Ryven's mother, father, and sister all continue to stare at him, their smiles growing wider and wider by the seconds.
"What are you talking about Ryven?" Sylven asks, her smile literally stretching from ear to ear.
Ryven's breath quickens as he freezes up, his chest moving up and down, thumping like a generator.
"What are you?" He asks. "Where am I?"
The three tilt their head in unison.
"What are you talking about Ryven?" They ask, their voices seeming to combine as one.
He jumps up, his chair falling down as he backs away from the table, hitting the wall behind him.
"What's wrong Ryven?"
He looks at the trio, his face pale with horror.
Making a rash decision, he dashes around the table, avoiding the trio who just sat there, watching him run. Entering the kitchen, he runs towards the countertop, grabbing a knife out of the knife block.
And for a moment, he stood there, waiting. Waiting for the scrape of chairs, the shuffle of feet, the false cheer in their voices as they trailed behind him. But the house stayed eerily quiet.
His throat went dry. After a few more moments, he began to slowly edge himself tiward the door. The wooden floor beneath him cracked with every step, giving away his position.
Taking another deep breath, he held his knife up, turning into the room.
That's when he saw them.
His mother, father, and sister still sat neatly in their chairs, their hands resting politely on the table as if nothing had changed. But their heads…
Their heads had turned.
Not like a normal glance or tilt, but bent too far, unnaturally, necks twisted at warped angles that made their bodies seem like broken dolls. They stared at him from across the room, wide smiles stretching their faces, their eyes glimmering with something that was not human.
"Ryven…" his mother crooned, her voice syrupy sweet, though her lips didn't move. "Where are you going, darling? Dinner isn't finished yet."
His stomach lurched. Their heads remained locked on him, necks creaking softly as though their bones were straining against invisible strings.
Sylven giggled, a high, sharp sound, and the corners of her mouth peeled wider than before. "You shouldn't wander. Bad things wait in the dark."
For a heartbeat, Ryven couldn't breathe. His instincts screamed to run, but his legs felt nailed to the floor.
The way they sat, rigid and unmoving, yet still tracing him with those grotesquely bent necks.
The cold weight that had already settled in his chest seemed to grow, heavy and suffocating, as though the air itself had continued to curdle.
The knife in his hand trembled as he approached his father who sat at the end of the table.
"What are you doing?" He asks, seemingly innocent, watching me as I approach.
"I'm sending you back to the hell that you crawled out of." Ryven says, shakily raising his knife, staring into his father's eyes before bringing it down upon his father's neck.
An inky black substance sprays out, coloring the walls, floor, and table black.
His mother and Sylven don't even scream. They just watch.
He goes over to the fake Sylven next, yet she just continues to do that creepy unnatural grin.
"Yeah," he says, chuckling. "Keep smiling, just like that." Raising his knife once again, he brings it down with all his might, the inky substance covering his clothes.
Finally, he strides over to his mother, a strange sense of confidence consuming him.
"You all smile and act so creepily, yet you die so easily."
Seeing Ryven approach, something seemed to click for his fake mother.
She let out a sound that wasn't quite a scream, nor really a laugh.
Her body began to ripple and warp, skin darkening, bones cracking and bending with sickening pops. The inky black substance spread over her arms and legs, and once Ryven finally realized, it was too late.
Her torso shrank and twisted, elongating into sharp, jointed limbs that scraped against the floor with unnatural clicks. Eight spindly legs tore from her body, bending at impossible angles. The rest of her melted into a shadowy, angular carapace that glinted like wet metal under the dim light.
Her face on the other hand seemed to remain. It was impossibly grotesquely human. That same wide, smiling face, eyes glimmering with malice, hovered above the nightmare spider's body. Yet, that wasn't the worst part. Looking closely, she seemed to grow four more eyes. One on each cheek, and another on each of the sides of her head.
Her smile widened further, as if it were testing him, inviting him to run.
Ryven's stomach dropped. Every instinct screamed at him: run.
Booking it out of the dining room, he could hear the ginormous spider's body banging against the walls, cramped inside the small room.
Clutching on tightly to the only weapon he had, his knife, Ryven bolts out the front door, the wooden frame rattling behind him as the monstrous spider lunges, her spindly legs scraping against the walls.
The streets stretched ahead, a warped mirror of his neighborhood, lamps flickering erratically, sidewalks curling like paper. His heart hammered in his chest, each beat matching the clattering clicks of the creature's legs behind him.
He stumbled, narrowly avoiding a mailbox twisted like a broken tooth. The scream, the high-pitched, scraping sound, followed him, echoing from every direction at once. It wasn't just a sound; it seemed a living presence, gnawing at his senses, twisting his stomach into knots.
Ryven's knife felt absurd in his hand, useless against the creature that moved faster than his eyes could track. Panic clawed up his throat as he pushed forward, the street warping under his feet, asphalt folding and stretching like molten wax.
Each turn revealed another impossible angle, another fractured streetlamp, another corner where shadows could hide unimaginable horrors. The spider's scream surged louder, more frenzied, a chorus of rage and mockery, pressing him onward.
Finally, gasping, Ryven burst past the last streetlamp, the black void yawned ahead. He didn't stop running. He couldn't.