Chapter 13: Door Number One
Deidre felt riveted to the spot, wanting to move but unable to tear her eyes away from the shambling freak of nature. The bat-like brutes which had crawled across the ceiling of the dungeon her first night of captivity had been sleek and powerfully built. This pathetic malformed thing with its sickly pallor and unsteady gait managed to seem both pathetic and menacing at the same time. Its weak, watery red eyes squinted as they scanned the darkness. the wide, drippy upturned snout appeared to be directing its faltering steps.
Deidre forced herself to look away for a moment, to turn and gaze into the blackness that yawned behind her like the maw of some ravenous beast. Should she stay put and take her chances with the giant, deformed mole rat looking creature groping its way towards her or go blundering into the darkness? Deidre suddenly felt very tired. Neither option was particularly appealing. Maybe, if she just moved around, it wouldn’t be able to find her. Deidra slowly crouched and then sank down, until she was sitting on the stone floor. It felt good to rest her feet.
Diedre was about to slip off her right shoe and rub a sore spot on the sole of her foot, when the creature abruptly broke into a gallop. Caught off guard, she crab-walked backwards and awkwardly jumped to her feet. The shoe she had hastily pushed halfway onto her foot caused her to stumble and lose her balance, as it slipped back off. Deidra reflexively reached back to break her fall. The jagged stone wall sliced the palms her hands.
Excited by the smell of blood, the creature grunted and leapt in her general direction. She easily dodged it and darted to the opposite wall. Rather immediately turn and pursue her, the creature went to the blooded stone in the wall. She watched in horrified fascination, as it rose up on what she had assumed were hind legs. Deidra gasped with the realization that the creature actually had distinctly human features. Was this a man or beast?
A long, bright pink tongue snaked out of its oversized mouth and lapped at the stones streaked with Deidre’s blood. She watched as a shiver of seemingly orgasmic pleasure racked its body. The moment passed and the creature’s attention was drawn down to the droplets of blood on the stone floor, which Deidre belatedly realized led straight to her. She looked down at her injured hands and realized they were still bleeding, raining droplets of blood onto the stones at her feet.
She opened her hands. The creature caught the scent of blood, turning its misshapen head in her direction. Dazed, Deidra was slow to react. The creature was close enough for her to note the distinctly human features of its face. She wondered if Caitlyn had been evolving into this nightmarish ghoul or if something had gone wrong with its metamorphosis. The creature crouched, poised to lunge at her once more. Some instinct for self-preservation snapped Deidra out of her stupefaction.
She turned and ran blindly into the darkness. Rather than a man’s footfalls, she heard the fast trot of four limbs striking the ground behind her. Terrified, Deidra could almost feel the creature’s hot breath. Her skin crawled at the thought of getting snatched up by those long slimy fingers. Fighting the urge to look over her shoulder, she frantically looked from side to side searching for the telltale outline of a door. After what felt like an eternity of running with the creature at her heels, Deidre spied a thin strip of light seeping through the rectangular outline in the wall to her right. She swerved towards it and paused momentarily, unsure of what fresh hell awaited her on the other side.
