#Monstrous May

[johannestevans]

Monstrous May Prompt Challenge 2025

Writing & Art Challenge for Every Day in May!

It’s a few months until that time of year again, but I’m laying out the prompts to give those who like to queue up art or writing or other creations in advance a good amount of time to prepare!

THE MONSTROUS MAY CHALLENGE is an annual prompt challenge to encourage new, monstrous-focused creations, with a prompt for every day of the month. 

You can write short stories, poems, essays, recommend movies or books, make social media posts, aesthetic posts, playlists, draw sketches, paint, do bits of sculpture or knitting or crochet, or anything else! Anything you feel might be fun for a prompt, you are encouraged to create. 

If you’d like to post, post away on social media — on Twitter or Bluesky, Tumblr or Pillowfort, Instagram or Threads, on your own websites, or wherever you’d like to! You’re encouraged to use the tag or hashtag #Monstrous May or #MonstrousMay, and of course, to browse through those tags to support and engage with others’ creations. 

Here are May 2025’s prompts:

If you'd like some images to post on social media with your prompts, you can get them all on Medium here.

And in full text form below the cut:

Day 1 — Tentacles

Day 2 — Sound

Day 3 — Hypnosis

Day 4 — Corrupted

Day 5 — Size Difference

Day 6 — In The Air

Day 7 — Aphrodisiac

Day 8 — Caught in Webbing

Day 9 — Knotted

Day 10 — The Werewolf

Day 11 — Living Armour

Day 12 — Consumed

Day 13 — Eggs

Day 14 — Grooming

Day 15 — Bitten

Day 16 — Pinned Down

Day 17 — Transformed

Day 18 — Belly Bulge

Day 19 — Parasitic Relationship

Day 20 — The Vampire

Day 21 — All-The-Way-Through

Day 22 — Spines

Day 23 — Impregnated

Day 24 — Dungeon

Day 25 — Clawed

Day 26 — Beneath the Earth

Day 27 — Addictive Properties

Day 28 — Commanded

Day 29 — Scent

Day 30 — The Minotaur

Day 31 — Underwater

[meerawrites]

Monstrous May: the bat

"Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the surface, as they play over pools and streams." - Gilbert White

Alternatively titled: they did nothing wrong, release them, they are just night sky babies.

10 cool bat facts

Bat Conservation Trust

[wordsyettocome]

Monstrous May Challenge Day 7: The Creeping Vine

The cables humans built entwined themselves with plants, and before long, they became something new, neither plant nor computer.

Cables lengthened and twined around anything they could find, crackling and suffocating and strangling.

It is now a single organism, ever-growing and ever-expanding, and nothing can survive in its wake. Where cities and forests once stood, there is nothing but an endless pile of plastic and metal.

Everyone runs from it, but they know they run in vain, and that the beast will claim them eventually.

You may also enjoy 'City Limits'

Inspired by this post by @the-unseelie-court-official

Monstrous May Challenge 2024 Prompts

[zoannearts]

Did a little sketch for monstrous mays prompt “the tentacle beast”, I had a very busy day today so I haven’t done anything too elaborate but I felt like doing something for it,

I may do another drawing for this prompt maybe something a bit more 🌶️ 🌶️

[wisedo]

MonstrousMay Day 6 - Monster's Hide

A-Xiang is playing hide and seek, A-Xing just needs some time alone.

[emptymanuscript]

Monstrous May Challenge 1 & 2

Combining Day 1 and Day 2, “The Werewolf” and “The Monster’s Teeth” for the monstrous may challenge into one story because I missed yesterday. Nothing sexy toady.

Toothless she was and frail.

Ylona’s old gums pained her with the clenching of her jaw.

What a bitter thing it was to be old and powerless. They put her in a corner and gave her potatoes and a knife that was barely up to slicing that thinness of skin. And weren’t they kind, see how we take care of old granddam. We let her sleep by the fire instead of the convenient choice of by the door so we wouldn’t have to take care of old granddam next year.

