A thick, pure white blanket of snow was seen covering the town as the morning sunshine glowed over everything in sight. Likewise, the townspeople could be seen tending to various fitting chores in regards to this weather they’ve gotten quite used to for ages.

  Snow plows ran up and down the roads clearing the way for other vehicles everywhere. Over in the suburbs, folks either proceeded to shovel the snow off their driveways or salted their front lawns. Last but not least – even though this wasn’t so much as a chore as it was just having fun – children came out to play in the icy white delight for their typical games in this kind of weather.

  Snowmen were built, snowballs were thrown, snow angels were imprinted, and more – all while the parents who either had nothing else to do or had come out to clear the snow off their lawns stood by and watched, to make sure their young played safe.

  “Mommy! Here, come and see!” One child tugged at the sleeve of a lady’s winter coat with utmost eagerness. The mother, with amused curiosity, followed her young son to a part of their yard where the latter had built quite the snow fort for defending himself against the kid next door.

  Just as the boy cheered proudly at his snowy creation, “I am invincible!” A snowball came pelting through the air and hit part of the white walls of the fort. The boy ducked, then with a battle cry mixed with childlike laughter, he gleefully returned fire.

  The mother watched from the side with a grin on her face at the intense snow battle. It always did her heart good to see such youngsters having the time of their lives like this.

  Just another snowy day in town.

  Or at least, it would’ve been, had it not been for a bloodcurdling scream piercing the slightly muted-by-snow winter air around everyone.

  At once all the people on the block paused what they were doing, their eyes darting in the direction the noise had come from. The typical joy and/or business of the snowy morning was frozen in place to be replaced with confusion, mystery, and even dread at what that sound could possibly mean.

  The mother gestured at her boy to come to her, which the boy did so with eyes so wide, they might have been in danger of falling out of their sockets. She then held her boy close to her while he held her back with both arms, dread slowly rising in her like the red on a hot thermometer.

  Just then, another scream came. Then it was followed by something entirely different – a strange, terrifying noise that was nothing like what they’ve ever heard. Something extremely otherworldly, something alien.

  Despite still having absolutely no idea as to what could be happening out there, that was enough for everyone to immediately ditch whatever they’d been doing and run into their houses for cover. The boy and his mother were no exceptions – the mother straight up lifted her son into her arms and ran as fast as she could through the front door, slamming and locking it behind her before her son could ask, “What was that, mommy?” in a fearful voice full of trembles.

  The mother didn’t know what answer would be appropriate, so she could only say nothing… even as the faint sound of that otherworldly noise came again from the distance.

  The boy flinched, covering his ears with a pair of mittened hands, before diving for cover behind the couch in the living room. The mother would’ve also joined him, had it not been for the most unexpected and horrifying sight meeting her eyes just outside the front window.

  A lady covered in blood from head to toe had smacked into the window’s glass and pounded on it repeatedly in a maddened state of terror, screaming, “HELP ME!” This sent the mother into a frozen state where she stood, unable to comprehend what she was seeing at once.

  The boy, on the other hand, shrieked at the top of his lungs and ran out of sight – up the stairs and into his bedroom, screaming at his mother to join him in there and away from the sight that no one ought to ever lay their eyes on in their lives. “MOMMY!!!”

  If only it could be said that things didn’t get worse from there.

  Even as the mother tried to chase up the stairs after her son, the bloodied lady outside the window was suddenly impaled through her head by something long and sharp coming from behind her. This object – the end of it now also covered in the lady’s blood and brain matter – pierced through the window as well, as though the house’s wall was made of nothing but cardboard.

  The mother screamed and fell down backwards onto the floor, where she could only witness half of the house’s front walls fall apart and give way to the very thing that the sharp object belonged to. However, even as she stared at it, nothing in her life she’d ever been able to humanly comprehend so far could prepare herself for the creature that loomed over her. There wasn’t a single word in her vocabulary that could accurately describe this monstrosity that seemed to walk on several of those sharp legs protruding from its body, like legs.

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  The impaled lady’s body flopped about on one of the legs of this creature as it made its move closer and closer towards the mother. There was nothing else for it. There was only so much the mother could do against this huge grotesque thing that now had her cornered with no way to run. All she was able to do was see her entire life flash before her eyes at the speed of light, as well as desperately pray that her poor scared boy would not meet the same fate as her, right before another one of the monster’s sharp legs came down on her head with a crash, and a wet sickening squelch.

