The croaking of the jet black crows cut out all at once, the sound of their wings flapping echoed in the graveyard, it was like they heard something, something that they feared. So they silenced.
Then everything ceased, silence… Pure and utter silence, Leon felt the tension like pressure was pressed against his back, like heavy weights drawing him down. He shivered.
Valeta stiffened as well, her fingers curling tighter around her golden revolver. Crouching behind the gravestone, her body tensed, her muscles cramped as her breathing slowed. She didn't dare speak.
Another sound creaked in the graveyard.
A scrape, like nails against gravel, a wet drag, a rhythmic slap of flesh against stone.
Valeta closed her eyes for a moment, steadying herself, a gulp of saliva rolled down her throat.
Leon leaned forward, angled just enough to see between two broken gravestones. His pulse skittered. Something was coming. Not walking, but crawling along the gravel-paved floor, pulling itself along.
A shape began to rise, a silhouette first, then a distortion, then something unmistakably wrong.
It didn't stand. It assembled, like a mutated blob of flesh convulsing.
The creature's limbs unfolded like a spider climbing out of its own skin, a long arm jabbed out from the flesh, then a second jutting from a shoulder. No, a rib, then two more from its spine.
Its whole body bent and contorted as though it were still learning how to support its own weight. Torn flesh hung in strips, and the glistening mass beneath its chest pulsed and thumped softly with each movement.
A head dangled from the mutated amalgamation of limbs, though whether it belonged to the creature or one of its unfortunate victims was unclear.
The skull was cracked open at the side, revealing something like molten red light where the brain should be. And in the center of that red was a yellow, like a dilating pupil, an oversized red eyeball sticking out of its skull
The creature froze, limbs twitching. Then its head snapped upright, mouth opening in a wet, rattling inhale that scraped against Leon's nerves like rusted metal.
It was scenting them, sniffing the air like a dog for traces of its next prey.
Valeta's hand tightened around her revolver, her fingers trembling as they fell upon the trigger.
The creature shrieked.
Gravestones shook. Crows burst from the trees in frantic black clouds, but even their flight seemed muted, as if the air itself recoiled.
"Scatter!" Leon yelled.
It was instinct of the body they inhabited; it wasn't anything like their normal movements, if it was, their reaction time would've been too slow and they'd be dead tenfold already.
Valeta's eyes widened as she dove left, boots skidding across slick stone to hide behind a crooked, dying tree.
Leon rolled right, tucking his head under his arms and vaulting behind a half-toppled angel statue.
They moved at the same instant, darting towards the monstrosity in front of them. Gunfire erupted almost immediately.
Valeta fired first, her shots sharp and bright in the whittling fog. The bullets struck flesh and sank in with dull thuds… No scream or shriek of pain, no crack of bone, just impact swallowed by wet flesh.
Leon peeked from cover and aimed at one of the creature's upper limbs. He fired.
Bang—
The shot cracked through the air and struck the flesh. It tore through a tendon, and one of its many limbs sagged.
For all of a second.
Then another limb spiked upward, jabbing like an out-of-place arrow, replacing the old one.
Valeta backed up quickly, reloading in shaking intervals.
A limb slammed down in front of her, shattering a gravestone to no more than crumbs.
She shrieked, twisting away just in time, firing three desperate rounds into the creature's torso. They buried themselves, but the creature barely reacted, its mass simply absorbing the hits.
Leon fired again, aiming for where he thought a joint might be. The recoil bit into his wrist. The bullet punched through something thick, releasing a spray of dark fluid that sizzled when it hit the ground.
The creature finally screamed.
Not in pain nor agony, but in frustration. As though they were mere rats refusing to die quickly.
"Keep moving! Don't stay in one place!" Leon shouted to Valeta as he ran to the next statue on the right.
He circled around a cluster of gravestones, swapping to his off-hand grip to steady his aim.
The creature's limbs lashed out in patterns, wide sweeps, sudden stabs, unpredictable arcs that forced them constantly off balance.
Valeta darted behind the ruins of a low wall and fired over the top. Shell casings scattered at her feet with the remnants of the heat tracing lines of smoke in the air.
She never learned how to reload or even pull the trigger, maybe she, as Aria had previously played with toy guns with her little brother, but it wasn't the same. Something about this new body of hers.
Click.
Bang.
Click. Click.
Bang.
"Fuck…" She cursed under her breath, reloading again, her fingers frantically shoving the shining bullets into the cylinder. She could never get used to the movement, no matter how hard she tried to pretend to be Valeta van Algard.
She wasn't her… It just wasn't possible.
As the creature lunged toward her, Leon pivoted behind it and fired into the base of its spine, or where a spine might have once been. Flesh tore, black liquid spilling from the gushing wound, but the monster didn't slow.
Valeta stumbled back, breath tight as the creature turned its attention away from her…
The neck of the monster creaked, like an unoiled machine; it churned.
In the moment the beast got distracted, she turned and sprinted to the nearest cover.
Another massive limb struck the ground where she'd been seconds before, stones flying. Dust filled the air, mixing with the miasma until everything blurred to shifting shades of grey.
Leon repositioned again, keeping the creature's attention divided. His shots grew more precise as he learned how to aim better, but they were still not decisive.
One round cracked through the cluster of jawbones that made up its lower face, splintering its teeth.
Valeta's revolver clicked again…
Nothing came out… empty. She flinched, frozen for one fatal second, instinctively pulling the trigger again and again.
Click.
Click.
Click, click, click.
Her breathing paused. She looked helplessly at the useless gun, fear clinging like sharp claws, high in her throat.
Leon felt a cold rush flood his chest. "Valeta, dodge away!"
But she didn't, she couldn't, she could only helplessly click the trigger of the empty weapon like a child's toy gun against a real beast.
The creature lunged forward.
Leon sprinted, heart pounding, boots hammering uneven stone. He didn't think, didn't calculate his steps. He simply moved.
He reached her just as the creature's limb came down, it's sharp claw stabbing into the ground.
He wrapped one arm around her waist and yanked, pulling her off her feet. The ground vanished beneath them as he threw their combined weight backward, rolling across the dirt ground.
Something sharp grazed his arm in the fall.
He clenched his teeth, a restrained grunt escaping his mouth as the pain in his arm caused him to bleed.
"Fuck me…" He muttered as his felt his conciousness fade away, drifting into a dream.