Page 81 of Monsters in Love: Lost in the Deeps

My heart wants to beat out of my chest as I exit the car with my own sword in my hand. This is really happening. The battle of the ages. The battle to get Derrick back.

“Cut him from the back while he’s distracted!” Delizah hisses behind me and I look at her with anger.

A groan floats in the air, pulling my attention away as I stare at what’s happening before my eyes. Fleshy wings burst from his back, ripping through his flesh and the white robe, bathing the fabric in crimson blooms. Tentacles emerge from his back and face, his skin turning a sickly shade of seaweed green mixed with moss. The monster is taking over his body completely and it hasn’t been a full day yet.

“Derrick!” I run toward him with my sword, unsure of how to engage the monster without hurting the man I know. But I don’t have to think long when the beast turns and his arm shoots out, sending me flying against the side of the vehicle, denting the door in.

Delizah roars, runs into battle and brings her blade up, only to have the monster parry her hit with his own. He snarls in her face, and she quickly jumps back, slashing her blade from the side.

As much as she makes me hate her, I can’t let a pregnant woman get hurt. Pulling myself up to my feet, I make my way into the battle and slice the beast on his back, making him turn and give me the full force of his fury.

“Derrick! Are you still in there?” I cry out, but the monster roars and backhands me, making me see stars. I hear Delizah’s cry and quickly shake my head, getting it back in the game and bringing my sword down on the arm that’s currently gripping her neck. My aim is true as dark blood spurts out and the beast tosses Delizah onto the sands.

The ocean waves to our left crash like they have a life of their own, feeding off the energy that’s emitted from the battle on the sands. My feet dig into the ground as I leap and parry the blow that comes straight down on top of my head. I get pressed half a foot into the sand from the momentum of his swing, his weight so much more than my own. My arms waver, shaking from the strength it takes for me to hold him back. Falling to my knees, the monster swings the blade back, readying himself for a final blow when I swing the blade sideways at his ankles, taking him down to the ground.

Right at that very moment, as if the moon’s magnetic force pulls the waters, a giant wave crashes on us all and pulls us into the ocean.

My body turns and tumbles, as I try to catch my breath before the waves pull me down again.

I need to save Derrick by any means necessary. The only problem is, I don’t know how to swim.

The ocean is merciless as it continues to pull us all under, threatening to swallow us in her dark embrace. I open my eyes and struggle to move my limbs against the dense weight of the water, trying to paddle, trying to simulate some sort of swimming movement in order to pull myself up and break the surface to get necessary air.

Amidst the waves moving me where it will, I open my eyes again to catch sight of Delizah’s shadow in her inhuman form, swimming away quickly. Of course, she would abandon and sacrifice me to the sea. I have always been the fool in many of my decisions and this was no different.

My arms are tired and I don’t know where my sword has gone, but it doesn’t matter now. The only thing that matters is getting a desperate breath of air as my lungs scream in pain from holding my breath for too long. I move my limbs as fast as I can, my arm outstretched toward the light of the moon on the other side of the water but I don’t make it before the darkness that has been encroaching around my vision overtakes everything and I’m lost in the wet void of nothingness.

I awake with a start, my lungs and throat burning as I turn over and cough up water. I feel like I swallowed the whole sea as more keeps spewing out onto solid ground.

Solid ground?

My head pounds as I look around my unfamiliar surroundings. Where am I? How did I get to solid ground without leaving the water?

My internal questions are answered as my mind finally supplies the fact that the water is hovering around me in what looks like an invisible dome. The ground beneath me is scorched and torn, as if something large had emerged from its heart.

Something… like an octoface God.

A roar rents the air and I quickly get to my feet, looking around me for anything I can use as a weapon. I grab a nearby rock the size of my fist and bring it up in defense.

There, in the farthest corner of this place, the monster is hunched over with his hands covering his head. His tentacles writhe and snap angrily as the beast lifts its head up and roars again.

“D-Derrick?”

The beast turns at the sound of my voice and comes barreling. I automatically go on offense and throw the rock at his face, hitting him on his cheek and spewing blood from the cut. Stepping back in fear, I land on my ass and try to crawl away only for the beast to leap and land on top of me, caging me in with his face tentacles inches away from mine.

I close my eyes but chastise myself, forcing them to open and face the battle that isn’t yet won.

“Derrick!”

The monster’s eyes blink from bioluminescence to the brown I’ve come to recognize like the back of my hand.

“Derrick! Come back to me!”

The monster growls, his hand at his temples as he falls over to the side into a fetal position and rocks.

My heart breaks at the sight and I don’t know what comes over me or where the courage comes from but I throw myself over his body and sob, calling the name of the one person who has been able to pull me from my own inner battles.

“Derrick, I love you, man. Don’t leave me like this. I need you. Come back to me. Fight it. Fight it with everything you have!”

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