As the intestines of the creature wound its way up Zeine's torso, it said in a silky voice.
"Thanks for the consideration, but help is already here, isn't it?"
His breath smelled of blood, decay and death.
And it drooled, staring at Zeine.
Zeine froze, paralyzed in shock and fear.
And then screamed.
And the grotesque creature opened its mouth wide, demonstrating roll upon roll of sharp teeth. The rings of teeth rotated and vibrated like an automatic tooth brush. And it spoke in this ominous way.
"Greetings, my new friend, I am the artist of death, you can refer to me as A.D. in short, honored to make your acquaintance."
As if in slow motion, Zeine could see the sharp teeth, like an electric saw approach him, with saliva and chunks of meat flying in all directions.
Adrenaline shot through his limbs, freeing them from the fear that momentarily traumatized him. His strength returned as he grabbed the slippery thing in one hand, pushed back the man's head with the other, and flung A.D. away from him as hard as he could.
Without stopping, Zeine ran in the direction opposite the wall as fast as his legs could carry him, and yelled as loud as he could "SECURITY BOOOOOTS !"
His mind went blank with terror.
Usually security bots petrol the whole city, and answer to any call for help when they hear it, patrols are especially dense around the main road. He could expect help to come within minutes.
As he ran he could see a slight rift in the darkness ahead of him, where light poured in.
Unthinkingly, he assumed that it led to an entrance of some sort, maybe it was the entrance of the alley and it led to the outside, but no matter how fast and for how long he ran, it didn't seem to get any closer.
On and on, he ran, recklessly, calling for security bots all the while.
After some time he could no longer keep running and had to rest and pant, the only danger here would be the gruesome creature a few hundred yards away, he had put quite a safe distance between himself and that horror.
But what on earth was that, it didn't need his help, and by the looks of it, it was trying to bite a chunk out of his head, it wasn't even human.
Just as he panted and started to relax a little, a voice from behind sent chills up his spine, the creature's voice.
"In a hurry, aren't we?" It said.
Zeine looked back with utter horror and disbelief.
The creature, A.D. was there, only its torso was back in place, connected to his head, and its limbs were there too, quite intact. But what was left of his intestines still dangled from an opening in his pierced belly.
"I'm sorry Mr. A.D. but maybe there's a misunderstanding between us. Since you're alright there's no reason for me to disturb you further...I'll just leave you to yourself, haha..."said Zeine inching backwards, his heart thumping with fear.
He tried to laugh in a carefree manner.
And A.D. smiled back almost amiably, his frame fadded into nothingness.
Is it over?
Zeine had hardly time to be thankful when--
"There's no point in trying to escape." A voice came from behind him, betwixt him and the source of the light, the speaker was so close to him that he could feel the rotten breath brush his ears.
What little hope Zeine had entertained now deflated.
"Why don't we have a little friendly chat?"
This time, the voice came from somewhere in front of him, and A.D reappeared.
"Allow me to reintroduce myself, our last encounter has been quite hazardous, and it's only appropriate to formally address an intimate friend like yourself."
Zeine wanted to run, to scream, to put enough distance between him and A.D. but he found his legs rigid and recalcitrant to his commands, and his voice choked in his throat, he was unable to utter a sound or even fidget.
The man sensed his feeble attempts to move and smiled.
"Oh, please, my guest, do not reject my hospitality like that, I said there is no point trying to escape, and if you tried, I would be very hurt, I don't want my future body rejecting me."
"What?" Zeine gasped, he looked at the broken creature and the horrible idea came to him.
"You're taking away my organs?"
"Yes, indeed my clever friend, some of my friends before you just couldn't comprehend what I was trying to say and kept asking what was wrong with me and tried to be helpful, but in the end I showed them what I meant, and they have been very close to me thereafter."
"Please, you don't have to do this.....I'm not in a good shape, I seldom exercise, my organs are bad, real bad, and I can...I can help you, get you to the hospital, there are donations there, healthy, strong organs, not like me, I got low blood pressure, low iron, low calcium, please.....Please just let me go..."Zeine said hysterically.
A.D. listened quietly all the while.
"My friend, you got this wrong." said A.D. shaking his head, exasperated, as if he really was just debating with his friend over some philosophical proposition.
"In doing this, you rid me of the joy of my life--people, I hate those who cannot understand my divine and sublime works. Take, yesterday, for example, there was a very impudent fiend who blasted me into smitherings so impolitely, so unsolemnly. I! the artist who crafts death, how could I bear to see the raw material of an artwork spoiled like that...No one wants to get killed so unceremoniously, but don't worry, unlike that person, it is a pleasure to be worked on by me, I can create the most terrific expressions and emotions on you. Plus there has been no bad reviews from my past clients, who are all very intimate friends of mine now."
A.D. took a long breath, and continued.
"You, my lucky friend, have been chosen as my next subject. Considering the present circumstances, you will also have the honor to be, in me for the rest of eternity, and feel for yourself, the fabrication of my future artworks."
"So please, I entreat you, to be with me, and witness the creation of my masterpiece."
A.D.'s voice suddenly pitched with ethusiasm and, appearing out of nowhere hanging in the air above them, were twelve corps, all in gruesome states, each suffering a hideous wound and had some of their organs missing, their blank expression hinted a long and excruciatingly painful death.
