Man-Thing: Swamp-Crossed Lovers
Of all the children Mother Earth has bore they say the swamp is the most wicked and unforgiving. One would think the creatures that roam the dingy marshes pose the danger, but its the land itself which will catch you in its grasp and never let go. Where water looks shallow and friendly hides a dark and deep chasm that will swallow you whole. Its trees tower over you like monstrous fiends closing in with every second. The air, damp and humid, feels heavy on your lungs and can hold the stench of death for dies. So vast are its bayous that no man can know every inch of it. No man except the Man-Thing.
Yet still, the young and the ignorant treat the treacherous landscape like their playground. Time and time again, disrespectful youth venture into the swamp's domain in search of mischief and lustful pleasure.
That was the plan for two young adults one overcast evening in mid July. Wild and uncontrollable, the two were locked in the ageless limbo between childhood and maturity. The boy and girl ran through the swamp trampling the green life underneath their feet. The lovers giggled and smiled unaware of the numerous creatures, both slimy and scaly, hiding beneath the brush anxious to devour them whole.
Looking for a place to commit their sins, the youthful couple found their scene among a still lake resting peacefully at the heart of the bayou. Still euphoric in their ignorant bliss, they began to laugh and undress to their swimming attire while the insects and arachnids which called the water home grew insulted by their intrusion.
Teasing and enticing her male counterpart, the girl jumped into the murky waters without a second thought. Her slender body ruptured the perfectly serene water as she plunged in sending ripples of shockwaves to the lake's edge and back. The boy's splash was even more intrusive shattering the peaceful calm of the swamp's status quo.
They then proceed to swim and play throughout the dark water completely unafraid of whatever fantastical monsters could possibly be lurking below. Their predecessors had gave them warnings in tales passed down through the ages of monsters who guarded the swamp, protected it from the invasion of outsiders. But just like their storytellers before them, the two fearless lovers chalked the rumors to be nothing more than ghost stories used to scare the upcoming generation. Young love was in the air and nothing would stop the couple from rebelling the laws of society and the rules of nature.
The boy and girl wrapped themselves around one another kissing and fondling while they floated at the lake's center. Not forgetting her role as seductress, the girl slipped out from under the boy's grasp winking and smiling as she swam to the shore. Enjoying the start of their cat and mouse game, the boy smirked deviously as he slowly started his casual paddle following behind her.
After reaching the lake's edge, the girl crawled backwards onto the muddy ground winking while her lover came ashore. The boy continued his pursuit imagining his prize as he stared the girl down from on top of her. He leaned in kissing her neck, which the girl happily embraced. Then, to her slight discomfort, the boy's hands grew wild and free. She tolerated his grabs and gropes at first, until the firmness in his hands suggested a mood she was much too uncomfortable with.
The girl first implored him to slow down and relax, but the boy ignored her pleas as he continued to pull and tug at her top. Finally, the young female demanded her overzealous companion to stop, but by then his determination grew too strong to overcome. He ripped and pulled at her swimsuit shoving her head back and pinning her to the mud. The girl yelled and screamed for help, but her cries would never reach human ears being drowned by the swamp's dense trees.
Instead, her screams were heard by the swamp itself. Or more precisely, a resident of the swamp who some consider to be one with the bayou's lush and lively landscape. A resident whose muscle and bone has long since forgotten the feel of human flesh. A resident who legend has it contains an uncanny connection to the nexus of realities. It has gone by many names and taken many incarnations, but those of who spread its myth refer to it simply as the Man-Thing.
The creature, without reason or purpose, was drawn to the lake by the girl's cries. Her shrieks, loud and unnerving, echoed through the swamp piercing the Man-Thing's silent tranquility. At first it grew perturbed and annoyed by the insulting noise, but the Man-Thing bears a special empathic relationship with human emotion. Her fear and desperation littered the beast's senses acting as a stain upon his otherwise immaculate aura. And then, driven by instinct, the Man-Thing aimed those very feelings at the source of her dismay.
Where the trees open up to the lake, the Man-Thing stumbled upon a scene of evil and criminality. But the Man-Thing holds no distinction of such human concepts. All it knows are the girl's heavy emotions foreign to the swamp's natural serenity. The creature approached the crude event looming over the boy's puny body. The moss and overgrowth of the Man-Thing's botanic flesh blotted the sun casting a shadow of darkness that caught the boy's eye. As he looked up, the young rapist saw a silhouetted figure he could only describe as monstrous.
And in that instant, the boy's lustful overconfidence was replaced with a terrible fear far greater than that of his female victim. A fear that the Man-Thing equally experienced through his empathic being. A fear that only grew as the Man-Thing's teratoid hand reached out either to console or punish the human. To an academic's rationale, one might conclude those to be opposing elements. But no explanation could ever allow a civilized intelligence to comprehend the nuance of the swamp's justice; an order the Man-Thing is prisoner to as nature's sentience.
The only brief glimpse of understanding a human mind could fathom might come from what happened next. For as the Man-Thing's fingers laid down upon the boy's shoulder the smell of searing flesh filled the air. The boy's fright suddenly switched to pain as the fire underneath the creature's hand quickly spread. The girl, locked somewhere between confusion and horror, crawled backwards on her hands and knees mesmerized by the flames that entirely covered her former attacker and lover's body. The pain stricken boy screamed in agony flailing about while his skin boiled from the cinder engulfing his being. However, his loudly frantic tantrum of torment didn't last long. Shortly after his demise began, the boy's body, which can now with absolute certainty be referred to as a corpse, collapsed before the Man-Thing's feet. If he were still alive, the young adult might have wondered how and why his life ended abruptly in a fiery blaze. Apparently no soul had informed him that whomever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing's touch.
Now the sole human alive in the swamp, shock and disbelief were added to the girl's underlying fright. In between herself and her savior, the flames scorching the boy's body began to simmer, but the tension remained high. The Man-Thing could still feel the cautious uneasiness oozing from the girl's pours. But although the young woman remained frozen in terror, the Man-Thing knew he was not the source of her initial fear and it only existed now out of misunderstanding. Nothing more than a cognitive force of nature, the Man-Thing paid no attention to her ignorantly misguided emotions that bombarded his mind. Now free from the bond she and her lover shared, the girl's reasons for journeying into the Man-Thing's domain had faded, as did the purpose of his venture.
With his mission concluded, the vigilant creature turned his back on the frightened girl to retreat into the swamp. Now realizing the monstrosity before her was in fact her savior, the girl slowly stood filled with relief. Her sudden joyous emotions shot out through the bayou halting the Man-Thing in its tracks. For a moment, the living legend felt a fleeting sense of what only a human could describe as happiness. The euphoria, strange and unsettling, was an alien sensation to the swamp's protector. But it was for only an instant, for the Man-Thing can't be a hero anymore than a plant could have a heart.
Remembering his place, the Man-Thing continued on into the swamp to return to his slumber. As he disappeared amongst the brush, the girl dropped down into the mud overcome from the traumatic episode. Although the incident lasted only a few brief moments, to the girl's fractured mind the experience lingered for an eternity. For the rest of her life, she will carry the occasion around on her shoulders. Knowledge of the Man-Thing's cruelty and kindness will plague her mind as she exits her youth, enters adulthood and inevitably passes from the earth. But until then, she sulked into the swamp's mud all alone aside from her tears of sadness and the crispy corpse of her former lover.