This is a fictional story by Zarathustra86. Any similarities to people or events it purely coincidental.
Zarathustra86's work is also featured on DeviantArt: zarathustra86, deviantart, com
The Creature From The Other World
The moon above shone pale-red, making its slow journey across the night sky. The stars shone brightly, tonight the sky was crystal clear. The creature looked up at the moon, its eyes glowing a pale blue-green, its keen eyes spotted a tiny green star that it had never seen before. It was hungry, tired, and it was in pain. Scurrying on four, spider-like legs, it made made its way through the dense forest around it. Its skin was leathery, dark grey, and lined with hard, pointed nails. It followed the light of the green star, it had never seen the star before, the green star was new.
It's lower torso resembled a spider, it's upper torso almost resembled that of a man, though smaller, with stunted arms ending with crab-like pincers. Its abdomen was grossly distended, looking as though it were about to burst. The small stunted arms would be unable to touch one another. Set atop the shoulders was the head of the creature (it had no neck). The head was insectoid, ant-like, triangular in shape. Its eyes covered half its head, glowing a pale-turquoise. Its mouth consisted of two mandibles. The creature had a brain similar to a human's, though half the size. I am, the creature thought.
It was nocturnal. The day was blinding, the night was crystal clear. It was predatory. It was carniverous. It was hungry. Slaver dripped down from its mouth and its mandibles twitched. Off in the distance it spied a smaller four-legged animal, something like a large, hairless rodent. Quickly and silently, the creature advanced towards its prey. At the end of each of its legs were three finger-like appendages (two pointing forward, the third pointing the opposite way) with black talons on each finger. It set its long legs on fallen logs, rocks, or it grabbed low branches - this way it moved without a sound.
By the time the creature stood over the rodent it had yet to notice. The creature reached out with one of its taloned legs and snatched the rodent by its neck. It thrashed violently as it was raised to the creatures mouth. The mandibles closed around its neck, the bones cracked, then its head was torn loose and cast aside. Blood sprayed from its neck and the creature began to drink it. The rodent's blood nourished and energized the creature. Its abdomen ached, and inside something was stirring. The creature's children were stirring, eager for food. I am woman, the creature though, though it soon faded.
After the rodent was consumed, the creature set out for another. It was pregnant. While pregnant she needed ten times that amount. So the creature continued its hunt, making its way through the dense forests with incredible speed and eerie silence. It ate a wrinkled, hairless, winged rodent, four white spiders as large as crabs, and an injured monkey-like animal.
As it feasted on the monkey it caught sight of a pale, bipedal animal, moving toward it through the woods. It was large, almost as tall as the creature itself. The biped took a few more steps forward before it realized that she saw it. It stopped, about fifteen feet away, and crouched low. Maybe it hoped it would be lost to sight, but it was not. The biped was milk white, with long brown hair down to its waist. Fur, skins, and wool covered its body and it held a seven-foot spear with a metal point on the end. Man, the creature thought, then danger.
She dropped the carcass from her pincers, then crouched low. She thought about attacking the animal, but it was large, armed, and it saw her. She decided to run, but before she could a spear flew out of the woods - from an entirely different direction - and struck her in the abdomen. She was blinded by excruciating pain and she staggered backwards and fell. The spear fell loose, rending a huge hole in her abdomen. She shrieked in agony.
Blood and a transparent fluid gushed from the wound and three fleshy sacks spilled out. My children, she thought frantically, not my children. Within the transclucent sacks were her offspring, curled up and moving feebly. When the two men reached her one began stomping on her children, screaming in some strange language. She shrieked anew, clacking her mandibles, as her babies exploded beneath his feet. The other one was staring at her as she lay dying, clutching his spear. It was the man she had spotted initially, a decoy, she thought. He was watching her curiously, as though he recognized her, and said something that sounded like a question. She clacked in answer but he didn't seem to comprehend. He drove his spear between her eyes.
Moira awoke screaming, she thrashed about her bed. Throwing her blankets aside she rose and flicked on the lights. Panting, she ran to the long mirror on the inside of her door and stood there staring at her reflection. She was her. A human girl of 16, with blond hair and blue eyes. More pale perhaps. A bad dream, she thought, and laughed. Her skin was beaded with sweat, her heart was thumping, and her eyes were wide. She sat on her bed and waited for her heart-rate to slow. As she sat, she tried to recall her dream but found she couldn't. She was a monster? Something stabbed her in the gut. There were woods. There was a small green star so far and small that no human could see it.
Moira had been plagued by bad dreams all her life, and this one had already begun to fade from memory. She might have placed more value on her dream had she known that astronomers had recently found a green star, where none had been before. She may have remembered the dream if she had seen the star, but it was beyond the limits of human sight.