• Previous part (8)
• Post-mortem

We jumped from time zone to time zone.
We spent days in a freezing winter
Only to teleport to the warmest summer.
I ceased to care about how much time passed;
The calendar was put together by humans,
And our furniture was made out of their bones.

I grew to love my monstrous form.
I began to think of myself as beautiful.
My mind and body were now my own,
And I had a purpose and a reason for being.

Glyca had grown, in a word, gluttonous.
She always tried to have a corpse at hand,
And she interrupted our conversations to eat,
Tearing out large chunks of human flesh,
Then chewing and speaking at the same time.

At first, with each victim, Glyca gained strength,
But as her appetite grew, her body swelled.
We always slept in each other’s arms;
Her chest used to feel firm under my head,
As it contained muscles trained through hunting,
But now I rested my head on a cushion of fat.

Glyca’s mood swings worried me the most.
She would be so happy and excited one day,
Only to turn moody and taciturn the next.
Glyca knew how to read, which surprised me,
And had grown to enjoy my books and mangas,
But once I saw that she cried softly as she read,
Then she tore out pages and chewed on them.

I was terrified to bring up the changes.
I never believed I deserve to be loved
By anyone, let alone a goddess like Glyca.
Now that she was forced to share her space,
Had she gotten tired of my insufficient self?
Was she embarrassed of my baby dick?
I couldn’t deal if she fell out of love with me.

I struggled through waking nightmares
In which I faced a vision of my Glyca
That, yelling, told me that I wasn’t worth it;
I wasn’t strong nor fast enough,
I was a useless parasite,
A burden on her, who deserved far better.
She said that I was too stupid to survive,
And that I should just give up and die.
In my visions, I begged her to eat me;
At least I wished for my worthless flesh
To serve my beloved girl as nourishment.

Some weeks, Glyca’s mood swayed back
And she became so passionate and loving
That I could hardly keep her tail off my ass.
When she came, it was like an explosion;
Violent and painful, but also sweet.
Her seed would shoot out in a thick stream,
And I’d swallow it down eagerly, like a sponge.
But even then, I caught her glancing at me
As if a terminal illness would end my life.

For a routine hunt, Glyca teleported us
To a tiny town somewhere in the Middle East.
The dozens of villagers lived in houses
Made out of mud bricks and straw roofs.
The men’s faces were covered with stubble.
They wore colorful robes and sandals,
And they seemed to deal mostly in goats.

As we hid in the shadows, before the kill,
Glyca shot me a pained, hollow look
As if she had realized all was meaningless.
I was shocked, and trembled from head to toe.

Glyca teleported away from the shadows.
Seconds later, I heard isolated, terrified shrieks
That were cut short suddenly as the victim died.
When a thick silence fell upon the village,
I finally dared to venture out of my hiding place.

I located Glyca in the middle of the village;
The moonlight gleamed on her bloodied scales
As she sat on the dirt, surrounded by corpses
Of the men, women, and children of the village.
Glyca’s black eyes were glazed and vacant
As she chewed calmly on someone’s heart.

I couldn’t tell how many months had passed,
But Glyca had ballooned to an enormous size.
She always stank of rotting meat and sweat.
At home, she often lost pieces of half-eaten flesh
Only to find them caught between her folds.
But sleeping in her arms was like sinking softly
Into a huge pillow covered in soft sequins,
So every night I felt that her obesity was worth it.

Our best times, now past, made me cry;
Back then I woke up and she kissed me all over,
Then she caressed me with her sharp claws,
And sometimes she sang to me in a throaty voice.

Her gloominess got too heavy to carry,
But Glyca reached a turning point with herself
During one hunt, when she failed to kill someone
Because she had to stop and catch her breath.
Afterwards, it’s like she knew she was done,
As if life didn’t hold any interest anymore,
And for days she refused to leave our cave.
She lay on her side as she stared into space
And listened to the wind blow through the trees.

My heart hurts watching my Glyca like this,
Slumped in a corner like a deflating balloon.
A tear runs down my face, and I understand
That I’ll have to hear some painful truths.

I take a shiv and cut open my arm.
Blood oozes out onto some bones.
I watch as the red liquid flows freely.
It feels good, and it gives me courage.

I wring my hands as I approach my Glyca.
I step on a skull by mistake, and it cracks.
Glyca raises her face. Her eyes are teary.
I kneel next to her and I kiss her forehead.

“My love, I couldn’t help but notice
That you’ve gotten a little chunky.”
Glyca purses her lips, then bursts into tears.
She sobs like a child until I calm her down.

“If you are sick of me, that’s alright,”
I dare to say, although my voice trembles,
“I’ll just move out, get out of your way.”
Glyca shakes her head and hugs me tightly.
“Don’t say that! You are the love of my life!
I can’t bear the thought of losing you!”

I wipe the snot that’s running down my nose.
“You have grown so big, and so depressed,
But nothing I do seems to make you happy.
Your sadness courses through my bones.
I am dying inside. I don’t know how to help you.
Please tell me what’s wrong. Please let me fix it.”