She skinned the potatoes thinking of her son.

Pyvrek had been a bright eyed boy. Full of trouble that had made Ylona laugh and indulge him until he was too big for control. A great bear of a man like his father before him who took what he wanted and smiled with his bright eyes when he took it.

His bride had been the most beautiful girl. Because Pyvrek took what he wanted and a bright eyed boy full of trouble didn’t know the right things to want. She was a pitiable thing who didn’t realize her ‘power’ would fade and she would be set aside for another girl, someone prettier in the earlier bloom of her youth.

Perhaps Ylona should have loved her bastard grandchildren. Turn the other cheek. Even if it was the hind one in a barn. Like they were rutting ram and sheep, her son and a girl too young to know better. There had been three true born grandchildren. Each set tenderly in the dirt behind their home in a row that their mother ended. Each one had taken a little of her love with them. Until there was only an ember and one girl left.

Ylona still had a smile left for her youngest. A smile and a disinterested pat because it was better not to get attached.

The girl grew up like all children do. A pretty girl, her Halura. Too pretty. And the eyes of the other bear-like men and the counting men and the pretty men all turned to her.

Ylona warned Halura, do not go into the barn alone. Or off anywhere alone with a man. Halura had listened so she couldn’t be trapped.

But there was nothing Ylona could do about her son. Her son couldn’t be turned by a pretty face. He couldn’t be turned by threats. But the glittering wealth counted out for Halura’s skin… that could turn a man’s head. And as the favors piled up higher than the gifts, her son found his eyes ever brighter. So more was counted his way. And the chaff of youth fell before the wealth of ever older and more miserly men who leered ever more openly at what would soon be their property.

Halura at last came Ylona where she skinned and cried her heartache. It didn’t matter who she was eventually sold to. The truth was already there. She would be sold. Her master would be old and have no human feelings for her. She would be a treasure to be locked away and die in the vault by one means or another.

Ylona gave her a smile because what else could she do for her granddaughter? Her son would not listen to her. Her new daughter in a law was barely a stupid stripling girl herself, growing crueler on the indiference of her husband who hadn’t shown as clearly before hand that she was just another treasure to be used up and thrown away. How kind we are. We told her she was beautiful. We showed her love. What a shame she became so sharp and unkind. No appreciation.

Halura begged. “Granddam, help me.”

“I am toothless and frail.”

“I have no one else.”

“What can I do? No one will listen to me.”

“I will listen.”

Ylona had nothing. A place to sit. A knife that would barely cut. Potatoes. She was old. That was what she had. Years. Time and tales. That she could give to her granddaughter.

“You must get me a long, thick, strong rope. One that even your father with a knife would take a long time to cut. Without it, there is no hope for you.”

Ylona peeled her potatoes and waited while the young girl set to hope. In two days, Halura brought her a thick rope made for lifting heavy stones.

“You must get me a knife sharp enough to cut this rope like butter. Without it there is no hope for you.”

Ylona knotted the rope with care, turning it from a single length to a trap that would bind and lift by the weight of her potatoes.

Halura brought her a knife and when Ylona cut the excess from the woven rope, it did cut through it with ease even though her hands were weak and shaky.

“You must get me a fresh cut of meat, something delicious that even uncooked will make us drool for the want of it. Without it, there is no hope for you.”

Ylona filled the trap with potatoes until it was so heavy she couldn’t lift it.

Halura returned, the tangy smell of bloody meat making both their tongues seem to swell and sweat with the need to stuff it in their mouths.

“You must help me carry all this into the woods and set the trap. Without it, there is no hope for you.”

It was a long walk and her bones ached with the distance and the weight. And when they were in the forest, Ylona forced them onward until even her granddaughter shook with the effort and weakness. There they set the trap over a tree that stood by two crossing deer paths.

Halura spread leaves over it with care to hide it even from a demon’s eyes. And Halura set the meat in the trap so that all the songs of the forest stopped.

