Nino was quiet once they got back home. His mother was chattering irritably about buying Carter a muzzle on the drive home, the Shepherd having been agitated and aggressive all the way up until they finally pulled out from the parking lot. Even now he was on high alert, pacing back and forth across the floor of Nino's room and whining periodically.
Nino sat in silence on the edge of his bed, his sling cradling his injured arm to him as he stared at the carpeted floor. He didn't move or snap at his dog to be quiet, keeping his door locked as he numbly rolled a bottle of painkillers in his right hand.
What did she mean… how could she possibly have been…?
Nino listened to the small white pills slide and rattle against each other in the thick orange plastic bottle. He rubbed his thumb across the edge of the label, trying to feel the difference between the paper and the slick surface of the plastic. His heart still hammered unevenly, seemingly overworked though he couldn't be more still, and he bit back a whimper as he was forced to close his eyes, the pain of his headache surging and making him bow his head.
Nino swallowed, something about his spit hot and tasting like rust. Blood maybe. He didn't check.
What did she mean? Who was she? Who was she really, because she couldn't be… he didn't even want to admit it, the insane association his mind had made. Part of him was refusing to acknowledge the implication of her words or the intent behind her warning, because to admit what he was thinking was…
It was insane. It was stupid, impossible.
It was her eyes. Her eyes were the same. Too close, too exact… it couldn't just be similar. Part of him knew that as fact, in the face of everything that made him unsure. It was her… somehow. The monster in the forest… somehow…
Nino seized suddenly, the muscles throughout his body contracting in a wave of pain that shot through him, knocking the breath from him and causing the pill bottle to clatter to the ground. His chest heaved uselessly, his body curling in on itself as he made near silent gasping wretches before it eased, the pain clearing as quickly as it had come.
As soon as he was released he gasped, shuddering violently as he clutched to the sheets and attempted to focus. He slowly became aware again of the smaller sensations, like the chilling, slick coating of sweat over his arms, and the desperate high whines of his dog as it leapt onto the bed.
Carter circled him, whining again and again as it searched for something it could do, becoming even more agitated as it found nothing. Nino's breathing stabilized but his dog remained panicked, about to start barking when Nino suddenly shushed it.
"Q-quiet Carter, shh," Nino begged quietly. He had… just no idea what to do. But he knew his parents couldn't find him like this. Not when something was this wrong, not when he might be… just…
He shuddered again, but this time the sensation was unattached to any pain.
An infection doctors couldn't trace, a monster no one had ever so much as seen, a woman with desperate, guilty eyes.
He was terrified, he admitted it. No one had any answers, except a woman who should have been a stranger, and might have been a monster.
Nino looked behind him, taking in the fading burnt oranges of the sunset flickering between the breaks in the cloud cover and feeling something akin to the hollow drop of a pin in an empty room deep inside his chest.
He shouldn't trust her; why should he listen? There was something wrong… there was something so desperately wrong and he was terrified, he wanted to call out to his mother and have her answer, he wanted her to come and have an explanation that made it go away. There was that childish and entirely human part of him that wanted to cry and be told there were no monsters in the shadows.
But there was that part of him too, that realized there might be.
With shaking legs Nino slowly stood, ignoring the swirl of nausea that arrived with the simple motion. He was aware distantly of Carter nudging his right hand, asking for a response, and after a moment Nino pat him softly on the head as he walked towards the door.
"Good dog," he muttered, reaching out with an unsteady hand and unlocking his door with a click.
He left, his steps deliberate and labored as he stepped off the brick of his entry way and onto the flat cement of the path leading to the street. He had closed the door behind him careful not to make a single noise, but he could hear the rally of barks from Carter who was left inside. He had left his mother making dinner, made his way silently past his father watching T.V. They didn't see him go, Carter's now distant barking the only indication anything was wrong.
He stepped from the sidewalk to the street, flinching as the streetlamps turned on and announced the imminence of nightfall. With some difficulty he looked to the sky again, noting the last wisps of the fire in the sky and held onto them as he looked forward again.
In front of his house, stood shaking in the middle of the street, Nino looked out into the forest. Though some light of day remained it was dark, tall reaching trees separating the abode of people and what creatures skipped the leaves. At no other point in his life had Nino feared the forest; only now with the puckered healing scars scattered across his legs and imbedded in his shoulder did it make him hesitate.
It took another spasm for him to move again, the first step an uneven stumble as he fought off the ringing in his ears.
'Get as far as you can.'
Is this what she had meant?
Slowly Nino began to walk again, crossing the street and standing on the threshold of the forest where he intended to forge on without a path. It took the burn of his shoulder for him to cross it, and the ache of his spine to continue. Every spike of pain marked another step, his weak and shaking legs struggling to snap the twigs underfoot, his one free fumbling hand nearly incapable of sweeping back the brush.
The forest wall closed behind him, snapping up the visage of a quiet street and swallowing any light that might have guided him. He couldn't see the sunset anymore, the loss of the day sending panic through him. He tried to speed up, steps coming quicker now even as his breathing became shallow.
