The Industrialist

His flesh seemed to melt as the mist engulfed him. The black miasma emerged all over the suffering body as if fire raged from within his innards.

The mist invaded his nostrils, inhaling and exhaling the thick smoke. He knelt on the floor, clasping his head with his flaccid arms.

Then, the grotesque form of its mouth, enough to gobble one human being, opened in its belly. His teeth were sharp like that of a shark, and blue poison smoke escaped from it.

But the creature succumbed and stood up. His breathing was more pronounced, although he was shaking.

Its piercing eyes darted towards Lance emaciated at the farthest corner to where the creature stood. The creature started to gain calculated steps and with every step it took, raised the boy’s heartbeat.

The creature’s tentacle-like arms started to glow beneath its flesh, creating small openings, however, the blue poisonous mist battled its way toward the creature’s innards.

Delaying whatever the creature was planning.

As the Abominated human got nearer, Handsome tackled from behind. Apparently, he regained consciousness from his hard collision with the wall.

Handsome took the weakening creature against the wall, saving Lance a safety gap between him and the monster.

The creature’s strength was gone, it fought against the soldier’s strength, however, Handsome was relentless.

The soldier took out his knife and stabbed the creature in all numerous random parts at the same time pinning the limp body against the stonewall.

Although with little damage, the creature was greatly affected with the blue mist and had little wisp of energy to fend off the succeeding attacks.

Surprisingly, a knife was plunged into the creature’s right thigh that caused the creature to show a significant effect. It was not Handsome’s knife.

A sharp scream emerged right after. Its mouth opened again to release a deafening scream.

It was Damian who crawled and helped Handsome on his deathly pursuit.

The greenish glow beneath the arm’s flesh began to vanish and his body dropped to the ground.

His body started to disintegrate, exposing muscle fibers and then its internal organs located in unexpected parts of the creature’s body. Then, the corpse turned to ash.

The bluish mist had successfully destroyed the creature, luckily, preventing something deadly would be released from the glowing pores.

Damian and Handsome both were recuperating from their respective painful collision and surrendered themselves to the mercy of the walls.

"What is that?" Handsome released a slight chuckle conquering his laborious voice.

"I don’t know. The rumors are true," Lance responded.

Damian was still groaning at Handsome’s side, inspecting his body with signs of blood. Luckily, there were no traces of red blood on the floor. Only the black viscous liquid spilled on the cemented ground.

Right after moments of seemingly hopeless victory, a monstrous voice emerged from the skies. The skies were dark; hence, the source of the agonizing voice could not be seen.

It landed like a thunderous thud, shaking the establishment after a tremendous landing. It was the source of the voice hovering over their heads before it decided to invade their space.

It cried first as he ambled close to the disintegrated body. It called a name, but was not discernable.

’Another Abominated Human?’ Lance was horrified by the sight.

Then the creature caught his stares. With eyes blanked, yellowish pupils with white eyeballs, piercing at him with obvious intent.

That was the moment that Lance felt hopeless and would gladly receive the embrace of death. One last poison bomb left in his knapsack and a couple of knives for the soldiers were their last defense.

He could not move.

Damian managed to stood up and released a haymaker hitting the skull of the monstrous human.

His punch had not even startled the creature. However, its gaze turned to the futile soldier. Handsome, too, scrambled for a knife and stood up to aid Damian.

It was clear that Damian and Handsome had never seen anything like the Abominated humans. It was plastered on their expression, they were indecisive on how to approach such situation.

They were not trained to apprehend such a creature. If it was a Scorpion, they knew what to do. They would run.

However, somehow running was not the viable option, otherwise, they chose to fight as if granting a slim chance of winning against this monstrosity.

They were myths before, now a truth of those rumors had materialized before their eyes, the expression perturbed with endless questions.

The creature ambled to the two soldiers in their combative stance. Lance knew that the two soldiers could not take another attack from these strong creatures.

If they did, their ribs would be severed. Damian was already clenching his side while Handsome had bruised all over from his recent skirmish with the first dead Abominated Human.

Lance once again asserted to trigger the poison bomb that he quickly took out from his knapsack.

It clicked, pushing the creature’s attention to Lance.

Handsome took the small window of opportunity and attacked the creature’s back. However, with only one push of the creature’s left hand, without even looking, knocked out the soldier good.

Lance pushed the button again and it triggered the bomb to five seconds.

The creature darted so fast that even the kid hadn’t had the time to react. It caught the kid’s wrist with its bomb blinking in his grasp. The grip was tight and tightening every second.

Lance screamed from beneath his mask due to the immense pain. The creature took the bomb out effortlessly from his hand and threw it out of the building.

It exploded outside without the blue poisonous mist reaching the room.

The last ace of their sleeves was now exhausted and hopelessness conquered the kid’s thoughts.

A rock banged the creatures head but the creature was still immovable. It was Damian. Quickly, the creature kicked Damian farther back like he was weightless.

Lance started to deliver futile blows to the creature but remained immovable, still. He kicked to its groin, and to its abdomen, but none had shaken the monster.

The creature took out the kid’s gas mask and pulled him closer to the creature’s face. Lance restricted his breath and closed his mouth totally, without the introduction of contaminated air.

The creature had a man’s face, a nose, a mouth, and even eyes. But its skin was blackened, scaly, and matched with the luminous yellow pupils.

"You will die!" It spoke, voice warbling and deep. Its stinking breath had caressed the kid’s face.

As the creature’s fingers spread out, raised unto his face, and sharp claws emerged, a small gooey ball was stuck in its neck. It was not there before, it just appeared, surprising the kid, and the creature.

The gooey ball exploded like a small firecracker and released strong organic plant vines constricting the Abominant monster from its neck, to its arms, down to his shins.

The vines crawled to the monster’s body so fast that the creature was not able to react. In the process, the grip released the kid to the ground.

"What’s this!" The creature was angered by the strong wooden vines that imprisoned him in an inescapable grip. The gooey ball became roots, invading through the monster’s flesh, feeding the fast-growing vine.

The monster dropped to the floor with the wooden vine hugging him in place.

Lance’s wrists felt comfortable right after. Upon the looks of it, there was an internal bleeding. He knew the pain would come after his adrenalin would subside.

The monster was not dead but it seemed the vine that imprisoned him had somehow absorbed contaminated blood which supported its accelerated growth.

It was just a theory that Lance had come up, but it seemed a rational observation.

’Who saved me?’ Lance asked. His eyes trained toward his unconscious comrades right after his put his mask back on.