“I tried” She shouted to them both, “But it was too late, keep running”
What did that mean? She tried what? He cried her name and jumped up to reach her, an absurd thing to try and do, but he couldn't think of anything else. With a further flash, and an intense blue ripple around them, she faded away, taken from his view and thrown to a place he didn't understand.
The glass-creature swirled closer, the whole passage of time slowing further. The web-like sky had started pulsing blue, and began oozing into the mall entrance, glimmering and flashing obsessively. Danny was now slightly ahead of Brandon, who was unusually lagging behind, as they both continued forward. They noticed that they were able to catch up with the other people much faster than they should have, time seeming to be stretched. The glass-creature also began to flash, another web of blue veins slowly appearing all over, and all around it, shadowy forms emitting a high-pitched metallic clang grew closer towards them. Brandon tried to keep up with Danny, who was a few feet in front, but he was being drawn back by some invisible force. He looked back and saw that a thin strand of blue thread had attached itself to him. The thread was growing and throbbing with a neon blue, the glass-creature it was attached to being propelled towards him, quicker than Brandon could sprint.
Danny looked round, as he was aware that Brandon had dropped back further, and watched as the scene unfolded in slow motion. The blue veins multiplied around Brandon, the glass creature whined ethereal sounds that chinked the reality around them, causing a sea of visible vibrations. The shadow figures seemed to jump in and out of sight, gradually being swallowed by the glass-creature, the blue tentacles coiling themselves around more of reality bit by bit, gaining momentum and snapping at Brandon's body.
The tentacles finally brought Brandon down, who slammed to the floor. To Danny this was all happening in slow motion. He watched as time slowed down even more, Brandon's pained face slowly contorting, and his eyes dazed and terrified but still fixed ahead at Danny. Time ticked past more and more slowly. Could Danny run back and fight the creature while in this strange almost timeless state? He decided to try and turn back towards him. As he did, he found he couldn't get there; there was some kind of barrier that forced him back, that was impossible to penetrate. He tried and tried and tried, Brandon's slow ear-piercing shrieks whipping past Danny like bullets, as the neon tentacles engulfed him, turning him into a matrix of blue flashes. Danny knew there was nothing he could do, Brandon was slowly being devoured by the reality creature, and he had no way of reaching him. Danny turned back to run and the force that was holding him back pushed him forward. Behind him the slow agonising death continued unabated, what should have taken seconds turning into minutes. He prayed for Brandon, prayed that he wasn't experiencing everything as slowly as he was, as he ran further and further ahead. He couldn't look back any more, it was too hard, all he could think about was trying to reach safety, but he had no idea where that was and if it was even a possibility.
He caught up with the crowd of people ahead, all of them standing there static, motionless as if they were mannequins. They all looked like they had paused mid-motion as they tried to escape the horrors rolling towards them. Danny ceased his sprint and walked between them, all of them frozen, solid forms stuck in a moment in time, and he was able to pass around them all. What was happening now? He had been living one insane moment after another. The last few days were like the most demented nightmare you could ever have, but it was one he couldn't wake up from. He looked into the eyes of each of them, seeing straight into their terrified soul. He blessed each one of them, still confused as to why time, for him, had slowed to the point of stopping. He heard a far-off crackle, getting louder and louder, but he couldn't tell where it was coming from. It sounded like it came from up ahead, could it be another creature closing in on them? Or a saviour, the reality-creatures arch nemesis ready to do battle?
Danny looked behind him to see that Brandon was long gone. Where he had been was just a growing continuously pulsating blue creature, a sky web behind it, merging together in what could have been one last assault, joining forces to gulp down the last morsel of his reality. He noticed time very slowly beginning to return to its normal passage. He wasn't sure how long these moments in between the normal passing of time had been for him, but he guessed it was easily five minutes. Knowing he now had no more time to waste, he began to turn ahead again to get as far from the reality gulping team as he could, while he could. The faint sound in the distance was getting exponentially louder, closer. He was only running towards it as he couldn't run the other way. As time became faster and faster, the creatures whirled closer, sucking matter into itself, consuming all. Ahead of him he saw what was making the other sound, a small tear in the window of his dimension. He was stuck, nowhere to run, creatures behind, a crack in the universe ahead. This all seemed so ludicrous he could hardly compute any of it in his mind. There was no way to fight either foe, all he
