Shapeless

 Allow me to stumble vaguely into your home, allow me to make my way on bruised legs and battered arms.

Your cot? If you might be so kind tonight I will take it. Elsewise I shall lie by the couch. Whether or not you choose to give me your ear is a choice that you may make, but your choice to stay or leave will not stop me from telling you about what I saw.

It was in the depths of the nearby wood. I'm a hunter, I make my nightly meals off either what I catch, or what I can buy with what I've sold off. As was my ritual I was equipped with my bow, and twin spare daggers. I wandered the trees, quietly. It had been a fruitful hunt, I'd caught two rabbits and a fox, the sweeter creatures for coin to my wallet, and the last for my supper.

As I approached the deepest part of the woods I'd dare venture, I heard it.

It was like a scream, a long tortured scream, the ones you hear at the gallows when some loved ones accepts reality. The cold brazen scream of believing your world is ending. though in this twilight hour reaching my ears as but a whisper.

I ran to the source, my mistake. I found it, but it was no man. That which looked upon me was a shape well beyond my description. Parts of it's body traded off as solid and liquid, as hand and wormy tentacle. As it turned, a part of it's grotesque and shifting body parted and greeted me with one bright crystal eye, with an orange iris, and no pupil. Had it not begun to chase me I would've remained believing it blind.

As it followed me, I heard cries, voices. The screams of a thousand lost souls and civilizations, the voices of the damned on days of reckoning, the voices of the slain. It was a sound so fierce and so frightening and so out of place, that to hear it in a burning village would startle me less.

I ran as fast as I could. As long as I could. I have no idea how long I was running, though I made sure to keep an eye on the ground so as to not trip and be swallowed by this malicious thing.

I'm certain it was faster than me, I'm not sure how I outran it.

I saw the light on your house, and was losing stamina. When I looked behind me, it was gone, so I sought shelter.

If those screams come to the door, do not answer. If you have lower rooms, seek their safety, and douse the lights.

I can sleep on the floor, it is no trouble.

I shall leave first thing in the morning. Good night, rest well.

Thank you for the soft bedding.