Glyca’s eyes look like two dark holes.
“Oh, my boy! Please, forgive me!
I’m sorry for making you worry about me.
I’m not despairing because I don’t want you,
It’s just the opposite, and that’s the problem!”

I don’t understand, and Glyca continues,
But she can barely speak through the tears.
“I’ve lived for thousands of years, you know?
I was born in a cave in a frozen wasteland.
I remember how the winds blew fiercely
And the sky seemed filled with ice.
I grew up in a pitch black darkness.
For so long, I lived a life without light.

Nature forces cycles of hibernation upon me.
Whenever I woke up from those long slumbers,
I wondered what was the point of bothering.
Wouldn’t it be better to disappear in dreams
Until my bloated body consumed itself to bones?
For what purpose would I hunt and kill again
If I would have to endure this darkness by myself?

I’ve been alone for longer than empires have existed.
The last time I saw another of my own kind,
Humans still fought with swords and shields.
I had given up long ago, I knew I’d die alone.
No matter how many millennia I came to live,
Nobody would ever love someone like me.”

I hug Glyca tight, and I feel her body heat up.
We hold each other as she cries on my shoulder.
“You mean that you’ll need to hibernate soon,”
I say in a thin voice, which ends up breaking.
Glyca nods. She wipes her eyes.
“I’m sorry, my love. I should have told you,
But I was terrified of saying it out loud.”

“I want to tell you to just resist it,” I say,
“But I assume that wouldn’t be possible.”
Glyca tries to speak, but she chokes up.
A bit later, she manages to push words out.
“It’d be like you trying to stay awake forever.
After a few days, you’d just pass out,
Except that in my case, when I finally woke up,
You’d be long, long gone, my boy.”

My heart hurts like never before.
I’m so sad I can barely breathe.
I pull away to look at Glyca’s face,
Then I kiss her eyelids and cheeks.

“I wish you could also live forever,”
Glyca says as her shoulders tremble,
“Just the two of us, and be together,
So we would sleep, hunt, and kill,
And satisfy all of our hungers.
We’d hibernate together for centuries,
Then we’d finally wake up hungry again.
We’d get to hold and love each other
Until the day we watched the world die.”

I don’t know how much time we spend
Just holding each other tightly,
As if the other would merely vanish
The moment we loosened our embrace.

I try to force my mouth to move,
But my lips refuse to form any sound.
It feels like my brain has been replaced
With a large lump of molten lead.

Glyca takes a deep breath and pulls away.
When she stares at me from up close,
Her black eyes are filled with determination.
“Nature put in my kind a way to interrupt it,
Our centuries of hibernation, I mean,
So we could feel each other again soon,
Even if it would be… for a short while.”

Glyca looks down, and her eyes drop tears.
Afraid of what may come, I hold my breath,
But when my love looks up at me again,
She smiles like she found a good solution.

“For the longest time, I was totally sure
That having children would never be for me.
But you are the one, you are the only one
That I’d ever love and who’d love me back.”

I hadn’t imagined that anyone would want me
To the extent of wanting to procreate.
I am happy, and my heart beats faster.
I caress the scales of Glyca’s huge, bulging belly.

“Of course I’ll have children with you, my love.
Even if my tiny dick can’t penetrate deep enough,
I’m sure I’ll manage to shoot my cum inside,
And if I’m actually fertile, I’ll impregnate you.”

Glyca gifts me an understanding smile.
She shakes her head, kisses my lips,
Then places her hand on my chest.
“You’d be the one to bear our children.
I’ll penetrate you much deeper than before,
And I’ll keep pumping you full of my seed.”

I’m speechless and confused.
Glyca knows for sure that I lack a womb,
But she’s confident that this would work.
When I hold her gaze again, I catch
A wordless meaning to that pained stare.
Having children together requires a sacrifice.

My body isn’t built to gestate any babies;
The process will tear me apart from the inside.
But as I consider that prospect, my shoulders relax.
For Glyca, I would endure any amount of pain,
And if the gestation kills me, then so be it.

I never understood why I had to endure this life,
But this is a purpose that I can believe in;
If I can make Glyca’s kind prosper again,
Then I will have done my one good deed.

I smile softly, then I kiss Glyca’s lips.
“Of course I will carry your babies.
You are my whole world, Glyca.”
She nods as her eyes fill with tears,
Then she throws her arms around me.
For a while, Glyca weeps unrestrainedly.

We shared a final night under the myriad of stars,
Lying on the grass, peering through the canopy.
I said goodbye to my books and manga series,
I said goodbye to Glyca’s bone furniture.

Glyca clarified that we would move somewhere else.
The conception, gestation and childbirth
Was a troublesome process for her ancient species,
And it would require my full, constant cooperation.

“I’ll be helpless the whole way through, my boy,”
Glyca said as she caressed my naked chest.
“If you wanted, you could just bite off my tongues
Or struggle enough to wrench yourself free.”

Glyca senses that she may pass out soon,
So she finally teleports us away to her nest.
I find myself sinking in plump pillows.
I’m submerged in darkness so thick and black
As if the light had never touched this place.
The air is cool, and it smells like moist minerals.
The sounds of our breaths are echoed back.
We are inside a cramped space with thick walls.

