Xander walked a few feet in front of them without so much as a word until he reached a large, smooth rock that was partly overtaken by the foundation of the building and mostly submerged underground. When they were growing up, someone had dubbed it the Old Sitting Stone. The name had stuck, to the point that now most of The Factory’s staff referred to it as such. There were old cigarette butts surrounding the rock in a loose semi-circle. He wondered briefly if one of them had belonged to Sara. The thought started a domino effect of images in his mind, which he struggled to force out before turning to face Mike and Cathy. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped with his jaw hanging open.
After a long moment of silence, Cathy finally spoke up. “Whatever it is, you can tell us,” she said in a soothing voice, taking a single step towards him.
“Yeah, man,” Mike echoed, trying his best to sound supportive. “You can tell us if you want.”
Xander sighed, reaching deep into his jacket pocket. “I want to tell you... I just can’t,” he said finally, revealing a small but sharp knife and bringing it up to his wrist. “So I’ll just have to show you.”
Cathy’s eyes went wide, her hands immediately cupping over her mouth with shock as Mike moved forward to stop his friend.
He was too late.
Thick red blood started to spew fourth from the ripped flesh, some of it spurting out toward Mike but most of it running down Xander’s arm and dribbling off of his elbow into a little pool on the ground. A tingly, numb feeling started in his fingertips and worked its way through his entire arm and then out into his chest. It made his whole body feel warm and fuzzy except for his heart, which ached with a cold pain. Each beat felt like trying to move a frozen limb, yet the pain it brought made the heart only beat faster.
“What are you doing?” Cathy screamed, tears starting to flow down her cheeks already. The blood was so thick it reminded her of pancake batter.
Mike batted the knife away from Xander and attempted to put pressure on the wound.
Xander pushed him away, tripping over the sitting stone and falling flat on his back as he did so. He clenched his teeth as his arm began to shake violently, sending gushes of blood everywhere in tiny droplets. “Wait,” he managed to say, holding up a hand to Mike to stop him from coming at him again. He started to get dizzy and light headed. As he stared down at the redness that was still flowing out of his arm, he wondered if this had been such a good idea after all.
Then he felt it.
A rumble from the right side of his abdomen that felt very close to the vibration of the baseline coming from The Factory. The feeling cascaded throughout his body as if a small bomb had gone off there, the ripple effect making his whole body shake. He felt his heart slow as his side twitched again, then started to beat all on its own. A migraine started to build behind his eyes as he crunched over in pain, throwing a look at Mike and Cathy to try and get them to keep their distance. His veins all felt like they were going to explode, the way a balloon filled with too much air must feel. He had only experienced this twice before, yet had come to recognize it as though it had always been a part of him.
In many ways, it had been.
When he looked at his wrist again, the red liquid had stopped pouring out of his wrists -- but had been replaced by a thick black tar that didn’t spurt or spray. It all flowed down over his arm, but did not drip off of his elbow. Instead it then started traveling up his arm, circling around until it had covered his entire body and was now moving onto his chest.
Mike backed away a step as Cathy’s hands fell from her mouth, dangling lifelessly at her sides as she watched the black ooze take her friend over inch by inch, as if it had a mind all its own.
Xander screamed as his jaw seemed to snap free of itself and his eye sockets bent upwards, the pink meat surrounding his eyes visibly popping blood vessels as it was exposed to air. He tried to grit his teeth against the pain but couldn’t, the lower row still hanging too low. After a second longer they snapped into place, but farther down than they had been a moment ago, making his face seem more angular than it had been before. The blackness had overtaken his torso almost completely by now, sticking to his body like paint or liquid latex as it began to make its way over his head. He opened his mouth in a silent scream as it finished taking over, several tendrils converging on his face all at once.
For several moments there was nothing. He looked like a statue made of used chewing tobacco, stray remnants of the ooze still sliding off of him onto the ground below his feet.
“Xander?” Cathy said, her voice a hushed whisper.
Suddenly three red slits formed on his face and they opened to reveal two triangular bright red eyes that were slanted on either side and a glowing red mouth filled with dual rows of razor sharp, yellow teeth.
When he opened his mouth to speak, the voice sounded like it were vomited up rather than simply spoken, his entire body shaking with the effort of each syllable.“Black Womb lives.”
Mike and Cathy stared silently.
He started to tell them everything. The truth about what their lives had