What was happening? Why? W-what-
He swallowed, trying to force the building of bile he could sense squirming up his throat back into his stomach. He broke into an unsteady run, his vision a senseless blur of trees and stones.
The next spasm left him no choice, he fell against a tree and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the ground. He could barely see it, his eyes swimming with stinging tears now and fading the image into a twisted show of dark congealing liquid. He could briefly see his hand bracing himself against the rough bark of the tree, its tendons clear against his skin as they strained.
He gasped, heaving again though nothing came, clenching his teeth and attempting to look at himself, looking again to his hand in confusion. The muscles stood out on his arm, tense and shaking as he spasmed again.
He wasn't far enough. He had to keep moving, but why?
Why?
What's happening?
The next wave of pain made him scream.
It was violent and blinding, something horrifying and white hot ripping through him, originating from his shoulder and pulsing out through his limbs, staggering him and causing him to nearly collapse. Even as it initially faded he still screamed, attempting to grind his teeth together and force the sound into an agonized groan.
As soon as he could trust himself to release the tension in his jaw he was panting, sweat pouring off his face as he shook violently.
What's happening, what was- why… I- h-he.
He needed to keep going. As far as he could go. As long as he could stand it.
He swung his weight forward, stepping heavily and swaying as he did, threatening to pitch over. He stepped again, and again, pushing himself forward and through the next ring of trees. The muscles in his legs screamed and contracted, but he kept going, even as he felt like he couldn't breathe at all, even as his skull felt like it strained against the skin. It threatened to tear him open, splinter him, but he didn't know what. And he was afraid…
Oh god he was afraid.
'Momma?'
He pushed through the next grove, blindly stumbling through a creek. The waters failed to chill him, heat crawling through his skin.
'Yes sweetheart? What's wrong?'
A bush of thorns tore at his arms but he didn't feel it, its nettles catching on the sling so he tore it off.
'Momma… don't laugh okay? You won't laugh right? You promise?'
His mother chuckled despite his simple request, watching her young son pout from his place on his bed. He looked so small sat in the center of it, clutching his comforter in a wad against his stomach.
'Alright Nino,' she laughed again, sobering herself dramatically to prove herself to him. 'I won't laugh, I promise.'
His left arm dangled weakly, reaching out and pushing with whatever strength I possessed. Anything so he could keep moving. Anything would be enough.
Nino seemed satisfied with his mother's expression, the little boy beckoning her forward with one hand and clutching to his blankets with the other. He didn't like how his mother's mouth twitched into a smile, but he didn't know who else to ask.
He let her come up to his bed, scooting a little as she sat down. Her weight on the mattress tilted him towards her, his lump of blankets keeping him from pitching into her lap.
She looked at him expectantly but he looked away, suddenly unsure but her voice was kind as she encouraged him.
'What's wrong little one? What has you so afraid?'
The little boy shot his head up, expression indignant as he protested.
'I am not scared!'
'Then why are we here?' she challenged him, so smoothly that he was stumped with how to reply, so instead he screwed up his face, muttering into his blanket wall as if to substitute some suitable retort.
'Is it the dark?' his mother asked sweetly, reaching out to touch his shoulder. Her hand was warm and comforting, and he slowly shook his head.
'No,' he replied, rocking a little in place.
He burst through another wall of bushes but the ground was uneven and he lost his footing, sprawling to the ground.
'Is it the noises?' she asked, looking around her. 'This old house creaks sometimes darling, there is nothing to fear.'
'No,' he said again, shaking his head.
'Then what darling? What's made you afraid?'
He hesitated, drawing strength from her presence.
'Momma,' he finally asked, 'Are monsters real?'
In the forest, Nino tried to stand. His arms shook and couldn't support him, and though he tried he could go no further. He crouched on the ground on all fours, head bowed as another horrid wave of pain racked through him. His chest heaved and his weak arm faltered, forcing him to his elbows as he curled to the earth.
His breathing came heavily, panting now in a desperate battle for air. Just when he could get his lungs full there would be something else, something crippling and all-encompassing that reduced him to screams again.
This wasn't a sickness. Sickness didn't do this. S-Sickness didn't… move.
A scraping, broken scream tore out of him when it felt as if his bones snapped and shifted, subsiding for a moment before moving again, curling within him and… r-reorganizing. Changing.
Nino fell to his side, sobbing in the moments between the cracks as he desperately called out; seeking in that moment not help, but answers.
He wanted a voice to tell him that it wasn't real, that it was a fever induced hallucination, that his medication was wrong or something else he could explain away. As his spine splintered in and his neck strained to push him out and away in a way his body could no longer respond, he wanted to hear a laugh so sweet and quiet… that it made nightmares seem silly.
As his breathing finally cleared in deep, animalistic huffs and his heart beat fast enough to put a thunderstorm to shame, he cried.
In the last moments as the sight of a full moon shining cruelly through the canopy dominated every part of him, dragging him into a nothingness he could never comprehend, he begged to hear her say it again.
He begged for this to be a nightmare, and for his mother to laugh and smile…
And tell him monsters weren't real.