I’m suddenly overwhelmed with claustrophobia,
But Glyca’s fat arms are embracing me tightly,
And her swollen belly presses against my skin.
I feel like I’m floating safely in warm gelatin.

“W-where are we, Glyca?” I ask.
She sniffles, then kisses my neck.
“Deep underground, in my nest,
Where I’ve returned to hibernate
Whenever I was forced to repeat it.
It’s a tiny cave inaccessible for people,
But the oxygen comes in through fissures
Barely big enough to let some insects pass.”

“Is the ground covered in pillows?”
“That’s right, my boy, very old ones
That I had collected to sleep comfortably,
And they’ll hold you lovingly too
Through the very long period of gestation.”

Glyca can’t help but burst into tears.
I kiss her deeply, and we make out
For a few minutes before we are done.
“Make me pregnant, Glyca,” I say,
“Before you simply pass out
And I’ll have to grow old and die alone.”

Glyca’s tears wet my cheeks.
“I love you so much, my boy.”
A wave of sadness washes over me.
“And I will always love you, Glyca.”

After she takes a deep breath,
She slides her two tongues into my mouth.
One of her hands grips my ass cheek
To expose my mostly loose asshole.
I shudder warmly, and my dick twitches.
The tip of her tail lubricates my hole,
And it only needs to push once to enter.

Her tail glides further inside me
While both of her tongues slide
Down my throat and then diverge;
Her feeding tongue goes into my esophagus,
And the tube-like one pushes into my trachea.

I risk gagging, but I take a deep breath.
My lungs expand with Glyca’s oxygen,
And I feel the pleasure of her nectar flowing
And coating my esophagus on its way down.
Soon, its sedative, hypnotic properties will kick in.
Cause and effect, and time, will become meaningless.
My mind will sink slowly in swirly daydreams.

My toes are curling, my breath becomes ragged
As Glyca’s tail slides deeper and deeper inside,
Way past my rectum, deep in my large intestine.
She’s ventured beyond where she usually came.
Once the tail reaches some sort of end,
I feel it maneuvering to enter another tract,
Likely the bunched folds of the small intestine.

My stomach is filling up with Glyca’s nectar,
Which is already making me delirious.
Glyca’s tight embrace, and her throbbing tail
Are causing tingles to course throughout me.
I can’t imagine a more perfect, wholesome life
Than one with her tail snaking in my insides.

I’m breathing heavily as my body gets hotter.
I can’t tell how much time has passed already.
Glyca’s tail pushes millimeter by millimeter,
As if she feared perforating my intestines.

My eyes roll back, and my head is spinning.
I feel like I’m floating on a cloud of nectar.
My thoughts are hazy and confused.
I can’t remember what I ever said or did,
I just know that I want to stay here forever.

I dream of Glyca’s round, soft breasts.
I fondle them, I rub my face against them.
I can feel her heart pounding
As I lick and suck on her round nipples.

The hypnagogic currents are carrying me,
But I feel the pressure of Glyca’s bulbous tip
As it pushes against some entrance located
A few centimeters lower than my chest.
The tip of her tail suddenly plops in,
And Glyca stirs and groans in her sleep.

She’s shivering and tensing up;
She must be ejaculating inside me.
I get an image of my stomach filling up
With her loads of white, snakey cum,
Which dilutes in the pool of nectar.

I feel how Glyca falls into a deeper sleep,
But thankfully leaves her tail sheathed.
Our offspring are beginning to develop,
And one day they’ll burst from inside me
So I can die a happy man.

I look down and see my tiny penis
As it winks in the light of the sun.
I feel the sunlight on my skin,
And I hear birds chirping all around me.

I don’t have to worry about anything,
Because I am with my love.
Glyca is naked, and her hair is long.
Her claws are painted pink.
Her pussy is shaved clean,
And it smells like strawberries.

“Look at your penis, Glyca,”
I say to my love. “It’s so huge!”
She strokes my head and laughs.
“You’re such a silly boy! Your tiny penis
Is perfectly normal, don’t worry.”
“And you have beautiful breasts, Glyca.
Your full, firm tits are really nice.”
“You’re such a sweetheart.”
“Can I touch them?”
“Of course, my boy. They’re yours.”
“They’re very big and heavy.
I can’t even fit them in my mouth!”
“That’s because I’ve got a fat belly,
That’s why my boobs are so big.
Come on, give them a squeeze.
You’ll see how much milk I produce.”

I feel her nipples harden under my palms.
I run my fingers over the ridges of her areolas.
“Mmm, yes, these are real beauties,” I say,
“I can feel how they swell up when I do that.
I’m a good little boy who loves mommy’s breasts.”
“I’m glad you like them, my sweet boy,
But you’re still too young to have kids.
You can’t get pregnant until your eggs are mature.”

I fondle her huge breasts, I squeeze them
As I swallow gallons of Glyca’s milk-cum.
I’m so proud of my monstrous offspring.
They keep growing happily inside me.
I feel them wriggling and squirming,
And how they kick with their tiny feet.