Ylona held the far end of the trap in her shaking arms so not even an inconvenient breeze could move and reveal the snare. And the scent of peeled potatoes rubbed onto her as she shook so she was like a root herself.

“You must run home now and never say where you have been. Never hint where I may be. If ever a man realizes what we have done, there is no hope for you.”

Halura ran as best she could.

Ylona stayed and trembled as the sun set and the moon rose and the forest stayed silent. Her body begged for rest but the last energy of the dying came to her and she held fast.

At last something dared the path. Eyes shining in the moonlight. A wolf came to the meat, sniffing cautiously.

It snatched the meat which triggered the trap, the extra weight finally overcoming Ylona and she toppled to the ground as the wolf rose into the air. She lay, panting a long time as the wolf thrashed and curled and snapped at the strong rope that held it over the ground. Only as it weakened did Ylona push herself up, conserving all her strength until she needed it.

From the thick woods beyond the path many eyes watched her, bright with the setting moon. Ylona did not flinch or stop but approached the snarling wolf with her sharp knife. Her witnesses howled only once, with her wolf, they chorused with his death howl and then one by one they turned away as she cut the corpse free.

She skinned the wolf. Laid the skin flat. And in the dark of the night she laid herself into the skin and waited for some evil to come to the crossroads.

They placed two sticks in a cross next to Halura’s mother on the far side of Halura’s sisters. And for a month, for propriety, they were allowed time to mourn.

Perhaps, if they had not been given a full month.

Perhaps, if Pyvrek had been a kinder man.

Perhaps, if Halura had not been so headstrong.

Perhaps, if the men had realized it was only the beginning.

What man can say what might have been? They can only say what did happen.

On the night of the next full moon, the first of the wolves came to Pyvrek’s door.

Fatal she was and so full of teeth.

[menagerie-of-monsters]

The cold light of the moon fell across the Beast as he stalked through the forest, illuminating him in silver glimpses. His long tails trailed behind him, glittering with hoarfrost, and the silken iron-gray fur of his flanks still showed the dark stains of blood and soot. He knew I was there, of course. My prince had senses to defy the imagination. The light breeze at my back swept my scent towards him, and after months spent tracking him my sweat and the oils of my skin would be easy for any beast to identify, let alone one like him. If he wanted to get away from me, it would be simple. He was far faster than the deer I traveled on, even if I could convince them to race after him. But he didn't run this time. He snarled at me once, baring his scimitar teeth and making my stag shy, but he let me keep pace with him. Perhaps after five months of dogged endurance, the Beast had realized that I wouldn't allow him to vanish into the wilderness. That I wouldn't turn back. It didn't matter where he led us, or how long I needed to spend living off the land or the frozen remnants of his meals. He was my prince, and I wouldn't leave him to the wilderness and the scant mercy of the gods. I would follow him into the jaws of Death himself. No matter what he had done. No matter what he became. I would never forget where my loyalties lay.

[cmrosens]

The Monster's Teeth

cw: human teeth, graphic sensory descriptions

He wasn’t meant to be here. 

He knew he shouldn’t touch anything when he was in the Big House, and his mother had told him to stay in the kitchen.

He could hear grown-up voices shouting and calling from all over, some commotion and cries of “Fetch the doctor” and gossip from the parlour maids. The kitchen was too hot, too crowded, and half the staff were rushing in and out when they had no reason to be, just to hear the latest from the cook and the housekeeper, who had repeated their stories a hundred times and had enough tea and biscuits to repeat it a hundred times more. Normal service was suspended. 

He didn’t understand what was going on, only that there were too many people. 

Nobody noticed when he slipped away into the quiet panelled corridors where he could breathe, and snuck around the grand staircase to the other side of the house. Here was the master’s study, the smoking room, the big, long dining hall, and he crept into the first empty room he could find as a place of temporary solace. 

He wasn’t meant to be here. 

