[2/2]...The woman covered her eyes and sobbed, trying and failing to quell herself. Keith turned around and ran out of the hallway and found an empty living room with withdrawn curtains: so that the windows let in a bright white.

"Carlos, what did you do..."

Keith turned around to find that the hallway was replaced by an open doorway into a hospital room. Inside was dark and mirthless, with a single lamp in the corner illuminating the drawn glass window that showcased a stormy parking lot. The hospital room was also empty.

"Carlos, what did you do!"

It came from the window. In the doorway of the living room, a dark silhouette of a uniformed man threw open the door and charge at him with balled fists. Thunder screamed as all the windows started to buckle under intense rain. The man grabbed at Keith's neck.

"Carlos-"

It looked like a black tattoo. It was a lie: so, Keith threw himself at the tattoo and began biting the nostrils of a man who looked a lot like himself. But it occurred to Keith that the mirror hadn't shown his true reflection: it was only a coincidence that they looked alike, because he didn't look like that; naturally.

The black man struggled but managed to produce a knife from his chest and sliced at Keith's face a few times. The tattoo struggled, but Keith eventually choked the consciousness out of it. Using the knife, he mangled the face up until it was indistinguishable.

Breathing hard, the naked man stood up. He had fought with the tattoo next to the open doorway of the front entrance. An array of policemen with pointed pistols brandished him with fiery orange eyes. The sky was a bright cloudy white, like a blank canvas of smoke, and the windows continued to rhythmically thud despite the rain having seemingly stopped.

"Freeze, motherfucker."

Keith looked down at his body. He was in his underwear, the stitches and blemishes were gone, but his entire forearm was drenched in blood, cuts and bitemarks. There was also a layer of blistered red skin over his chest that was coated by a brown aromatic sauce.

"Raise your hands!"

"Hands up and drop the weapon. Hands up!"

Keith briefly heard the word "hands" and understood from the context that he should raise his hands. But then he remembered that there was writing on the palm, so he turned his hand to see if it had changed.

"Hands up!" A cop yelled angrily, growling the words out.

The message was still there on his hands. But it read differently:

"Gracias por hacer un buen acto. Casi listo, mi amor. Levante la mano y gana."

"¿Mi amor?" Keith said perplexed. He raised both hands.

"Drop the knife!"

He dropped the knife and faced his palms to the police. Immediately, gunshots sounded as his bleeding forearm was assaulted by the palm.

Keith screamed as he fell, landing on the wisping sand. A hiss slithered out from his body before a force propelled his limp form against the walls of the entryway like a flung towel. Dark tendrils of reptilian skin, coated with Keith's blood, had erupted from the bone of the brutally fresh orifice. These tendrils had no core body or head, and simply flung line after line into the crowd of policemen: skewering their necks and heads in one swift movement.

They all stood still as Keith's hand wiggled inside of each human's corpse. A pleasant humming sound vibrated from Keith's head. The walls of the house started to fade away, and he was back in the hospital room. But this time, it didn't look so mirthless and dreary; though this time, there was a reflection in the window. And so, you watch yourself on the bed for a long while, taking in details you have forgotten since the beginning of that special day. You didn't seem to blink as you watched yourself in wonder. And you find comfort in that gaze of yours.

"Have you thought of a name yet, dear? I know you said you wanted a girl, so you could name her after Keisha."

"I know, I remember..."

"We've got to name our baby something. The people are waiting on us."

"Hm, how about Keith then?"

"That's a good deal, sweetie. I'm sorry for what happened to her but remember that I'll name the next baby, okay?"

A light clap of thunder sounded from overhead. Keith wriggled his index finger slightly.

"I know honey. I know."