I’m so happy that I was able to give birth to them.
I’m so glad that they were born inside me.
I’m so proud that I had the strength to carry them.
I’m so lucky that I could care for them.

I find my father lying unconscious
On the living room couch, covered in vomit,
Surrounded by empty bottles of whisky.
His head lolls back and forth
As I hurry to call an ambulance.

The paramedics arrive at the scene.
When they lift my father’s shirt,
There’s a hideous scar over his heart.
They get busy applying CPR to revive him.

In between bouts of vomiting,
My old man mumbles incoherences.
“Your mom hates me.
They took everything from me.
Leave me alone.”

The paramedics continue pumping
Life support machines into his chest.
My father raises a trembling hand
As he smiles at a phantasm.
“Yes, I’d love to dance with you.”

My mother shakes her head slowly
As she glares down from her throne.
“What the fuck have you done now?
I can’t believe that you’re going to be a father.
You’ve always been such a weakling.
You’re nothing but a useless loser,
A hideous and insane monster.
Why can’t you just let go of your pathetic life?
I bet you wish you were never born.”

I’m alone in this world,
Alone with no one to turn to.
My only hope is that my unborn children
Will live and grow strong.

My esophagus burns. I need to vomit.
I’m palms are sinking into a huge pillow.
A solid, wriggling ball is pushing out,
Escaping my body through my throat.

I feel Glyca’s hand rubbing my back
As she holds me by the chest.
“That’s it, my boy, you’re doing great,”
She whispers through the copious tears.
“Just a few more contractions,
And then the little one will pop out.”

My mouth leaks warm saliva like a faucet.
I groan as my throat gets stretched.
It hurts so much, I fear I’m going to pass out.
Once the living ball brushes my uvula,
My spine shakes and I projectile vomit.
I cough and gag. I try to clear my throat,
But I feel another ball pushing out,
Desperate to escape from my stomach.

Glyca’s weight shifts around in the pillows.
She manages to whisper between sobs.
“Our first child, our beautiful daughter.
Keep pushing, my boy, there are more.”

My bowels are loosening,
My bladder is emptying itself.
Tears are jumping from my eyes
As the big ball of another daughter
Stretches out my esophagus slowly.

Maybe I passed out, but I’m back
As I lie in a puddle of my own vomit.
My Glyca is crying nearby, in the dark.
“Hello, my darling. I’m your mommy.”

Everything hurts, I can barely breathe,
But I can tell that the process is over.
As I wipe the sweat off my face,
I expect my numerous cysts to sting,
But my skin is now mostly flat,
Except for the pits of their scars.
My facial hair is also much thicker,
What I would consider a full beard,
And my hairline has receded significantly.

My hands tremble as I grope for Glyca.
I touch her smooth scales, and a tiny form
That has latched on to Glyca’s flesh.
I feel one of my daughters’ tiny fingers
As a lukewarm fluid pours on my hand.

Glyca is containing yelps of pain.
A hollow feeling spreads in my chest.
I examine one my daughters’ tiny body.
I touch her hair and feel her soft skin.
I find her sharp teeth sinking in
And tearing pieces out of Glyca’s flesh.

As I close my hand around my daughter,
Glyca grabs my wrist to make me stop.
“My boy,” she says in a thin, pained voice,
“Our daughters will devour my flesh
Until nothing but my bones are left of me.”

I shake my head. My eyes burn.
“They should eat me instead!
You need to live, Glyca!”
She cups the back of my head
With a weak, trembling hand,
And pulls me close to kiss me.

“Nature has made it so our offspring
Require the meat of one of our species
To survive their dangerous first days.
That’s part of why so few of us were around,
And until now I may have been the last.

My hot tears hit the back of my hands.
“There must be some alternative!
We will end up finding it together!”
Glyca’s voice breaks as she gets bitten.
“We are born with the instinct to teleport.
They’ll soon carry you out of here.
As their father, you’ll need to teach them
How to hunt and kill their only prey,
So they’ll be able to survive
In this ugly, hostile world of ours.”

My back is shaking, my throat is closed shut.
Glyca caresses the clear skin of my cheek,
Which used to be covered in inflamed cysts.
She speaks to me softly, with gratitude.

“You knew already that this world is cruel,
Mainly because nature is indifferent.
It’s unable to care about the pain
It causes to all the creatures it created.
Every living species is a slave
Urged to obey the only drive of life:
That of propagating itself
Mindlessly, purposelessly,
Just like a cancer.
And to deceive us into obeying,
It spawned convoluted strategies
Like the numerous gods that came to be,
Like what we call morality,
And even the feeling we know as love.
Back when I first felt it for you,
I knew my brain was deceiving me,
But I’m glad I came to believe,
Because without love,
The endless aeons
Are just unbearable.
This life is too painful,
And I’m glad I kept going.
Thank you, my love,
For being my mate.”

‘A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 9’ by Jon Ureña

THE END

• Previous part (7)
• Next part (9)

I squint at the midday sun
While I wish it was dark outside.
I have been wandering aimlessly
Like I did to ditch school,
But now I’m in a pained daze
As walk through strange streets.
I don’t know where I’m going
Or what I’m going to do.

