Page 15 of A Very Monstrous Desire

“But how?” Theo asked.

“It is not a difficult language,” the monster said and there was that rumbling noise again. “Now we must move back up the hill before you are eaten.”

“So, I can be eaten by you instead?” Theo asked, the shock replaced once more with a combination of panic and anger.

“I do not need you for food,” the monster replied. “I need you for something other than that.”

“Need me for what?” Theo demanded.

“You are going to aid me,” the monster said.

“Aid you how?”

“To finally remove the nightmares from my dimension and from yours.”

Chapter

Nine

“The munching monsters…” the words were barely more than a whisper, but the monster heard them.

He seemed to growl ever so slightly. “Yes, now quickly, we must move.”

He didn’t wait for a response but pulled Theo back up the hill with him. Theo didn’t know what else to do but follow and certainly that seemed like the only sensible option when a screech sounded from the forest behind them and was quickly followed by several more.

“What—”

“Quickly,” the monster said. “They’re coming for the bodies.”

Theo hurried to keep up, given he had no idea who they were and truthfully was not keen on finding out. He moved quickly, past dead muncher after dead muncher, but he was breathing heavily as he did so—shock, panic, anger and a million other emotions running through him. Whilst he half wished that he was knocked out somewhere and trapped in a dream, Theo knew as the lower gravity aided him back up the clearing, that he was not. His senses were simply too sharp for this to be anything but reality.

The crunch of the mud and the grass underfoot.

The smell of the forest in the air, and of the dead munchers too if he was honest.

The screeches of whatever flying things were roaming around in the forest canopy soon to eat the dead munchers.

And the monster next to him, breathing as well, so big and so imposing, and so…frightening? Was that the word? No, Theo didn’t think it was, not now, not with the threat of an imminent eating removed. The monster could have munched him already, when they came into this dimension, when they were a tangle of limbs rolling down the hill, right this moment with Theo pulled close to him…

“You move fast,” the monster said when they were back at their starting point, but he didn’t stop there. He continued to move away from the forest and away from the dead munchers. “Are you able to run now? I would like to put some distance between us and them. It is too dangerous to stay for long.”

Them…Theo shivered.

“If it’s so dangerous, why did you bring me here?” he asked.

“This is the exact same place in our world as the cleaning facility in yours.”

“The bathroom?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t you just send me back there?” Theo asked. “Just…let me go, and we’ll forget this ever happened?”

The monster shook his head, chest rumbling again as he spoke. “I am not able to do that.”

“But why not?” Theo demanded, feeling a bit braver now that the panic had subsided a bit.

“I require your assistance,” the monster said.

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