The study was an avalanche waiting to happen, drifts and peaks of papers and books everywhere, coloured chalks scattered on the bare boards with the rugs rolled up in thick sausages, the grate empty and cold. 

He shouldn’t touch anything. 

He knew that.

But there was a cabinet full of tiny drawers, none of them labelled – or if they were, the labels were in such tiny, spidery writing that he could barely make out the words. Thomas, said one. Araminta, said another. 

He opened the drawers one at a time, and the tiny boxes slid out, contents nested in hanks of wool. 

Tiny milk pearls with bumpy ridges, pronged roots embedded in the softness underneath.

He opened others, unlabeled. The contents of these were bigger, yellowed, decayed. Their roots were rusty, stained. He didn’t understand, but he was transfixed. 

Each drawer contained more treasures, pitted and ulcerous, pearly and perfect, molar and premolar, cuspid and incisor. They rolled hard and sharp between his finger and thumb, gritty and salted under his tongue, grating under his own teeth as he bit them to test their authenticity, like a man biting coins. 

Chips scraped off in his mouth like tiny shards of eggshell, little bits of grit that felt wrong in his mouth. 

He explored the bumps and hollows, the points and planes, growing used to the contours and forbidden taste of iron and salt.

He made the collection his own by touch and taste, placing the possessive stamp of saliva on each and every one he could find no matter how his taste buds rebelled, detecting traces of chemicals and cleaning fluids, until the collection was entirely his own. 

Sliding the last drawer back in place, he heard his mother calling his name. 

“Dicky Pendle! You’re for it, when I find you.”

He snuck himself into a musty corner of the study and waited for the door to open, for the heavy hand of righteous fury to descend on his shoulder and yank him out for a belting. It didn’t matter, when he had a bright new secret to keep.

[writer-rider-flirty-thirties]

It's tea time... with an Angel! 84/101 of Fanfic Wars (2022)

[valharlowe]

Hawke is hiding a secret; one that Cullen will discover when he visits the manor on the night of the full moon. (Explicit/18+)

The full moon lighting his way, Cullen Rutherford hurried through the streets of Kirkwall, hand on his sword.

What Meredith needed from the Champion at this hour, he would never know. And he didn't dare ask, either. The Knight-Commander had been in a temper, as of late, and he didn't want to be the one to test it. No, it was best simply to do as she said, and deliver the message to the Hawke Estate.

But he was ill at ease. He could still remember the stories he had been told as a child in Honnleath, of the strange things that happened on the night of a full moon. Maleficar and worse.

Cullen shook his head. He was a man grown; a Knight-Captain of the Templar Order. He had been tortured by demons and lived to tell the tale, not that he ever spoke of Kinloch Hold.

There was no fear to be found in children's tales. Not any longer.

read on archive of our own.

[meerawrites]

Monstrous May: the gorgon

"I would like you to teach [the monsters] civilized behaviour," said Ladyship coldly. He appeared to consider this. "Yes of course, I think that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?"

- Sir Terry Pratchett

Gorgons were three powerful, winged daimones (demons) named Medousa (Medusa), Sthenno and Euryale. Of the three sisters, only Medousa was mortal.

Gorgons (before the ancient Romans) - source.

[wordsyettocome]

Monstrous May Challenge Day 6: The Lion

The lion slumbers today.

It lies on the bridge at the edge of the harbor, seeming to all who see it as an unmoving statue. But if you dare go up close, you can see the rustling hairs and feel the steady breaths.

The boats pass into the city safely, for the lion slumbers today.

The lion slumbers today.

The coming and going of boats is as busy as ever, but no matter the day, the captains always pause at the bridge, look up at the lion, watching for any sign of movement.

The lion slumbers, but something is off.

Its breathing is no longer rhythmic. It twitches. Its head lifts off the ground.

It yawns, licks its lips, and its eyes slowly move to the boats below. Its mouth turns into a snarl, and its legs prepare to pounce.

