Chapter 2: The Red Snow
"Who is here, Arthur?!" Clara screamed, lunging for the hunting rifle leaning against the hearth.
The door groaned. The wood began to splinter. Through the cracks, Clara expected to see the white fury of the blizzard. Instead, she saw a glowing, sickly crimson light. The snow outside wasn't white anymore. It was bleeding.
"Arthur, get up! We have to barricade the—"
She froze. Arthur wasn't in the chair.
She turned around, the rifle raised. He was standing by the back window, his forehead pressed hard against the glass. He was singing. A low, discordant hum that matched the exact frequency of the pounding on the front door.
CRASH.
The front door gave way. But no monsters rushed in. No aliens. No beasts.
Instead, a thick, red fog rolled across the floor, smelling heavily of copper and old rain. And within the fog, thousands of tiny, black, thread-like shapes were writhing. The same creature she had pulled from Arthur's ear—cloning, dividing, multiplying by the millions.
Clara fired the rifle into the mist. The blast was deafening, blowing a hole through the floor, but the bullets did nothing to the fog. The black threads began to climb the legs of the table, the chairs, and Clara’s boots.
"Arthur, please!" she sobbed, backing into the corner.
Arthur turned around. The black fluid was now pouring from both his ears, his nose, and the corners of his eyes. Yet, his expression was utterly peaceful.
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"Don't fight it, Clara," he said, walking toward her with jerky, unnatural steps. "It’s not an infection. It’s a return. We were never meant to be alone in our heads."
He reached out a hand. His fingernails had turned completely black.
