Then, it became clear. A creature. Bat-like.
Grotesque beyond anything she had ever imagined.
Its body was enormous, easily large enough to swallow her whole in a single motion. Pale, leathery wings wrapped around it like a cocoon, thin veins visible beneath its stretched surface, twitching faintly as if something beneath was breathing.
But that wasn't what froze her in place.
It was its face. Where its eyes should have been, there was nothing. No sockets. No lids. No pupils.
Just smooth, stretched skin pulled tightly across where vision should exist.
'…W-Where are its eyes…?' The thought didn't feel like her own.
It screamed through her mind, sharp and panicked.
Its whiskers twitched. Long. Thin. Sensitive.
They extended outward, trembling faintly in the air, brushing against invisible currents, tasting, sensing, mapping the space around it in ways she couldn't comprehend.
Then it moved.
Its jaw opened slightly.