The lion will feast today.

Monstrous May Challenge 2024 Prompts

[invisible-hand]

Another Monstrous May prompt fill from last year! This one was for "monster under the bed" and is a kid Sylvie and her Thor ficlet.

-----------------------------------------------------

Something was amiss in Thor’s chambers. He’d discovered his door ajar upon returning from his afternoon history lesson, and felt with a tingle on the back of his neck that there was someone waiting inside.

“Hello?” He called through the crack, but no one answered, so he shoved it the rest of the way open and crossed the threshold with his fists held ready. 

He glanced around, noticing a few things appeared to be knocked over and out of place. But by who? And why? A muffled snuffling sound pricked Thor’s ears in the quiet. He paced closer to the bed, and the sound grew louder, and louder still when he crouched down. He dropped onto his hands and knees, and peered under the bed. 

He almost startled at the face staring back at him from the thin space. The face was deep blue in color, the skin decorated with ornate ridges, and the red on red eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. The creature’s expression pinched into a sob, and a fresh set of tears followed the tracks already lining her face. Thor matched posture, laying down on his side with his arm serving as a pillow, so the face was no longer sideways, but upright to his eyes. 

“I think I’ve gotten a bit old for hide and seek, sister,” He said.

Sylvie gave a wet sounding laugh and managed a wan smile, and he was all at once glad that he’d suppressed his surprise at her ancestral appearance; it was not the first but the second time he’d seen it, after all. The first had been a terrible day, decades earlier, when she had been dangerously sick with a fever too high for her physiology to handle. Mother and Eir enchanted an ice bath so cold it burned Thor’s hand when he touched it, and so he screamed bloody murder when they went to submerge her in it. He knew she was a Frost Giant, but fear overrode logic in his young mind, and he had to be restrained by Odin as she was being lowered in.

But after only a moment in the icy liquid her skin had flushed a deep azure, her terrible shivering ceased, and she’d been able to truly rest for the first time in days, Frigga holding her head to make sure it didn’t slip below the surface in her sleep. “Sister looks weird but pretty,” he recalled saying, while stroking her long, dark hair. 

She looked no less so now, if a bit disconcerting when found hunkering under his bed.

“What happened,” Thor coaxed. 

Sylvie freed one arm enough to wipe at her nose with her sleeve. “I wanted to show off to the other kids in my botany class today, so–don’t lecture me–I tried to perform a revealing spell for them. It turned back on me and…and it revealed what is under father’s enchantment.” She rushed through the last part, stumbling over her words.

“And what happened next?” Thor scooted a few inches closer and offered his hand, palm up. She took it. Tears welled in Sylvie’s crimson eyes once more. 

“They c-called me a m-m-monster,” She sobbed. “I ran right here, because people kept staring at me.”

When looking for safety, she’d come to her big brother’s room. Thor squeezed her chilly blue fingers. “Want me to punch anyone in the nose?” 

Sylvie laughed. “No, they’re too little compared to you, it wouldn’t be right. And I’ll get them later, I’ll put snakes in their shoes.” 

“As long as no snakes are harmed in the process. Are you ready to come out? You can stay in my room as long as you like, this is a safe to be blue space.” 

Sylvie offered her other hand, and he took it and dragged her out from her hiding place. Her tunic and leggings were rumpled and dusty. 

“If you want you can rest here with me a bit, and then I’ll go get mother to turn you back, so you don’t have to walk anywhere else like this if you don’t want to.”

She nodded and sniffed, so Thor kicked his boots off and climbed onto the bed, seating himself with his back against the headboard. Sylvie crawled in after him, and laid down with her small head in his lap. 

“I can tell you a story, how about the Midgardian one about the bird women who lure sailors to their deaths.”

“They’re called sirens, and I’m too old for stories, but sure.”