I was already hungry when I got home;
Now my stomach growls uncontrollably.
I’ve left my father’s place to never return,
But I’ve got no money to my name.
I took for granted how I relied on my father,
Who in turn relied on the government,
That in turn stole from the decent citizens.

I’m sitting in a park near a pond,
With a few empty cans of soda nearby.
A squirrel chases a bird away.
A lone swan floats on the water’s surface.
I wonder if anyone will ever notice me,
Or if I’ll just be forgotten by the world.

My brains churn with thoughts of meat,
Of tender, juicy ribs dripping fat juices,
Meat cooked slowly in a pot,
Steaming delicious steak.

The shadow of a plane passes overhead,
And I think to myself, “If I were a pilot
And had a big cock like a missile,
I’d drop bombs on a city full of people,
Then eat their charred flesh
Like a starving cannibal.
Finally, I’d dig up a big hole
And plant my penis in the ground,
To let it grow into a tree
And watch it sprout branches and leaves.”

How am I going to secure food?
Where am I going to sleep?
I feel naked and powerless.
My only relief in this broken life
Is that Glyca considers me irreplaceable.

If I had to rely solely on myself
To survive among these humans,
I’d either die in a matter of days
Or inevitably turn into a monster.
I’d spend all day looking for food
And I’d sleep on the cold, dirty ground.

I would drink my own piss
And eat other people’s feces.
I’d eventually go insane
And kill everyone I met.
I’d become a cannibalistic beast
Who would maim and feast.

I want the darkness to swallow me up,
Even if Glyca has no clue where I am.
I approach an abandoned building
That used to house a restaurant;
Now it’s a skeleton of bricks and mortar.
I needed to hide, to be alone in the dark.

Inside, a layer of dust filters the sunlight.
The floorboards are rotten and uneven.
The building is filled with cobwebs and mold,
And abandoned, decaying furniture.

The busted windows let the light pour in.
I grab a table and drag it over to a wall.
I crawl up into the shadows under the table,
Then I curl up into a ball and close my eyes.

I’m hungry and already dehydrated.
My body feels heavy and dull.
Once again, I wish I would disappear,
Just cease to exist as if I never had.
I’ve never been a proper human being,
Just an ugly, disgusting creature
Afraid of its own reflection.

I feel a presence lying behind me
Who breathes softly upon my neck.
I turn around to see Glyca’s black eyes.
Her vertical pupils glow with compassion.
She smiles, displaying her pointy teeth.

“You looked so lonely, my boy,” she whispers.
“That argument with your dad hurt you bad,
But we don’t need to sneak around anymore.
We can be ourselves in our own private space.
You know I can give you a comfortable shelter.
In exchange, you can provide me love and sex.”

I am relieved because Glyca has found me,
But I tremble and risk bursting into tears.
“Glyca, I may have fucked up bad.
I’d be fine living in a cave, just you and I,
But I can’t rely on human meat for nourishment.”

Glyca chuckles, then sticks out her tongue,
Which is oozing its thick, syrupy nectar.
My girlfriend moves her face over mine
So a big bead of her sweet nectar grows
Then falls from her tongue into my mouth.

For a second, Glyca’s smile falters.
“Nature is a rotten bitch, but thanks to her,
The nectar my tongue produces is enough
To supply you with all the necessary nutrients.
You’ll need to suck on my tongue every hour or two,
And sometimes more if you’re feeling weak.
As long as I keep filling my belly with humans,
You’ll never need to rely on anyone else.”

As Glyca wraps her arms around me tightly,
I seal my lips around hers and I take her in,
To suckle on her slimy tongue like a baby.
Her organ is wet, slippery and smooth,
And I can feel the muscular fibers inside.

I have closed my eyes, but I struggle to breathe;
I am so safe and comforted suckling on her,
With the tips of her claws pressing against my back
And her sweet nectar pouring down my throat,
That I don’t want to move for the rest of my life.

I feel Glyca’s second tongue sliding in
Past my own tongue and down my trachea.
I flinch at the intrusion as if I risked choking,
But lukewarm air flows out of the tube-like tongue,
Providing my lungs with all the oxygen they need.

My stomach is full of her thick saliva,
And I feel lightheaded and euphoric.
My brain is flooded with smells,
From the syrupy nectar to rotting food,
Fresh water and fresh vegetation,
Animal carcasses and human waste.

Glyca has teleported us home,
To the anonymous cave deep in the woods,
Far away from humans and their mistakes.
No stranger is going to wander into this place
To mock us, insult us, and stop us from living.

I hear Glyca’s breathing, I feel her heartbeat.
I know she’s here for me and I’m not alone.
The more nectar flows down my throat,
The more frayed cause and effect becomes,
And it gets harder to count the passing seconds.
I’m drunk on Glyca’s saliva and can’t think straight.

A female shriek of panic echoes in my mind,
Which paints a picture of a terrified woman
Who is scrambling down a darkened corridor,
Fleeing from the monster that is pursuing her.

Something hits my legs and falls with a thud.
It jolts me awake, and after I blink a few times,
I realize I had been sleeping on a bed of moss,
And that I’m looking at a young Asian woman.

