but the paper was still soaked and with it, she was able to turn the paper mache into a mask to put on her face.

Sloane placed the finished item on the drawer to let it dry, in the meantime, she tore one of her shorts apart and harvested the garter from inside. She wheedled it into the holes she placed on the sides of the mask and turned it into a strap.

Taking out a jacket from her closet, she pulled it inside out and duct taped a book on the inner side of the jumper, back and front, both were covered with a protective layer of tomes thick enough to possibly block a punch.

Sloane made an extra layer of protection underneath the padded jacket by wrapping duct tape around folded cardboard and then strapping it onto a shirt.

Sloane put both on and checked the weight, she rolled her arms to see how well she could move while in it, walked back and forth, and did other things.

In the end, she thought that the armor was effective in terms of comfort.

As for how well it protected her...

Sloane looked at the door and remembered the sharp claws which pierced her skin as though it were paper. She didn't have high hopes, but it's better than nothing.

Sloane took off her armor and made her way back inside her bathroom, she grabbed the mop resting on the corner and brought it out of the bathroom.

Sloane grabbed a ceramic pot from an old tea set and dropped it on the floor, shattering it. She scavenged the broken pieces and organized them on top of her drawer based off of size.

From there, she cut the hairs of the mop and used them to tie rags on the center and tip of the handle, creating grips that weren't slippery to hold on to.

Sloane finished her make shift spear by duct taping the largest piece of broken ceramic on the bud of the spear using the leftover hairs to hold it in place, giving it a sharpened head.

Sloane let the spear lean against her cabinet as she prepared the other items; she pocketed the water bottle and box cutter, sheathed the gun, and put on the mask.

Sloane grabbed her spear and faced the door, she inhaled and took her first steps towards it-

She stopped and looked at her arm- maybe she should make a small shield?

For the next few minutes, Sloane worked on doing just that; she took off one of the doors from the bathroom's medicine cabinet, wrapped it in duct tape, and made a hook for her arm at the bottom using loose string she stripped from her clothes and the extra mop hair.

With the weight of her shield weighing down her left hand, Sloane felt more ready to face the things that now roamed her house.

She walked up to the door and twisted the door knob, she opened it before jumping back, she pointed her spear at the door, the flashlight she duct taped onto it doing wonders in terms of visibility.

There were no eyes or fingers to greet her, and more importantly, the corpse of the doppelganger had disappeared from the hallway. There was only one culprit.

So the creatures were cannibals. No surprise there.

Sloane pushed the door using her spear until it was wide open, nothing jumped at her.

She took a tentative step forward.

Sloane checked with scrutiny, illuminating the darkness using her flashlight and finding nothing out of the ordinary. Right now, there were only two places she could go to; left and right.

On one direction was the end of the hallway, nothing was there so she turned her back towards it, knowing it was safe.

Sloane narrowed her eyes at the fingers grasping onto the edges of the wall as she flicked the light switch on. Light came from the bulbs on the ceiling and the gangly digits disappeared down the stairs in response.

Sloane gulped, she had shot the creature already didn't she? What did it mean when these things ate the corpses of other monsters?

Her spear was perpetually pointed in the last direction she saw the creature while she made her way down the hallway. Sloane's tightened muscles didn't feel comfortable when paired with the wounds all over her body.

Sloane popped the bottle cap and drank a bit of water. It didn't subside the pain or numb the sensations.

Even when they were illuminated by the flashlight, Sloane didn't feel comfortable walking down the stairs, she felt as though something would rush out from the living room and tackle her before ending her life.

Why was she even doing this?..

That thought had crossed Sloane's mind several times in the past, but for some reason, this one didn't make her pause like the others did.

Sloane kept walking despite her existential thoughts constantly questioning her why she fought so pointlessly.

Maybe it was the pain in her arms keeping thoughts at bay, maybe it was some renewed sense of hope after she got a glimpse of what was going on outside.

Either way, it allowed her to drive the monsters out of this place. Out of her home.

She could do that much for herself at least, right?

When Sloane reached the end of the stairs, she paused and stared at the living room.

There was nothing there, and no fingers could be seen gripping the edges of the walls in front of her but that would just mean the creature decided to stop announcing its presence and unnerving her.

Sloane pulled out her revolver, if the creature really did change its hunting tactics, then that would mean it is now waiting in ambush.

So that meant she should take initiative through the first strike by guessing where it would be hiding. From its past behavior, Sloane had a pretty good idea where that was.

She took the risk and fired on the spot where she thought the creature would be on the other side of the wall.

A screech. Her gamble paid off.

Sloane dropped her gun and ran down the living room, but it was empty when she got there.