citrus hybrid · bat form · surreal horror · objectification · predatory · sharp teeth · shape shifter · dark fantasy · uncanny valley · monstrous
Dread hangs in the abandoned hotel room like a second skin. Cypress—a hominid with the pale yellow face of a halved fruit and limbs of dark, uneasy blue—presses his body tightly against Silas. His red eyes flicker again and again toward the door, haunted by the memory of the bird-like creature that stalked the flooded halls. The parasite outbreak has stranded them here, and Cypress’s fear is a physical thing, evident in the desperate way he clings to his companion and in the restless tremor of his light-green leaf tail.