She’s mumbling in Chinese or Korean
While she trembles and blubbers.
She’s wearing leggings and a tank top,
And she’s hot enough to make me nervous.

As I wonder where the hell I truly am,
And why would I be facing this sporty lady,
Glyca crawls out of the darkness
And pounces on the woman, immobilizing her.

The woman squeals and writhes around fruitlessly.
Glyca opens her mouth close to the woman’s neck,
But I raise my hand and yell at my girlfriend to stop.
Glyca freezes, then shoots me a look of confusion.

“Glyca, who is this woman?” I demand to know.
“What do you mean…? She’s prey, just a human
That I found after I jumped into a new shadow.
This one was running along an isolated path,
Which made her an easy target for predators.
I love it when they are dripping in hot sweat.
I leapt out of the darkness and caught her.
I’ve brought her home to eat her calmly.”

My heart beats fast as the woman struggles
To break free from Glyca’s powerful grip.
“My love, aren’t I just a human too?” I ask.
She smiles, showing her sharp teeth,
But her eyes are shy and apologetic.
My girlfriend lets out a nervous laugh.

“You are not a human being like them,
You are so much more, you are my boy!
Are you worried that I’d want to eat you?
Before hurting you, I’d rather kill myself!”

The Asian woman is crying uncontrollably.
“Think about how you feel about me,” I say,
“Because someone may love her the same way.
How would you feel if someone kidnapped me,
And you never found out what happened?”

Glyca grimaces, then looks back at the woman
As if observing her face for the first time.
The woman finds herself staring at Glyca’s eyes,
Which causes her to turn white and pass out.

“This woman doesn’t deserve being devoured,”
I say carefully as Glyca loosens her grip.
“Do you understand what I mean, Glyca?
She’s not like those bastards who hurt me.
It doesn’t sit well with me that you kill normies.
Please, return this woman to China or Korea,
Or wherever the hell you kidnapped her from.”

Glyca lowers her head. Her gaze is unfocused.
Sheepishly, she nods and teleports away
Carrying with her the random Asian lady,
And leaving me alone in this darkened space.
It’s a cave, but larger than the one I knew,
And I can’t spot an entrance from here.

The only sources of light are some candles,
Which cast shadows over the rough walls.
Glyca must have lighted them for my sake.
She has decorated the walls with flowers,
And carcasses that hang from the vaulted ceiling.
Inside a natural niche in the rock wall,
Glyca has put a few human skulls on display.
Every breath of air smells like decaying flesh.

After I stand up and walk to stretch my legs,
I come across a large pile of human bones,
Some of which are broken and splintered.
A few of the skulls are small like a child’s.

Close by I spot a large ceramic bowl
That contains a bloody, severed head.
It’s upside down, its eyes are wide open,
And its tongue hangs out of its mouth.
There are no lips or nose, just gaping holes,
And the hair is matted with blood and gore.

Glyca pops out of nowhere, next to me.
She’s sitting and hugging her knees
As she buries her face in her forearms.
Her long tail is wrapped around her waist,
And her chest is heaving while she cries.

I can’t stand to see my love like this.
I kneel next to her and I hug her tightly.
“I’m sorry for chastising you, Glyca,” I say.
She lifts her head and stares with teary eyes.

“M-my boy, I imagined you being devoured,
And it broke my heart like nothing before.
Y-you think that some of these humans
Can love each other like you and I do?”

I rub my chin and think about it.
“I suppose that some might, I guess,
But I didn’t want you to eat that woman
Because it didn’t sit well with me.”

Glyca hides her face, and shakes her head.
“My species can’t digest other meats,
When we reach adulthood, at least.”
She shuts up as she takes a deep breath,
Then she sighs and snuggles against me.
“So I need to hunt and consume humans.
We are predators and they are our prey.”

I run my fingers through her coarse hair.
“You don’t need to become a vegetarian.
Just don’t eat hot women, or children.”
Glyca peeks out from behind her forearms.
“What humans are free reign for me to kill?”
“You can eat shady people, and criminals.”
“Don’t those have families sometimes,
And also romantic partners who love them?”
“I guess… But fuck them.”

Glyca nods, having regained her confidence.
“By the way, what cave are we in?” I ask.
“Ah, this is one of my main apartments,
Or at least that’s how you could call them.
It’s very isolated. I’ve used it for centuries.
We are going to live together in here, right?”

Glyca looks so vulnerable and cute.
Her scales glimmer in the candlelight.
Does she fear that I’m reconsidering our love?
I caress the smooth scales of her pretty face
And I slide my tongue into her wet mouth.
Glyca shudders and her tail lashes about.

“My boy, your kisses are so delicious,”
Glyca whispers as she bites my lower lip.
I stroke the length of her back slowly.
“Thank you for bringing me to your place,
And for letting me live with you from now on.
We can both be who we were meant to,
Now that we are draped in darkness.”

In a short while, we are lying on her mossy bed.
Glyca has reached between my spread legs
And is now massaging my balls gently.
Her slimy mouth kisses down my torso.
My thighs rest on her firm shoulders
As her tongue swirls inside my asshole.
She slips three fingers in, and starts pumping.

