Prompt 4 - darkNnerdy

“Hurry!” She grabbed his arm, tugging with all her strength, but he wouldn’t budge. He only stared out to the middle of the street.

With his hands shaking and his knees weak, he turned to her. “How?”

Scales and spines covered the mass in the road. It’s huge, almost shapeless form towered over the people screaming and running.

It hissed and jerked it’s head left then right. Creatures flew around it, their wings burning as black smoke leaks from their mouths. With every jerk something new was born from it’s skin. Something small that grew with every step. With every flutter.

Edward watched in horror as one after the other swooped down. Some lifted bodies high up into the air, others snapped their long beaks at frightened faces.

Legs pounded on the pavement around him as monsters leaped, swallowing the runners whole.

“We have to hide, Edward,” she pleaded with him, fisting his shirt. “We can’t stay here.”

“Where did they come from?” He turned just in time to see one of the winged beasts, talons stretched and feathers flying. It picked up a child, snatched it right from it’s mother’s hands. It’s screams were cut off as the creature tore it in two.

Something slithered to his right, the sound making him clutch at his ears. Brown slime covered everything in it’s wake.

Isabella looked up and down the street as Edward stood, frozen in horror, as she caught sight of herself in the building behind them.

“Get him inside,” The reflection hissed at her. The demon who had tormented her nights since she was a girl stared back at her.

Icy white eyes replaced the brown she knew she had, but had never seen. Her lips were full and red. Stained with the blood of those she consumed. Blood that dripped from the long dark hair over her shoulders.

“Go away!” Isabella whispered trying to look away. To look at Edward. “I can protect him.”

She couldn’t tell Edward the truth. That she caused this. That the woman he met and fell in love with in college had a secret. Something dark she hid, something she sometimes couldn’t even admit to herself. She was a coward on the outside.

Inside, though. Well inside was different.

It was cold and dark. Demented and tortuous. Her pretty smile was nothing more than a mask. Every day she stayed with him her grip on humanity began to slip a little more. Giving power to the demon inside, allowing her to show her face, to show the real monster inside.

She knew it was a mistake the day she took him into her bed. The day she said yes to the ring. A mistake, but wanted.

And ever since, like a ticking bomb, she could feel something growing inside her. A countdown to this day.

When she looked back at her reflection it’s lips curled into feral smile. Her eyes sparkled with dark delight. “Get him inside,” she said. “I’ll protect him. You know that.” Red rimmed eyes moved to Edward and she smiled. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth as she whispered his name.

Isabella closed her eyes and turned away from the mirrors.  Blocking out that part of her and she pulled on Edward.

“We have to get inside. Now.” The earth began to shake below them. Cracks formed under Edward sneakers, and he jumped back, pulling Isabella into his arms.

More creatures slithered out. Their bodies formless and shaking as they emerged.

Like thunderclouds they billowed forward. When they opened their mouths, Edward was sure he saw snakes. Their hissing tongues leaping toward them as the burning wings of those above fluttered.

Without a word he jerked open the glass doors and they both ran inside.

“I don’t…” He shook his head, turning to look at his fiance. “I don’t understand. Those things out there.”

He was already trying to catch his breath when a black creature smacked the glass door. A long crack formed as it moved away and they both screamed.

“You have to trust me, Edward.” Isabella laced her fingers in his as a ghost of her reflection looked back at her around the crack.

“Of course I trust you.” He looked at her in bewilderment. “What’s wrong, baby?”

He began checking her over, to see if one of things had touched her, hurt her.

It surprised him to find she was spotless. Not even a trace of dirt, or the water they trudged through under the bridge to get here.

“I have to tell you something.” She took a step back and the reflection snapped it’s teeth at her.

“Okay...”

“Edward, I…” she was cut off by a loud whining noise. The glass at the door had began to crack again and the steel around them had started to sway. “Edward you have to run. You have to run as far away as you can.”

Isabella choked, grabbing at her throat as smoke seeped through her lips.

“What are talking about?” He asked and felt her hand rip away from his.

When he looked back at Isabella her eyes had changed. It was the first thing he’d noticed about her and the last thing he saw every night before he closed his eyes.

“Come,” Icy white eyes blinked at him and turned brown as Isabella fought for control. Shadows covered the glass behind them, blocking out the sun and the screams from the street.

When he looked to the mirror that held his fiances reflection, he felt his world go dizzy.

When he refused her request, his eyes not leaving the glass, he heard a slithering. Something wet smacked the floor, but he couldn’t look away.

The reflection, the girl inside. Tears flowed down her pale cheeks and hands beat on the glass from inside. He watched her mouth his name just as something heavy latched onto his back.

In the mirror he watched the stinger as it striked. A black thin smoke shivered in the air before it pierced his neck.

Isabella waved a pale hand over her reflection, smiling at the frightened girl inside.

“If you would have just listened to me,” she snarled at her other half. “I was happy in that mirror, before him.” She looked down at Edward, her white eyes blazing with anger. With fear of what they had done.

“You promised me!” Isabella pounded on the mirror watching the creature hovering over Edward. It’s dark fingers dug into his skin, and Edward convuled on the floor. His entire body shook as smoke and fire surrounded him.

