“The final card was played-‘The King’. Luckily, I, Jack, had one last trick up my slee-”
“Cheesy,” Malik said as he cleaned his teeth with a toothpick.
“What?!”
“You heard me.”
I crossed my arms.
“What?” Malik asked.
I looked out into the woods. The fire started to die out. “Can I ask you something?”
Malik picked up a piece of wood but I grabbed his wrist before he put it in the fire, “What are you doing?”
“What are YOU doing?”
“F..Feeding the fire?” He studdered and then gave me an annoyed look, “Let go of my hand.”
I did as he asked.
“What are you doing?” He repeated, “Do you want the fire to go out?
“It’s late,” I stood up, “We should go to slee-”
“Then why the hell did you say that you wanted to tell me something?!”
“It’s stupid,” I told him.
Malik rolled his eyes, “Like everything else you suggest isn’t?”
I laughed, “I just thought we could tell some scary stories.”
“What’s scarier than listening to you tell me about your dumb wild west fantasies.”
I got annoyed, “Stop.”
Malik laughed, “I’ll start with my story.”
“Go ahead.”
“So, there’s a legend about this demon called Slend-”
The black started to grow up my leg.
“What the hell?” I said to myself.
“What’s wrong?” Malik crossed his own arms.
I started to scratch my leg franticly.
“Jack?!”
I looked into the woods again and I gaped at the thing.
“Jack?!”
The man-thing stared. It was tall and pitch black. It’s eyes were a pale blue.
“Jack?!”
It’s ebony skin looked stretchy.
“Jack?! Are you there?”
It had three long, bony fingers and a thumb. It was extremely slender but didn’t seem to have ribs. It definitely had bones in all of its body but not ribs.
“Jack?! Earth to Jack!” Malik stared at me, confused, and then whispered to himself, “What the hell…”
“Jack.”
It wasn’t Malik who said my name.
“Erhi Ade Terw Querg Cit, Jack,” The monster walked slightly forward.
I pulled up my pant leg to see the blackness. It pulsed threw my veins.
“Help, Malik…,” I whimpered.
He stared as the skin of my leg as it started to turn the same color of my veins, “WHAT IS THIS?!”
“Hidmi Ade Regh Erhi,” The monster walked a little closer.
The black figure stared. Its leg had turned to a pale skin color similar to Jack’s.
The blackness grew up to my knee. I grabbed our emergency backpack.
I searched inside of it until I found the shiny new ax Malik bought before we went camping.
“What are you doing?!” Malik screamed.
“Ditry Ade Sed Fex Cit Xo, Malik deq Jack,” It said, “De Cit Yew Wers Gert Gerg Cit Ehri Zi Aq.”
“This isn’t funny, Jack!” Malik started to sweat, “How are you making those noises?”
I wrapped a rubber band tightly around my upper leg, “This isn’t a joke, Malik!”
“Then what are you doing?”
Tears came out of my eyes, “I don’t know…..”
“Why do you have the ax? Just tell me!”
I just kept crying, “I…. I… ha… ha-”
“What are you doing?!” Malike repeated once again.
“-Have to stop this!” I slammed the ax into my upper leg multiple times.
The black figure seemed to frown at this.
“What are you?!” I screamed after it as my blood blasted out of my leg. The blood splattered on Malik and the fire.
Now in the darkness, I reached into the backpack and took out the flashlight. I shined it around. Malik was shaking. The blood stopped; somehow, the leg had almost instantly turned to a nub with some black blood-like liquid on it. I shined the light into the woods. The abomination was gone.
Malik followed the light, “Wh…w….What were y…you tal…king to?”
“I don’t kn…know,” I replied.
He looked at my leg, “Don’t you feel that?”
“Ye…uh…,” I paused and concentrated on my leg, “Actually, no.”
“How?” Malik breathed slowly and started to calm down and asked me the question.
“I really do-” I was cut off as a dark hand with long fingers covered my mouth.
“And english is the hardest language to learn on this planet,” The monster said, “Well, I ALREADY know and SPEAK it.”
Malik was froze in terror.
“Hey, Malik,” The thing looked at Malik, “You’re friend, Jack is it? He’ll be fine.”
I stared up as I saw that the monster had no mouth or features besides his pale blue eyes.
“My eyes are all I inherit when changing form,” The thing looked at me, “You see, for about three thousand years, I was a ‘cat’ as you humans call them.”
“I don’t understand….,” Malik gaped at the monster.
I started to mumble under the hand of the creature.
The thing just said plainly, “Let me finish my story,” It looked back at Malik, “Where was I?”
To Be Continued