Chapter 5: The Price of Individuality

Chapter 5: The Price of Individuality

The soft click of the deadbolt retracting was the sound of a world ending. Leo’s world. The solid oak door, his final shield against the impossible, swung inward on silent, oiled hinges, revealing the thing that wore the skin of Mr. Abernathy.

It stood on the threshold for a moment, a figure of bland horror under the porch light. Then, it began to change.

The nondescript grey suit seemed to lose its structure first, the fabric sagging as if the form beneath it was melting. The shoulders slumped, the crisp lines of the lapels dissolving into drooping folds. The man’s forgettable face began to run like heated wax, features blurring, the placid expression giving way to a shifting, featureless landscape of pale flesh. It was a statue turning back into raw, wet clay.

With a sound like wet laundry being dropped on a tile floor, the thing that was Abernathy flowed over the threshold. It wasn’t walking. It was pouring into the house, a grotesque heap of sagging, doughy flesh that undulated with a sickening, internal rhythm. The human shape was gone, replaced by an asymmetric mound of tissue. Malformed limbs dragged behind it; one still retained the vague shape of a hand, but the other was a deflated, meaty paw that left a faint, damp trail on the pristine hardwood. There was no head, no face, only shifting folds of skin that rippled and puckered, vaguely suggesting sensory organs that had no business existing.

Leo’s mind, the architect's mind that thrived on logic and order, fractured. He scrambled backward, a raw, animal sound tearing from his throat. Evelyn’s warning—Don’t give them a reason!—was a screaming siren in his skull. This was the reason. This shambling horror was the consequence of a single scratch.

His sanctuary was now a hunting ground. The open-plan living area he had envisioned filled with art and life was a barren killing floor. He needed a weapon. Anything. His frantic eyes darted around the empty room, landing on his heavy steel drafting lamp, its base weighted for stability.

He lunged for it, his hands closing around the cool metal just as the creature lurched further into the room. It was slow, but its progress was as relentless and inevitable as a tide of filth. It moved with a lurching, dragging gait, the fleshy, key-shaped limb scraping softly against the floor.

"Get out!" Leo screamed, the words feeling thin and useless in the face of such a biological nightmare. "Get the hell out of my house!"

He hefted the lamp, swinging its heavy base like a medieval mace. He was a man of action, a problem-solver. He would not be a passive victim. He brought the lamp down with all his strength onto the creature's flank.

The impact was disgusting. There was no satisfying crack of bone or solid thud of impact. There was only a wet, squelching sound, like punching a side of raw meat. The metal base sank an inch into the pale flesh, which gave way without resistance. When he pulled the lamp back, the indentation simply filled itself in, the surface rippling and smoothing over as if nothing had happened. The creature didn't even seem to notice. It just kept coming.

Panic, cold and absolute, seized him. Fighting was useless. He turned and ran.

He fled through the sterile rooms of his new home, his footsteps echoing in the cavernous, empty spaces. He bolted up the uncarpeted stairs, taking them two at a time, his breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps. He could hear it below him, a soft, wet, dragging sound as it began to ascend.

He burst into the master bedroom, the room where he had imagined waking up to peaceful, silent mornings. He slammed the hollow-core door shut and fumbled with the cheap, brass-plated lock on the knob. It clicked into place, a pathetic, flimsy defense. He shoved a heavy, unpacked box against it, his muscles screaming with a strain that felt alien, as if he were already weaker than he had been an hour ago. The cold from Abernathy's grip was a permanent ache in his arm, a harbinger of the horror to come.

For a moment, there was silence. He pressed his ear to the door, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. Then he heard it. A soft, scraping sound against the wood. Not a knock. Not a push. A delicate, insistent scratching, accompanied by a wet, slithering noise.

The doorknob began to jiggle, then slowly, impossibly, to turn. The cheap lock inside made a sharp snap as it broke. The door swung open.

