Before I could reorient myself further, I heard another bang and I felt an explosion of pain in my—our back. The creature let go of my chin and clutched my limp body protectively to its chest. Then it spun around with an angry snarl to see who had shot it and to defend itself from further attack. I was surprised or, should I say, unsurprised as the case may be to see that two men I thought were helping me had turned on me and the creature.

     One of them had taken cover behind one of the rotting pews while the other was father away and was busy doing in a clear spot on the floor. The one hiding behind the pew had their gun out and trained on us. Regardless to say, it was safe to assume he was the one who had been shooting. I could see his hands trembling as he tried to line up his gun’s sights for another shot at the creature.

     When it saw him, the creature curled protectively around my body and hissed at the man. Its hiss startled the man into firing before he was ready, and his shot went wide of its intended mark. The creature flinched when the gun went off and it hiss at him again before darting behind the altar for cover and safety. It gave the gunman one last glare from behind the altar before returning its attention to me and my body.

     ‘Not a very chatty soul, I see.’ The creature said to me mentally while it set my body down on top of the dais behind the altar and began to examine the still bleeding wound it had left me with.

     ‘I—bada—say—uh—What?’ I gibbered.

     ‘Nor a very coherent one either,’ It commented as it place a hand over the wound. I watched as black strips came slithering down its arm and over its hand to me. They swarmed over me like a nest full of snakes until they had covered my shoulder and part of my neck. When they had settled and stopped moving, the creature remove its hand from me and I saw they had woven into a type of pressure bandage over my wound and stopped the bleeding.

     ‘There, that should keep your body from bleeding out without you. Now are you coherent enough to speak or do I have to wait for a little longer for you to collect yourself? Because I believe you have a quite a few questions for me and I doubt we have enough time for me to answer them all. I don’t particularly care for what your ‘friends’ are doing nor; do I like the look of what one of them is drawing on the floor.'


     It told me as it took another look at them from behind the altar after it had finished tending to my wound. The one standing guard shot at it when it looked, and it ducked back behind the altar for safety. By then, I had collected and sorted myself out enough mentally to respond.