“Take him to the roof,” she commanded the creature at his side before turning back to her inner self. “Time to go.”

With a snap of her fingers the reflection disappeared. Inside she could still feel the girl. Her fingers scratched at the surface of her mind. Her cries burned her ears and her throat burned with acid.

“What did they tell you about falling in love with a mortal?” She asked the girl inside, shivering with disgust. “They told you this would happen. Now look at what you’ve done.”

The demon, the one Isabella hid for so long, for centuries walked behind the creature as it towed Edward up the stairs.

“There are plenty of things you could have done to bide your time. To have fun.” Her nailed scratched along the walls, leaving a burning trail behind them. “Always so naive. And now he’ll be born from that.” Her eyes moved to Edward.

“I love him. Please don’t do this.” The girl inside begged and the demon cursed herself as her heart began to ache. With a flash of her hand, the once beating heart stopped.

“Such silly tricks. A heart.” The demon laughed and licked her lips as Isabella began to sob, causing streaks of red to roll down the demons ashen skin.

“Put him over there. Tie him up!” She waved her hands as the creature blew out the door to the roof.

Swarms of flaming wings circled the building, their beaks opening wide, and their screams filled the sky.

Edward could just make out his surroundings. His eyes blurred and shut again, over and over as he heard Isabella’s voice and hissing in his ears.

“They need a sacrifice for what you did.” He watched her pace. “Thousands of years. Thousands! And not once did you fall in love. Not once!”

It was quiet for a moment and Edward tried to move while her back was to him.

“I should have taken care of him earlier. It would have been so easy, but no.” Edward looked up as she turned and behind her, where her back should have reflected in the glass of the walls was his Isabella.

“Please let him go. We can fix this.” The reflection pleaded.

“Fix this?” She whirled around, her hand slamming into the glass and it spidered. “Fix this? There isn’t another way. You bred with a human!” She spat at the mirror.

“There is always another way!” His Isabella screamed, but Edward froze. Above them one of the burning creatures struggled. His wings began to fade and Edward could see something dangling in it’s mouth.

Not something, he thought to himself. Someone.

“Filthy humans.” The demon shook just as the creature opened it’s mouth wide, dropping the offending food below.

It landed with a thud at Edward’s feet. One arm was torn from it’s body and it convulsed. A man. His legs were twisted unnaturally, but his eyes were opened and he stared at Edward.

“Help me.” He wheezed and blood began to spill from his mouth.

“I’m sympathetic, really I am. It’s Edward’s blood they want now. You played around and you got caught. Now you have to pay the consequences.” She laughed a bitter laugh looking back at the fractured reflection.

Edward sat at the edge of the building, arms bound in rope and his head throbbing. The gravel under him had started to dig into his thighs and his feet tingled. All of that took a backseat to the man struggling for life at his feet.

“Edward!” The reflection, his Isabella, shouted. The demon hissed and stomped over to the body. Her foot came down and with a wet crunch it dug in the man’s skull until there was nothing but bloodied gravel and brain matter.

Edward’s stomach emptied before he could blink.

“Good, you’re awake.”

“Who are you?” He wanted to rub his temples, wondering if it was sweat or blood he felt running down his cheek. He didn’t dare look at what was left of the man, instead, focusing on the reflection.

“I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

“Isabella?” he asked, trying hard to wrap his head around what was happening to him. To the world around him.

“Pick him up.” Edward heard the grunting of the creature as it’s snake like hands wrapped themselves around him.

“Your girlfriend has been a very naughty girl, Edward.” Isabella’s eyes raked over his body. “I can’t really blame her. I mean look at you.”

“I don’t know what’s happening, but-” he looked above them, the creatures started to fly lower, their red eyes boring down on him. “-this isn’t right. Whatever this is. People are dying. Those things out there, up there, what are they? Why are they?”

“You ask a lot of questions, Edward.” The woman that looked back at him was a shell of his fiance, a blood covered replica with ashen skin and white, blood-rimmed eyes.

“What did you do to Isabella?” he demanded.

“I call to thee, which has emerged. I call to thee and ask your forgiveness. I call to thee and ask for your sympathy. Your guidance.” The woman began, her hands balled into fists at her side.

“Bells?” Edward tried to break free from the hold of the creature, but his hands wouldn’t move.

“I call to thee, my lord, my master. I call to thee and beg of you.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I’m so sorry.” Isabella’s reflection sobbed.

“Wasn’t supposed to be like what? Isabella?” He shouted over the demon’s chanting. Her words becoming thick with accent and her eyes began to flutter.

“I call to thee with sacrifice and with blood. I call to thee with penance.” The demon rubbed her swollen stomach, feeling the life inside flutter.

“No!” The reflection screamed, her fists pounding on the already broke glass.

“What are you doing?” Edward’s eyes widened as he watched her slide a knife from her belt.

“It’s a sacrifice! She needs the blood to stop this. To stop him.” The reflection cried out.

“I call to thee!” The demon shouted.

“Please don’t do this.” Edward said, still struggling with the creature. “Take me.”

The demon’s eyes snapped to him, a cruel smile on her wet, red lips.

