Writing Scraps

12. Penguin | Horror | Fragment

Word Count: ~600 words
Time: 60 minutes (stopped at 16 minutes & 10 seconds)
Genre: horror
Date: 10/25/15 (Sun.)

12. Penguin

Dedication to @EyesOfTheTigers and @ColinHexr

They were out there somewhere, always at night, lurking in the deep shadows beyond the range of human sight. Brandon Cavanagh loved penguins, but those things he saw just a few moments ago were not penguins. Oh no. Not the cuddly little cute Chinstraps that waddle to and fro on unsteady feet. Not the chubby Emperors that waddled majestically on webbed feet and commanded the respect of penguin-lovers like Brandon.

Oh no. Brandon did not believe they were real penguins; they had to be something else hiding their true monstrous selves in the form of penguins.

* * *

Brandon first saw one of these impostors when he was at his friend's house playing Mortal Kombat. It was the tenth round of playing head-to-head with his friend, and he lost each of those rounds to his friend's superior button-mashing skills.

Both players were playing Liu Kang doubles, and Brandon's blue version had just been stunned into into dizziness, his head lolling around with body on shaky feet. Just as the video screen went dark, the red Liu Kang cartwheeled and slammed both feet over Brandon's version, before ducking down and driving a mean right hook up and over. This sent Brandon's version flying up past the screenshot with an explosion of blood flying from his skull and splattering on the ground, before the blue Liu Kang landed flat on his back, deader than a doornail.

"Jesus, man!" Brandon said, throwing down his controller. "Go easy on my for once; you've been kicking my ass for ten straight fights."

"Hey, don't blame me for being good at what I do."

"Yeah, well, you're not the one who had you gaming console thrown out by your parents!"

"Not my problem," he friend said, smiling at him, smug as ever. "You ready for another round?"

"No."

"No? You're kidding; don't pussy out on my now."

"Don't really feel like it right now."

"Come on! It's not like I'm playing at my best here—"

"No way! You keep winning anyway, so what's the point?" Brandon stalks off, dropping his controller to the ground in disgust.

"Fine, be that way! Jeez, I can't believe you can't take . . ."

* * *

While the two gamers quarreled over each other's heads about who's acting like a baby and who's acting like a prick in the confines of the house, the night outside had gone silent. The last breeze that shook the leaves on every tree and bush in the neighborhood stirred no more, and dogs and cats outside and inside all sniffed at the air, perked up their ears and kept their eyes wide and alert for some invisible threat hanging in the air.

Outside, the very air seemed to dissipate as the presence of some entity or group of entities came closer to the edge of this reality, just on the cusp of crossing into these as-yet unmolested parts. They walked through the shadows cast over with incandescent street lights on the damp sidewalks and glimmering streets. They trooped their massive bulk seamlessly down impossibly narrow crevices with the ease of ghosts, yet-to-be-manifested in their bodily forms. They waddled on impossibly silent footfalls over concrete sidewalk and gravel and grass, leaving just the transient tracks of their massive clawed feet on this plane of existence before fading away into nothing.

They were hungry, these beings. They needed sustenance, then need to survive and searched across the countless dimensions that made up existence. They were the predators, and they needed prey.

* * *

Brandon and his friend weren't fairing too well after the. * * *

FRAGMENT

(To be continued...)

A/N: Here's my crummy 2nd installment that I couldn't complete last night. Um... It's nowhere near my best, and if I continue writing this story in the future, I'll make sure it'll be complete and fit for reading. This is just a fragment, so you haven't seen anything yet.

Prompt: 5 car-sized penguins staring at me through my window. ( O_O )
Forum: Be Discovered & Discover 57: The Minion Apocalypse (pp 37-43):
URL (page 37): https://www.wattpad.com/forums/discussion/1065062/900/25/be-discovered-discover-57:-the-minion-apocalypse
URL (page 43): https://www.wattpad.com/forums/discussion/1065062/1050/25/be-discovered-discover-57:-the-minion-apocalypse