alien, or maybe a blue-skinned devil. He smiles at me.
“Do...do you have a tail?”
“Of course not,” he says.
Every neuron in my brain is telling me to run as far away from Kula as I can. But every cell in my body is telling me to trust him, and that he’s the only thing keeping me safe right now.
The battle between brain and body rages on, paralyzing me as if my feet were glued to the asphalt.
“I am what you would call an alien,” he says. “An Aparan. The things chasing you are the Ulkar. My job is to protect women from the Ulkar. I had to bring you here so no one could see what I’m about to do.”
Oh, God, what is he going to do?
But then, in the distance, I see one of the things that is chasing me for the first time. It’s grey at first, but as it moves it shimmers like a rainbow or a prism. It’s full of colors like an oil slick in a parking lot. It’s a different color every moment I see it, and sometimes it even flashes in colors that I’ve never seen before. Colors that shouldn’t exist.
It’s writhing like a worm, and as it comes closer, I see that it’s made of tentacles. Each time it moves, tentacles shift in and out of reality. Sometimes it has dozens of them, other times it only has two or three. Occasionally I can see some hint of its body, but it’s always a shape that makes no sense and hurts my brain.
“I won’t let them touch you,” Kula says.
He runs forward and reaches his hand out. An axe flashes out of nothingness and into his hand. The metal of the axe shimmers the same colors as the Ulkar, and it even changes shape in the same way they do.
He charges at the one coming for me and swings his axe. Purple blood gushes out as dozens of tentacles hit the ground and writhe. He swings again, seemingly at thin air, but more blood appears on the axe, and more tentacles and chunks of grey flesh appear on the ground.
I look behind me and see another one coming. Kula growls and runs toward it. He leaps into the air and swings his bloodied axe. Again and again, until the street is covered in purple blood.
Something wraps around my leg. It’s wet and pulsing. It slides up my calf and my thigh. I look down and see a shimmering tentacle clutching me, going up under my skirt.
Kula grabs hold of it with his bare hand and tears it from my leg. He bites the thing as he swings his axe into seemingly thin air. It comes back bloody, and the tentacle he’s biting onto writhes and squirms.
“Run!” he shouts. “Into that cabin!”
He points toward a house just up the hill.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he yells.
I obey. He’s been right about everything so far, though I’m still waiting for the moment I jolt awake in bed, covered in sweat, realizing that this is the worst nightmare I’ve ever had. Even though Kula pulled it off me, I can still feel the wetness of that tentacle on my leg. I’m shuddering and hyperventilating. I look back over my shoulder as I run, and I see Kula’s axe slicing off another set of tentacles.
I jiggle the doorknob. It’s locked, of course. I’m sobbing as I fight with the doorknob. “Please just open. Open. Let me in!”
I don’t understand how a flimsy cabin can protect me from flying tentacles that shift in and out of thin air, but being inside feels like it would be much better than being out in the open.
Kula comes up behind me and kicks the door in. He grabs my hand and pulls me inside. He slams the door behind us.
Something else is grabbing me though. I look down and see a tentacle shimmering the brightest, most vibrant color I’ve ever seen. It squeezes my breasts. The tentacles are even more wet than before.
I scream, and Kula rips the tentacles from my body and swings his axe around in a frenzy until his horns and face are covered in blood.
As terrified as I am, I feel a rush of exhilaration. This monstrous, savage man—this horned alien whose body is built like a weapon has sworn to protect me. He’s sworn to die before harm comes to me.
Kula removes a small sphere from his pants and presses something on it. It whirrs, and