Last night, I told her I liked her and she just laughed at me. She said I didn’t know her at all, that I can’t like her, before she vanished into the twilight. Tonight, I followed her to see where she goes.

It’s dark out, she’s walking towards the woods. The wafting smell of pine surrounds my senses. My feet carry me towards her, as if working on their own accord, separate from my brain. Leaves crunch beneath my feet, but she doesn’t turn around, keeps walking deeper and deeper, weaving through the mossy stumps. An owl hoots from somewhere above me, a cricket chirps on my right. The endless trail sits littered with dead worms, as if she’s leaving their dead bodies behind to deter me from my pursuit.

I look down to step over a rock and when I look up, she’s gone. My eyes roam in the darkness, trying to catch a glimpse of a retreating form, but caught rather a cloud of red, flickering ever so slightly against the dimness of the night.

Entranced, I walk closer to it. Someone, something is levitating. A bright light creeps out of it’s chest as it bends backwards, wailing. I stand with my eyes wide open, feet sunken in the ground, unmoving. A crack of lightning and the red cloud flares up even brighter, the creature more visible, calmer.

Bone peeps out on the skin from its arms. Dark raven wings crack open from its spine. Hair turns into a million little snakes. A ram’s antlers adorned on the head. Squid like tentacles thrusting out of the chest, circling around the neck.

It looks at me. From several pairs of eyes cramped in a muscular face, it looks out to me. Skin broken and red like the smoke itself. Tongue slithering like an iguana. The creature – or is it a demon, a leviathan monstrosity – with it’s raspy voice, booming in the silent night, as if several people were chanting the same words, utters:

“Do you like me still, my love?”