4 Run

“What... what is that!” Cherrie stammered, her eyes wide with fear. “June, this isn’t funny. He’s terrifying.” Her voice was barely audible, and it looked like she might fall apart right there in the car. She shrank into herself like she wanted to disappear.

“I want to leave,” I whispered back, almost unable to form the words. My eyes were glued to his, or whatever that thing was. Something about him was wrong. Wrong in a way I couldn’t explain, only feel.

Cherrie started apologizing so desperately it hurt to hear. Her voice broke, shaking, and her eyes were already full of tears, ready to fall. “I’m really sorry, officer. I didn’t mean to litter. Please, forgive me.”

He leaned in. Not fast, not aggressive. But the way he filled the space… it was like the air had grown heavier, thicker. His head tilted slowly to the side, like an animal sniffing out danger. And that’s when I saw his eyes. Red. But not like someone tired. A pulsing, restless red, like something was about to explode from inside. And he didn’t look pleased about it. He looked terrified.

“Close the window. Lock the doors. Now.” His voice came out low, rough, trembling, as if he was holding an avalanche in his throat. Sweat was running down his face, his jaw trembling, not with anger, but with effort. With fear.

“Run…” he said, like someone unsure whether he was warning us or just thinking out loud. “This has never happened before…”

His hand went to his face, as if trying to hold his head together, to choke back whatever was about to break free. His fingers trembled, digging into his temples with almost desperate strength. He squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth like someone trying to hold back a scream, not a scream of rage, but of pure terror. The kind that comes from someone who knows exactly what’s about to happen… and doesn’t want it to.

I had never seen anything like it. His body started folding into itself, like his bones were trying to rearrange. Muscles jumped and tensed under the skin, twisting in waves that made my stomach turn. A dry crack, loud, brutal, echoed through the air as his jaw shifted forward in a grotesque way. He stumbled, staggering backward, and for a second I thought he would fall. But he didn’t. His body held on, even if his mind seemed to have already let go.

That’s when the nails started to grow. Too fast. They were dark, gnarled, and shaped into sharp claws, like curved blades sprouting from his fingertips. They moved through the air like they had a will of their own, like they were already searching for something to tear apart.

“RUN!” he screamed, his voice distorted between something human and something deeper, more guttural. “I can’t… control it… RUN!”

Cherrie screamed. But it wasn’t just any scream, it was the kind of sound you didn’t know someone could make. It ripped through the air like shattering glass, sharp, desperate, far too high to be simple fear. It was pure panic. I was frozen, like someone had pulled the plug connecting me to the rest of the world. My arms, my legs, everything in me had shut down. All I could do was stare, eyes wide and dry, as he twisted like his own body was a cage that could no longer hold what was inside.

Cherrie curled into herself beside me, so close I could hear her ragged breathing, yet far enough that I felt powerless to help. She hugged herself like she could disappear into her own body. With every heaving breath from her chest, I knew she was about to break for real. And when she looked at me, it was like we were stuck in the same dark hole, no way out. A kind of fear that doesn’t come with words, only emptiness.