“No one is too old for stories, Sylv,” Thor said, and proceeded to tell it with as many embellishments as possible, making sure that the sailors of the Midgardian seas were the villains, pirates invading the siren’s lands, and the sirens weren’t monsters but people defending their home. He stroked her hair all the while, until her breaths were long and even with sleep. He carefully relocated her head to a pillow, and pulled his boots back on. 

“If you’re a monster, you’re my little monster,” Thor whispered, then slipped out into the hallway to go find their mother.

-----------------------------------------------------

[johannestevans]

Ah, yes, I've been running Monstrous May since 2021!

These are the 2025 prompts ahead of time:

Okay, folks. I would please ask for your feedback on this (please, please share and reblog so others see this). I kinda want to do a challenge for the monster romance and the monster fucking writers in either March or May. (You know: Monster March or Monster May.) I will do this for myself definitely. But now I am considering whether I should make a challenge-account for that for others to participate. What do you say?

[emptymanuscript]

Monstrous May Day 4 - The Cave

      Michael punched Isaac in the shoulder. “Go on, go in.”

      Isaac punched Michael back. “You go in, you coward.”

      They both stared at the cave, dark and moaning. The wind blew across the lip of the cave. That’s what made the moaning sound. It was just like a giant soda bottle. Michael had blown a note on a bottle plenty of times. “I’m not a coward. You’re a pussy. You go in.”

      “I’m not a pussy.” Isaac punched Michael’s shoulder again. “You’re a chicken. It’s lunchtime on a Tuesday. Nothing scary ever happened at lunchtime on a Tuesday.” Isaac  flapped his arms and clucked. “Bok. Bok. Bigok! Chickin. Bok. Bok-bok-bok. Chicken.”

      Michael took three steps up the sandy scree that lead to the dark of the cave. Then he turned around, his back to the darkness in the cave. “Pussy! Meow-mow. Pussy. You’re afraid, pussy.”

      Isaac snorted. “You don’t even know what a pussy is, chicken.”

      “Do too. It’s what you are. I’m closer to the cave. I’ve got my back turned. You’re more scared than me.”

      Isaac took four large steps toward the cave. He crossed his arms. “Now who’s closer?”

      Michael backed up until he was a step closer than Issac. “You’re still more scared. You heard about Lucy Nelson and you won’t ever go in.

      “Who’s Lucy Nelson?”

      “Lucy went in the cave and never came back out. The sheriff went in and he never found her except for her teeth.”

      “Her teeth?”

      “Uh huh.” Michael took another step back. “Each one pulled out in perfect condition like a dentist had done it.”

      Isaac rolled his eyes. “You made that up.”

      Michael took another step toward the cave. “Then why am I closer to the cave?”

      “Why don’t you go in if you think you’re so brave.”

      “Will you admit you’re a pussy if I go in the cave?”

      “Sure. Whatever. If you walk inside the cave backwards, I’ll say I’m a pussy.”

      Michael took another step backwards but stopped there, looking over his shoulder at the low moan that ruffled his hair. He expected the breeze to feel cold and dry, like there was nothing but sand and wind in the cave but the flicker of breeze was hot and moist like someone breathing on him. Like Isaac huffing out to clean his glasses. And there was a funny smell. Like spoiled eggs.

      “Well?” Isaac asked.

      “I didn’t,” Michael said.

      “I see that.”

      “No. I didn’t make it up. About Lucy Nelson.”

      Isaac was silent a moment before he asked, “Did you hear about Todd Rafferty?”

      “The guy whose shoes they found?”

      “And nails. All his fingernails and toenails and his clothes. And that’s it.”

      “I’m not scared. His little brother Scott went in to look for him and nothing happened to Scott at all.”

      Isaac took a step away from the cave. “Maybe we should come back after school. We'd need time to look around. And if we’re not back in class after lunch we’ll get in trouble.”

      “You are a pussy!” Michael skipped the final few steps into the cave. The cave was warm, damp. Pale slime dripped down the walls. Michael poked the slime and it was rock hard. Like old tree sap. It looked like a drip but wasn’t anymore.

