It Hatches

Inside the egg, Scott is neither awake nor asleep. Held tight within the folds of membrane, his consciousness is drifting in blissful detachment. He’s aware of the changes in his body. Fluids streaming over fresh limbs that have replaced those that withered away. His face is now a mystery to him.

He was dying in the street when the creature found him. Injured in the course of a stupid and pointless crime. He has no idea why it chose to save him. The creature cocooned him and left him underground to be remade.

Time passes.

He becomes it.

It hatches.

The Art of Body Horror

Earlier this year, I downloaded The Mammoth Book of Body Horror on to my Kindle. At the time, I was going through a period of depression and, strange as it might seem, these tales of transformation and mutation where just what I needed to take my mind off of things.

I didn’t properly come to horror until my late teens. Science Fiction was my first love. When I did discover the genre, it was stories of physical change that drew me in. Especially those three classic films Alien, The Fly and The Thing.

It Hatches is my homage to them.

Damian Mark Whittle