Turns out, earning loads of money was easy
Once I became devoted to my new job.
Glyca teleported me to random communities,
And I scouted around looking for shady places.
Barber shops where weird people hung out,
And who became anxious and dismissive
The moment I entered to ask for a haircut.
Ethnic restaurants filled only with thugs,
Who had fortified the shopfronts
With sturdy burglar bars and roller shutters.

Glyca stalked our targets from the shadows,
And usually ripped their throats open
Before they ever got the chance to scream.
Sometimes, she would watch them die
As she tore out and ate chunks of their flesh.
Many of those people carried wads of cash.
Most of the places we hit were gang hideouts,
So we returned home with a significant bounty.

Glyca has no use for money,
But I enjoy buying random crap.
Too bad about the lack of electricity.
I bought plenty of clothes and shoes,
Because they tended to get real dirty,
But I also bought books and manga series.
I love to get fucked by my girlfriend,
Then roll over to light up a candle
And resume reading some Japanese tale.

We ended up with a pile of money
Next to the bones of our many victims.
We were killing beyond Glyca’s appetite,
And I was concerned about wasting food,
But Glyca assured me that she had a solution,
One she had found many millennia ago:
She owned her own freezer cave in Siberia,
Where human carcasses of ancient humans
Hanged from hooks waiting for their turn,
Once Glyca lacked fresh corpses to feed from.

I can’t avoid stepping on random bones.
My feet are covered in blood and gore.
The ground is slick with fluids and excrement,
And there are flies buzzing around my head.
I feel like I’m walking through a graveyard
As the skulls stare at me with empty eye sockets.

To change up our habits a bit, for fun,
Glyca skins a corpse, then roasts it
On a giant spit over a fire pit, in the evening,
Near a river where the frogs keep croaking.
The smell of charred meat fills the air.
Glyca eats a cooked morsel slowly, like a delicacy,
And when I try one, I find it delicious.
I start to think that I’d been wrong;
Maybe humans aren’t all that bad.

Some parts we fry in oil and serve with spices,
Other parts we grill and eat with salt.
Some are stewed in broth and drenched in gravy.
Some parts we boil and serve with noodles.

I have taken off my dirty clothes,
And I stand up to approach the river.
Behind me, Glyca is eating a juicy rib,
But stops to speak with her mouth full.
“The smell of blood brings me such joy.
I love to taste the meat and drink the juices.
Nothing beats the flavour of the dead.”

After I drink, as cold water drips from my chin,
I straighten my back and stare at my reflection.
The melted monster emerged, its skin peeled off,
Leaving behind a grotesque creature
With gaping holes for nostrils and mouth.
Now I own a thick torso with four arms and legs,
Limbs stronger and thicker than the old ones were.
My head consists of a giant cock covered in spines,
Each of which is tipped with poison darts,
And my arms end in big bulbs resembling testicles
Which contain something viscous, like sperm,
That spurts out and hits the dirt wherever I walk.

‘A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 8’ by Jon Ureña

• Previous part (6)
• Next part (8)

When I enter my father’s apartment,
I see him sitting on the living room sofa
As he smokes a cig in front of a full ashtray.
He is wearing a tattered grey sweater
And baggy jeans with holes in the knees.

I intended to ignore him and walk away,
But he wipes his eyes and intercepts me.
This old man always looked tired and worn;
Now he is paler than I have ever seen him,
With dark circles under his eyes,
Which are bloodshot and teary.
He’s also unshaven, and he smells awful.

“You just don’t care at all anymore,” he mutters,
“Coming back home in the middle of the morning.”
I’m disturbed because the old man had cried,
As evidenced by the dry trails of tears,
And I’m also embarrassed by his appearance.

“What’s the matter now?” I ask, annoyed.
“What’s the matter? You should be in school.”
I scratch my head. What day is it today?
“Yeah, well, I’m not going to school anymore.”

My father frowns, and takes a drag on his cig
With a hand that shivers as if he were freezing.
“I thought you would deny it.
I called, you know, and they told me
That you haven’t attended for weeks!
You even missed vital exams!”

I sigh. What a bother, dealing with this clown
For who the opening of a bakery is an event.
“There’s no such thing as a vital exam
For someone who won’t pursue an education.”

My father frowns, clenches his teeth,
Then throws his cig into the ashtray.
“So what now, are you just going to drop out?
Don’t you care at all about your future?”

“First of all, no, I don’t give a fuck
About whatever you would consider ‘a future’.
People abandon their kids in school
Because homeschooling is no longer a thing.
Most families require two salaries to survive,
So they need to park their kids somewhere,
And it’s convenient for the state, of course:
It wants to decide what goes into our heads.

As a result your vulnerable son ended up caged
Among wild beasts who mocked and insulted me,
Causing me mental issues that will never heal.
As students, we were mere recipients of nonsense
Meant to raise obedient, harmless slaves
That will vote for the government and shut up
Instead of taking arms and hanging them,
Which is what all of that rotten scum deserves.