The creature filled the doorway, its bulk seeming to expand to fit the frame. It was larger now, or perhaps his terror was just making it seem so. It paused, the folds of its "face" shifting as if it were tasting the air, sensing his fear.

Leo was trapped. With a final, desperate roar of defiance, he hurled the only thing he could reach—a box of heavy architecture books—at the monstrosity. The box hit the gelatinous mass and was simply… absorbed. It sank into the pale flesh with a wet sucking sound and disappeared from view.

The thing surged forward. A thick, ropey pseudopod of flesh shot out, unnaturally fast, and wrapped around his ankle. The touch was clammy, cold, and immensely strong. Leo was jerked off his feet, his head cracking hard against the hardwood floor. Stars exploded behind his eyes.

He was dragged across the floor, his fingers scrabbling uselessly for purchase. The creature loomed over him, blotting out the light from the hallway. He could smell it now—a faint, sterile odor, like ozone and old, refrigerated meat. This was the smell of The Balance.

It pinned him to the floor with its sheer, passive weight. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe. He looked up into the shifting, faceless mass above him, and knew the true meaning of hopelessness. The deflated, meaty paw, the one that had been dragging on the floor, rose slowly. It quivered in the air above his chest for a long moment before descending.

When it touched him, the world dissolved into an agony of cold.

It was a thousand times worse than the grip on his arm. This was not a siphoning; it was a deluge. He felt his life-force, his vitality, being ripped out of him. The warmth in his blood turned to ice. A crippling arthritis seemed to flash-freeze his joints, making them feel brittle and ancient. He felt the youthful elasticity leave his skin, the strength in his muscles turning to a stringy, useless weariness. His thoughts grew cloudy, his memories distant. It was the physical sensation of decades of hard living, of sickness and decay, being compressed into a few, horrifying seconds.

Through a grey, dimming haze, he saw his own sandy-blonde hair at his temples turning a dusty, lifeless grey. The face of Chloe, once so sharp in his mind, became a faded, blurry photograph. He was being hollowed out, erased. This was the price of individuality. This was the payment.

Just as he felt the last flicker of his consciousness about to be extinguished, the pressure vanished.

The creature flowed off him. He was left in a heap on the floor, a battered, shuddering wreck. He gasped, his lungs burning, the air feeling thin and inadequate. Every joint screamed in protest as he tried to push himself up, his body feeling like a stranger's—an old, decrepit stranger. He managed to lift his head, his vision swimming.

The mound of flesh was already receding, pouring its grotesque form back out of the bedroom. As it reached the doorway, a fold of skin puckered, forming a temporary orifice. A voice, not a voice but a dry, whispering rustle like dead leaves skittering across pavement, issued from it.

"The Balance is restored," it rasped. "Future imperfections will require further payment."

Then it was gone, its wet, dragging sounds fading down the stairs. A moment later, Leo heard the soft, final click of the front door closing.

He lay on the floor for a long time, the silence of the house pressing down on him, heavier and more malevolent than ever before. He was a fraction of the man who had walked into this house that morning. Finally, with a groan that sounded like it came from an old man, he crawled to the wall and pulled himself upright. His back, his knees, his hands—everything ached with a deep, settled weariness.

His gaze fell upon his reflection in the dark glass of the bedroom window. A stranger stared back. A man with haunted, sunken eyes, with streaks of shocking grey in his hair and new, deep lines etched around his eyes and mouth. He looked ten years older. He felt a hundred.

His eyes, burning with unshed tears of rage and violation, drifted downward, through the empty house, to the front door. The source of it all.

He stared, his exhausted mind struggling to comprehend.

The scratch was gone.

The ugly, jagged gash that had scarred the pristine white paint had vanished. The surface was perfect, unnaturally smooth. There was no sign of filler, no hint of fresh paint. The wood grain was seamless, the factory finish absolute. It was as if the damage, the mistake, his one singular act of chaotic humanity, had never, ever happened.

The door was perfect. And he was ruined.