      “Ok,” Isaac called. “I’m a pussy. But we’re going to be late. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

      Michael looked into the dark interior of the cave. Even inside, his face right in the shadows, he could only see a foot or two into the cave.

      “Michael.”

      Isaac’s call wafted through the darkness of the cave, skipping down the walls like a rock over water. It rebounded, Michael’s name whisper distorted beckoning from deep within. Which meant, Michael thought, that the cave had to be fairly uniform with an end not too far away. Michael shuffled forward into the darkness.

      Isaac called again, sounding more scared. And the echo whispered to Michael again, sounding louder, more sure, less like Isaac. It had a metallic twang, like someone had tried to scratch the right tone shift along an electrical pole guidewire. Michael had seen that. Someone running a metal rod down a metal wire to get an interesting sound for a movie.

      Michael shuffled deeper, both his hands outstretched to feel for any wall or stalagtite that might have dripped to face level. He could hear Isaac coming into the cave after him. The crunching of his tennis shoes getting louder and then clearer as he passed the entrance and the distorting wind.

      The sound felt like it came from the other way this time. That metallic tonal scratching, not quite a voice, crooned for him and skipped along the walls in a ripple, passing him, rebounding from the empty space of the entrance and picking up that tinge of Isaac’s fear. “Michael come back.”

      Michael called over his shoulder, “Don’t worry. I’m almost to the end.” But his voice came out different. There was no metallic whine, no ripple. His voice sounded flat. Reflectionless. Like he would expect his voice to fail bouncing off the cushion of his bed. He spread his arms to reach for the walls. His fingers slid through lukewarm slime over something that felt like warm squishy lumps. The wall dented, retreated like a soaked sponge. But the wall also glowed an orangey-red, filaments like long thin streamers spit hung with little globules of brightness, motes of light winking upward to be lost in the darkness. And deeper into the cave, like the little lights on the floors of airplanes that were supposed to lead you to an exit.

      The metallic tones, one rising high, one spilling down, thrummed out to him, more little red lights winking to life with the sound, pulsing, so they seemed to run from where he stood on to the end of the cave he still couldn’t see.

      Isaac shouted from far away, “Where are you?!”

      The metallic echo lit up, skipping to him along the winking glow, bright and fading, “Mi-chael.”

      Michael took a step in the direction of the lights, his fingers dragging through the jelly-ish slime across the strange quivering softness of the walls. “Who are you?”

      “Mi-chael.”

      Where he dragged his fingers the wall turned an angrier red, the lights pulsing in warning that he was coming as more of the glow filled the cavern, lighting it up in soft orangey-red streaked with bloody streamers where he touched and stepped.

      “Michael.”

      “That’s me but who are YOU?”

      A soft echo from far away might have been Isaac. But the metallic voice called louder, “I’m a friend, Michael. Come to me.” The lights pulsed in sequence like a guiding ring of light rushing into the darkness.

      Michael wasn’t sure why he ran. He could fall in a hole. Smash into a rock. There could be anything in the dark. But it wasn’t really dark anymore. The cave sent him another guiding ring of slimey light, paced just right for him to skirt along behind it.

      “That’s good, Michael. Come to me.”

      Michael looked behind him at an odd screech, like a far off scream. But he couldn’t see the entrance any more. Just the swelling lights and the bloody path he had traced, stretching back behind him until the glow faded into black.

      “Am I hurting you?”

      “No, Michael. I want you. Hurry.”

      Wait, had the scream been Isaac?

      Michael stumbled to a halt, turning to look back.

      “Don’t stop. Come to me. I want you.”

      The orangey-red glow faded as he watched, the darkness rushing toward him. Dimming into just the angry crimson path he had ripped as he passed.

      “Don’t stop,” the metallic voice growled, like an angry double strike of metal on metal. The voice rebounding from behind and before him, demanding and chasing.