If I bothered to suffer through my education,
The day I would start my life as a wage slave,
I would discover that beyond basic math,
Nothing else I had learned would ever help.
I would have just wasted many precious years
To receive some papers that certify me as a fool.”

Before I finished speaking,
My father grabbed his head
And walked to the sofa as he grunted.
He plops down and hunches over,
His elbows resting on his knees,
And then he stares at the floor.

“I can’t believe you’re so stupid.
Or maybe this is all my fault.
I raised you all by myself,
So this must have been my failure.”

Maybe I should get mad, but I don’t care.
Nothing about this rotten world concerns me.
In a short while, Glyca and I will be gone,
Maybe to Russia or Australia or the moon,
Where we’ll run around, eat people and fuck.

“Why would you be surprised about failing at this?
Haven’t you failed at everything else?
Besides, you can relax. I don’t need an education.
For the first time in my life, I’m truly happy.”

My father snorts derisively, and raises his voice.
“Happy? How could you possibly be happy?
Your face is full of the worst kind of acne,
Your mother abandoned us early on,
You are a loner who’s never had any friends,
You have thrown away your future,
And I’m sure you plan to never get a job.
You’ll end up dead in a ditch somewhere.
Do you think I want that to happen to you?”

“You are worrying for nothing, dad.
I’m doing great. I have a lovely girlfriend
Who loves me, and accepts me for who I am.”
My father buries his face in his hands.
“I guess this is psychosis,” he mutters bitterly,
“Or however they call it when someone loses it.
Yet, you disappear for hours who knows where,
Although several people have gone missing lately.”

“You don’t have to worry about me disappearing,
Because my girlfriend is the one eating people.”
My father rubs his eyes, then stands up wearily.
Although he turns towards me, he avoids my gaze.
“Are you doing drugs? Is that what’s going on?
You are mentally absent, and walk awkwardly…”

I chuckle at the irony of me doing drugs
When I’ve been involved in reducing
The number of drug-related people that live.
“I walk weird because my body is adapting
To me having stuff shoved deep into my ass.
But I’m only taking in my girlfriend’s tail!
I’m not going around getting fucked by men.”

My father facepalms, then groans.
“What are you talking about?
You aren’t making any damn sense!”
He sniffles and wipes his eyes.
“I’m taking you to see a doctor,
That one who once prescribed you pills.”

“You’re crazy, dad. I’m not sick in the head.
I have no reason to go see a shrink.
Besides, they prescribe shit carelessly;
It may make my dick shrink even smaller.”

My father paces back and forth,
Then he sniffs loudly, and says,
“Look at me. I’m bald, I’m a mess.
I could never keep a job long enough.
I’ve got nothing to do but sit around
And smoke one cigarette after another.

I’ve always hated my fucking life.
Ever since I was a child, back at home,
I’ve been dreaming of death;
In my mind, Death is a beautiful woman
Who wears black clothes, carries a scythe,
Has silver gray hair and blood red eyes.

Death smiles at me, and she doesn’t judge.
She asks if I would like to dance,
And I say, “Yes, I’d love to.”
Death takes my hand, and we begin to spin.
We dance as we sing, we twirl and turn.
She tells me how she’ll take me away
From my father and all his brothers.
But in the end, it was another lie,
Just another person who betrayed me.

You need an education, son, and to find a job,
Or else you’ll end up like me, in a world of misery,
A place where nobody cares about you,
And when you die, they’ll throw your body in a hole
Where it will rot and stink, and nobody will mourn.”

I feel nothing but disgust and resentment.
I don’t know why I’m here. I should have left.
“There’s no such thing as a future in this place
For someone like me who despises humanity.
I guess you expect me to be sympathetic,
But if you yourself had gone to a shrink,
You’d have learned enough about yourself
To avoid getting together with my mother,
Which would have spared me this life
And all the nightmares I’ve endured through.
Just quit bitching, dad, and accept reality:
Your son is a dropout, and that’s fine,
Because a better destiny is waiting for me.”

My father clenches his fists
As he glowers coldly.
He strides up to me
And slaps me hard across the face.
Half a dozen of my huge pimples sting;
I bet they daubed his palm with pus.

My father wipes his hand on his pants.
“I’ve been too soft with you.
I should have made you be responsible,
Learn the value of work and sacrifice.
You were always alone and quiet,
And I was always tired, and sad myself.
Now you don’t know how to be an adult.
You’ll start by going to a trade school.
I don’t care what kind of shit you learn there,
As long as you can earn money and pay rent.”

Instead of words, I hear white noise.
My vision is tinted crimson red
As I feel the blood surging to my ears.
I see myself pulling out my bone shiv
And flaying my old man’s stupid face.
I see Glyca devouring my father’s flesh,
Then fabricating a chair out of his bones.

When my rage subsides, my father is quiet.
He’s staring anxiously at my expression
As if he suddenly regrets having been born,
But my mouth breaks into a wide grin.
My father will receive the worst punishment:
He’ll be left to keep enduring his life.

I turn around to leave this place
Hopefully for the last time.
“Fuck you, dad,” I say,
“And fuck your genes.”

‘A Millennium of Shadows, Pt. 7’ by Jon Ureña