Red
(Carver and/or Bethany)
Mother is on the ground, and there's a moment when the fear simply snaps too taut for quivering doubt to loop itself in the slack. And so the fear propels forward, not back, toward the monster—paints it as red as a whore's mouth for one hot moment—then something squeezes tight and the world swims in red, red, red.
And then it's gone.