      Michael ran from the darkness, chasing another soft ring of beckoning light, this one dodging ahead, while blackness ate the light behind, chasing him, wide and hungry.

      “I’m coming!” Michael yelled, trying to make it stop.

      “Faster,” the metallic voice commanded, the ring speeding up, the light evading him.

      Michael panted, running too fast to yell clearly again, his lungs and legs hurting. The light kept speeding up, demanding more from him, leaving him behind.

      He gasped. Pain lancing up his side. “Wait!” His lungs stuttered instead of producing the word ‘for.’ “Me!” and he stumbled.

      Michael crashed into the softness of the floor, his face feeling like it splashed through the surface tension of a first layer of congealed spit onto warm ooblek. Rubbery at first but softening as he laid still, gasping for breath.

      He tried to push himself up but the soft clinginess of the floor surrounded his hands, knees, and feet - sucked at his face and clothes - held him down.

      “Help me.”

      The light pulsed back to him, no longer a ring or long streamer, it was like an icon face pixelated onto the curve of the wall, looking at him. “Done so soon?” it accused. “I thought you could do better, Michael.”

      “Help,” Michael repeated.

      “Who do you want, Michael? Isaac? Or me?”

      “Please,” Michael begged.

      “You’d like that wouldn’t you? Isaac to come and pull you out? But I’ll tell you something, Mike, Isaac is already here. He is inside and happy with me. He is going to stay with me. He doesn’t want you either. Why would anyone want you?”

      The darkness pressed closer, the face congealing like the graphics were upgrading even as the image shrunk. She was leaning right over him, her blood red hair pulsing over her orange face, her pointed gray teeth reflecting the light as it bounced around the squeezing cave. Even if Michael got free of the sucking floor, he wouldn’t be able to stand in the cave any more, he would have to crawl on hands and knees.

      “Sorry,” Michael tried. “I can do better.”

      The woman squeezed down so the hot wash of her rotten egg breath made him gag. “You’re sorry. How are you going to make this up to me Michael? What are you going to give me to forgive you? Do you have flowers? Do you have diamonds? Do you have anything I want?”

      Michael swallowed hard, his throat and stomach feeling full of noxious lumps from his fear and her breath. “Fingernails,” he said. He would live without his fingernails.

      She laughed, mockingly. “Todd already offered to give me his fingernails. And his toe nails, too. You’re underbidding, Mike. Don’t you want me to be happy? Don’t you think I deserve it? I already have fingernails and toenails. And they haven’t made me happy.”

      Michael sputtered, trying to spit out the soft non-newtonian sludge that was trying to seep into his mouth. He was sinking. Drowning in muck. She was just toying with him, like a cat with a mouse. She wasn’t going to let him out. Not even if he offered her, “Teeth, too!”

      “Oh, Mike. You know Lucy already gave me her teeth. Poor embarassed girl. Needy little thing. Offered me her teeth for practically nothing. There was a girl who wanted to make me happy. She was happy to give it to me.”

      Michael spat a globule of glowing blood. “Get it out. Get it out of my mouth!”

      “Oh!” Her voice shimmied up the scale in delight. “Michael, how wonderful. No one has ever offered me that before. You must really love me. We’re going to be so happy together.”

      “Lemme-go!”

      “Shhh. Let’s just get rid of that bad part, the part you knew you could live without, then we’ll be happy together, like we should be, forever and ever.”

      Something hard and smooth touched Michael’s cheek. It brushed past as he squeezed his mouth and eyes shut against the quickening pull of the floor. But then there were fingers at his mouth, prying at it. His eyes snapped open, under the gelatinous floor of the cave, where she moved off the wall into three dimensions, her hair wafting in the buoyancy of the slime as she pulled him down by the shirt with one hand, into her domain, along with small clean skeletons all around him, all grinning emptily at him in the bioluminesence. One right next to him, so close the skull was nuzzling the side of his face.

            She forced her other hand past his lips and grabbed his tongue.