The figure�s face was horrible, but as it turned I felt a strange sense of near-relief. It would be over in a minute or two, after all. Not so.
It then began to scream, its mouth gaping hugely, three or four times the size of its face.
The sound tore through me, in an all too literal sense. I felt things inside me rip, and twist. Something collapsed and I found it hard to breathe. And the sound�there is nothing living that can produce anything to correspond. The scream conveyed an intensity of emotion, a rage so complete and pain so thorough that it destroys anything in its path.
I am bleeding there, on the ground I can�t feel, when the figure waddles over to me, birdlike. It shoves its screaming maw to my ear, and I feel a pain so extraordinary that my death throes become a friendly memory. There is a grinding pressure in the pit of my stomach as the enormous thing thrashes and pushes. The scream crescendos and it bursts out of my side to writhe on the ground, grublike, flailing, a reddish-orange ooze secreting from it with slow purpose. The ooze looks vaguely like a liver�my liver.
The scream continues, but the pain lessens. I see the great pale thing on the ground move slower, shrivel and die. Other things begin to seep from the hole in my side, but I can�t begin to look at them. The scream does not stop.
Soon, I am aware of a knitting in the hole my body has gained. If I had my eyes open, I think I would see pieces of me sliding and bumping along the ground to melt onto me like wax. But then I feel something crawl to my neck, something bristly and clammy and cold. I open my eyes and seize the thing in trembling fingers.
It is my scalp.