A Crowd of Monsters

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The marketplace was unrecognizable.

Once a place of laughter and barter, now it teemed with creatures that did not belong. They filled every corner, every stall, every shadow. A grotesque carnival of horror. Some dripped with slime, leaving trails of foul-smelling liquid in their wake. Others clanked as they moved, their metallic limbs scraping against the cobbled ground.

Their eyes—bulging, sunken, glowing, hollow—followed every movement. Their bodies were a chaotic mix of fur, scales, spikes, and skin stretched too tight over too many bones. Some muttered to themselves, voices like rustling leaves or the grating of stone. Others remained eerily silent, their only sound the slow, deliberate inhaling of breath.

A large beast stood in the center, its chest rising and falling in slow, deliberate movements. Horns spiraled from its skull, adorned with trinkets stolen from the living. A child’s ribbon. A rusted locket. A single, broken ring.

The crowd waited.

For what, no one knew. But the weight of their presence pressed against the air, making it thick, suffocating.

Then, the silence broke. A whisper rippled through them, a wave of sound so soft, so chilling, that it sank into the marrow of the bones.

They turned their heads as one.

Their focus locked onto something—someone.

You.

A single step backward sent a ripple through the crowd. Their bodies tensed. Some grinned, their teeth jagged like shattered glass. Others licked lips that had long forgotten the taste of warmth.
The realization sank in like cold iron.
You were not supposed to be here.
And now, you never would leave.

The pictures was sourced from pixabay.