“You die for him? For her?” She looked back at Isabella in the mirror. With a snap of her fingers, Isabella’s mouth closed before she could say another word. Before she could spoil and taint this moment of pleasure. Of delight.

“I’d do anything for her.”

“Very well.” Even with white eyes, Edward could see the pleasure in them as she strode up to him. The pure excitement they held as she looked him over.

Creatures danced behind her in a rhythm all their own. Each of them opened their bright red eyes looking dead at him as the demon chanted.

Her hands touched him, pushing and pulling until he was at the edge of the building. His feet inches from dangling over the side and his hands still bound behind his back.

Isabella beat wildly on the glass as she watched, horrified and crying. Inside she could feel the baby that grew. It moved within her, clawing at her insides. She could hear the darkened whispers outside. Words spoken long ago. Words not meant for this world.

She wanted to reach out, to grab Edward and pull him in. To protect him.

With her hands on her stomach and her eyes closed tight, she knew it was too late. Her mistake, her love for the man outside, would cost her everything.

“Don’t do this,” she tried to whisper into the mind of the demon, but she was blocked.

“For your life, comes the life of my lord. For your life, comes my savior,” the demon said, looking into Edward’s eyes.

Isabella cried out in pain, catching Edward’s attention as she doubled over. The pain, the clawing within her, becoming too much to take.

“Do you sacrifice yourself for him?”

“What?” He looked up at her reluctantly. His heart was breaking for the girl in the mirror.

The demon repeated her words once again, growing irritated with him as her fingers tightened their hold.

“Will you help her?”

“She’ll be free, yes.”

With a swallowed sob and tears down his face, Edward agreed. “I sacrifice myself him.”

Silence followed his words. The creatures above stopped moving and the angry clouds around them flattened.

He didn’t feel the blade as it sliced through the thin skin of his throat. He felt the warmth as it trickled down his collarbone and a burning in his chest, but nothing more.

“So it shall be.” The demon smiled at him as the mirror behind her shattered and glass blew around them.

His eyes fluttered as the creature released it’s hold on him.

Twenty feet away Isabella laid on the broken glass, her stomach flat and body shaking.

When he looked away he saw the demon with a baby swaddled in her arms. His baby.

“Thank you,” the demon said as she looked at him. The once sinister smile, now turned gentle.

When he blinked, black spots scattered around him and then creatures gathered around the roof.

“Edward?” Isabella looked up at and scrambled to her feet.

He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. The world around him was beginning to fade.

“Isabella,” the demon warned and Edward felt his head throb as he looked at them. Their only difference in the eyes. “The baby or the man?”

Edward felt his knees begin to buckle under him as the baby made it’s first cry. A noise unlike anything he’d heard before. Like the screams of the monsters below him on the street. Shriek after shriek.

It’s tiny hands reached for him, and the demon moved them closer.

“It’s the blood,” she said laying the baby at his feet.

“Stop!” Isabella yelled but it’s arms were already slithering out digging into the gravel below. A serpent's tongue emerged from the blanket, licking it’s way up Edward legs, devouring and drinking in the blood.

He watched in horror as the baby, the monster, began to transform with every drop it took from him. It’s eyes turned black as coals and it’s skin leathered and worn.

It was consuming him. Its razor like claws digging in and draining him. He could feel it. The dizziness. The calm as its poisons wrapped themselves around his heart and snaked through his body.

“Edward no!” Isabella made a leap for him but the demon was faster. Striking out like a snake, she shoved the blade deep into his chest, the force knocking him back and over the edge.

His head snapped with the force of the fall, cracking the mirrored glass walls as he tumbled down.

“Edward!” Isabella sobbed as the demon held her back, her long brown hair whipping in the wind as she watched him.

With his eyes open, terrified and wide, she heard the sickening smack of his body as it hit the ground. Bones popped from his flesh and blood oozed from the wounds, pouring freely around him. A runner tripped over his corpse, twisting it to the side, and revealed his skull from the back.

She could see bits of his brain as it stained the sidewalk, his head torn open and his spine peeking out. One of his rib bones had caught on the pavement, tearing open his back as the runner tripped. If she looked hard enough she could see the last dying beats of his heart as it pumped.

In a flash the monsters surrounded him. Teeth gnashed against bone and lips smacked around flesh as they chewed and swallowed. They ate and ate until there was nothing left but smears and bits of flesh on the ground.

When they had licked the pavement clean and their stomachs were full they waited.

Above, Isabella’s heart grew cold.

With only Edward in her mind, she grabbed the demon baby in her arm, wincing as it bite into her skin, but refusing to scream in pain.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” The demonic form of her asked as it licked her fingers clean of Edward’s blood.

Isabella looked down at the creature in her arms. It was back in human form and green eyes looked up at her, breaking her heart.

“Forgive me,” she whispered, kissing it once before flinging them both off the building and into the waiting mouths of the beasts below.

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Imagine dropping one-hundred pounds of steak fillets from the top of a building. Can't you just hear the meat smacking the pavement? Mmmm. Who's hungry???

See you tomorrow, lovelies!

The Unholy Trinity