With a wave of his hand, A.D. dismissed them and the corps vanished as suddenly as they appeared.
Zeine trembled and tried harder to break free.
"Behold! La dernier piece de mon chef-d'oeuvre! La spectacle se commence!"
He paused for effect, training his maddened blue eyes on Zeine.
And bowed.
"Merci, camarade."
"No! you horrible fiend, don't touch me, get the hell away from me. You and your art are the filthiest ugliest thing that ever existed! Go to hell with your bloody art! "roared Zeine with a sudden burst of defiance.
At this point he knew it was death one way or the other, better the quick and clean way, if he aggravates A.D. enough. A.D. might lose his temper and kill him on the spot.
Zeine braced himself for the killing blow.
For a while, there was silence.
Maybe, he was already dead, it was so fast he didn't even notice.
Zeine felt somewhat relieved.
But then, he heard A.D. clap and hoot with genuine joy.
"You are a natural! this tone, this commencement...this is art!"tears of real gratitude glistened in the his eyes.
A.D. threw his arms wide and faced the heavens exclaiming, holding back tears as he did "ARRRT!"
So he was still alive, and had a long painful death in store for him, thought Zeine, his heart sinking.
"You deserve the highest respect! I will prolong your performance and allow you to feast yourself on the ultimate height of my art which you deserve."
A.D. said solemnly.
"Illusions descendent." A.D. cried, and he made a gesture with his fingers as if performing a spell.
Please let that be it, let it kill me whatever it is, prayed Zeine.
Never in his life, had he wished so much to die.
The suddenly he was on fire and was suffocating under water at the same time, icy water choked into his lungs, fire burnt searing hot. He was burning and drowning at the same time. He would have shrieked in pain if he could, but his mouth choked on inexistent water, his body writhed and jerked in indescribable agony.
Then there were ants, insects, worms and slippery tentacles of some sort, climbing up his body, and bearing into his flesh. The consistently burning fire had not dulled his senses, it made them more acute and sensitive.
"Kill me, kill me now!" he wanted to scream.
The torture went on and on and on.
He could hear the noise of a thousand nails scraping the hard surface of a wooden board, and it became louder and louder. Alongside screams of joy from A.D.
And then it took his vision, everything in sight was tainted with an exhilarating blood red, beyond him, all over him, surrounding him, cracks appeared out of the void, widened, opened up, forming weird ominous starring eyes.
Zeine was losing his sanity as the torture went on for what seemed to be hours. And something started to work on his mind too.
Fear, hatred, exhilaration, sadness, anguish enveloped his being in a torrent of muddled emotions, it was corrupting in on his memories, his knowledge, sanity, consciousness, awareness, the remnants of what little fight there was left in him.
Everything within the concept of him, started to fade away into nothingness as the contamination broke through layers of defense in his psyche.
Eventually it came to a halt, held off by some impenetrable wall.
"ARRRRRT! THIS IS ARRRRT!"roared A.D. contemplating Zeine in a fit of rapture.
"THIS FINAL DEFIANCE! THIS LAST STRUGGLE! THIS CLIMAX!"
"HAHAHAHA, hahahaha...ARRRRRRRRRRT! It is such, a pity, that I cannot kill you over and over...You , YOU!! truly understand me and my art!"
And the spiritual contamination became more ferocious in its offense, finally it breached this final wall.
A.D. suddenly stopped laughing.
And like a volcano erupting, its contents cascaded out.
Zeine could not feel, sense or notice anything now, he had a vague impression of falling down, down, down into a bottomless pit.
But who was he? what was himself? what is existence?
He had no idea, he was forgetting, he was beyond salvation, he had forgotten the concept of concept itself.
He was vanishing, ceasing to exist, his awareness fading away.
Suddenly, a flash of memory awoke in his dormant consciousness.
It was a segment of a long-forgotten memory, he could see red, and feel the inferno flames licking at him, two familiar figures whom he was sure he'd seen somewhere before was looking at him saying something.
"Zeine!"
What was this?
incoherent, scarcely existing thoughts crossed his dissipating consciousness.
"Zeine!"
A woman's voice, so familiar, and yet so alien to him.
What...is all this?
The contents held in the wall of his psyche started to mend his broken spirit.
And in his head, things began to pop up as he started to regain himself.
I am Zeine Li, was his first thought.
And everything came gushing back.
Outside this reverie, A.D. could see a golden charm emerging, running up Zeine's right hand, like an amulet, as it imprinted itself on Zeine's hand, emitting a searing sound.
And Zeine awoke, the pain, the hallucinations were gone without a trace.
He could feel power throbbing in his veins, overflowing every fiber of his body.
And, as if another pair of eyes opened in his head, he could observe in his mind, another world, quite different from what he was perceiving with his senses but parallel to it, like a map of existence.
He felt with this new sense, agglomerating at the place where A.D. stood, there was a myriad of red, he knew instinctively, without needing to say the word, that this, was contamination, something bad, something evil, something that is not allowed to exist.
And surrounding himself, there was a field sending out shockwaves of pure golden power. Again, he knew what it was intuitively.
If he knew the exact words, he would say that, this, was his clearance.