Erik screamed out toward the thrall. He listened as the towering stems and pig weed broke under the incoming horde. The tentacled Groundling reached out, brushed his ankle. Erik turned, snapped a thick stalk from the ground. He threw the stalk at the mystery creature within the grass. A tentacle wrapped itself around the stalk and broke it in half.

The thrall mob closed in.

“We have to find an escape route,” he said to Rebecca over the noise of the Groundling shrieking. Erik pulled another stalk and stepped closer. The creature sat in the center of a patch of weeds and corn stalks. Thick muscular shoulders swinging six to eight foot grayish/black tendrils. It did look like a Groundling of horrible but Erik prodded the creature, careful to avoid the tentacles. The Groundling ripped the stalk from his hands. Erik searched for another but found a stout, middle-aged man staring through him with pale, calloused eyes.

“Oh gawd…” he swore, surprised that the thrall reached him so fast. He searched for Rebecca but didn’t see her. Thankful for a moment of hope that she got away… but that changed when he realized she probably didn’t have that luck. The thrall Collectors may have taken her. Angry Erik quickly snacked another stalk from the ground he poked at the middle-aged thrall. Carefully, to stay away from the eager tentacles. Every time Erik poked the thrall it would lunge in the direction. Erik threaded the path to the puddle with calculated blows till the tentacles grabbed the thrall and began pulling. The thrall, with its strength super-sized, resisted. It pulled on the tentacles. The disc-like body lifted like a skillet on a stovetop but the Groundling whipped the thrall mercilessly with a third tentacle. It weakened the thrall and he collapsed, just for a moment. The Groundling wrapped up the monster and twisted.

Erik winced as the bones and muscles cracked a second thrall appeared. It’s face bloody from walking through brambles and other thorny weeds. A third appeared near Rebecca, then a fourth.

The Groundling dropped the remains of the thrall near its central body. It immediately lashed out as the thrall marched toward the noise. Erik located Rebecca, waited for a moment… struggling with what to do… then gestured down. He sat upon the ground and watched as Rebecca did the same.

The hope was to stay motionless.

Wait…

… get lucky

… one of them may not trip over them.

Erik smiled, at the thought, but it wasn’t that it was funny. He didn’t have the luck to survive this.

Counter to his sour thoughts luck was kind to him this time. The thrall walked past him and Rebecca and stumbled upon the Groundling. The horrifying creature made short work of each one. It laid each body nearby. Blood and guts pooled around the edge.

With the area fairly clear Erik stood. Rebecca stood. She lead and Erik followed. They stepped carefully and quietly till they escaped the weeds and stalks. They stood staring. Ahead of them was a small building, windows boarded up, surrounded by a parking lot.

…well it used to be a parking lot. Grass forced its way up through cracks in the asphalt. A couple cars, dust covered and bleached from the sun, sat in what Erik assumed was parking spots. Before the parking lot was a crude footbridge that crossed over the Grand River. A water system that passed through a large amount of the former state of Michigan… but that was years ago. The world had changed, Michigan had been buried with his mother and father, his wife and child. The world now was Teraphobia.