  ***

  The creature wasn’t alone. There were several more of its kind outside, walking around the town as far as the eye could see. Every one of them had at least one person impaled at the end of their spiky legs, with which they dragged their victims, dead or alive, across the snowy ground, in search for more.

  Those that seemed to think they’d collected enough people via impalement walked away from the town and towards where they’d come from – a massive structure that looked and felt just as alien as the creatures themselves, and most certainly didn’t look anything like an object that belonged around here.

  The creatures boarded the structure one by one, on which they proceeded to round up the either dead or still living people they’d collected. From there, things only went from bad to worse – before any of the still living ones had any time to properly process the situation, they were being mercilessly beaten to death by the creatures, the structure’s floor turning red with waves of blood.

  Not even the most pained and anguished cries and sobs for mercy from the few survivors could do anything to stop the brutality on display here. “Please… please don’t…!” “Take me… take me and leave my kids alone…” “I don’t wanna die, no… no, not like this!” “Why are you doing this?!”

  Regardless of this, the creatures’ beating and stabbing continued for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, little by little, the blows succeeded at turning the victims’ voices to dead silence. Then, once they were sure there wasn’t a single human body with any signs of life to be seen, the creatures stabbed and sliced away at the corpses’ skin until they became loose enough to be removed off the bones – not unlike peeling a bunch of human-sized, bleeding bananas.

  Paying no mind to the mangled, bony corpses at their feet, the creatures that were done with skinning their victims stretched the peeled skin out in front of their faces – if they could even be called faces – and began shaping them this way and that, here and there. When they appeared to be satisfied with the shape they had, they gathered more human skin to the ones they’d modified to seemingly stitch the separate skins together.

  Once that process was done to a satisfiable extent as well, the creatures pulled the human skin over their bodies, now looking like they were wearing clothes. After being “clothed” with their handiwork, the creatures proceeded to utter another series of their otherworldly cries; ones that screamed triumph, satisfaction, cheers after a hard day’s work.

  Meanwhile, the creatures that weren’t “celebrating”, so to speak, preoccupied themselves with taking the skinless corpses of their victims to throw off their structure. The mutilated remains of what used to be countless innocent lives dropping limply onto the snow to stain the white surroundings red couldn’t be cared about less by any of the creatures though, as they all just went back to shaping, stitching, and wearing more of the peeled-off skin with more utters of cheery, alien noises.

  ***

  Back in the suburbs, the boy – who was revealed to have fainted out of sheer terror inside the closet he’d been hiding – finally came to and fearfully inspected his surroundings.

  “Mommy…?” He croaked, too scared to be louder in case the monsters heard him, yet also too scared at the thought of what might’ve happened to his mother.

  To be sure the coast was clear, the boy tiptoed towards his bedroom window and peered outside. But the moment he did, he wished he hadn’t; the neighborhood outside was now nothing short of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The ground was strewn in debris from the surrounding houses, all of which the boy could see were either torn apart or crashed into.

  Worse, the once white blanket of snow was now a ghastly crimson. Only small splotches of its actual color were visible; what was left in the area of all the people the creatures had impaled and dragged across the ground.

  And the worst thing of all, the neighborhood that had been so vibrant and full of life only moments ago was left for dead in a deafening, suffocating silence that could never be undone.

  ***

  That is all the story I can tell you of the snowy town, but it is not just yet the end of the whole story. For before we can reach the true ending, another story must be told – a story far more terrifying and gruesome than tales of monsters invading a town of people just living their lives to peel off the skin of the captured and wear it for themselves.

  A story of our very own reality.

  ***

  A small herd of seals making their way across a vast, white field of snow and ice somewhere in one of the coldest parts of the world.

  A small herd of seals who might even be a family.

  A small herd of seals simply minding their own business, looking to make a life for themselves.

  A small herd of seals that draw the attention of a boat full of humans nearby.

  A small herd of seals now getting chased by the humans who make their way off the boat and run after their prey with weapons in hand.

  A small herd of seals getting shot at from a distance by guns.

  A small herd of seals who get pierced to either death or immeasurable pain by the humans’ sharp weapons.

  A small herd of seals whose wails of agony and horror fall on deaf ears.

  A small herd of seals who get dragged onto the deck of the humans’ boat to be beaten and clubbed until none are left alive.

  A small herd of seals who are later skinned at the end of all sorts of sharp blades, only for their now skinless corpses to be discarded without a care afterwards.

  A small herd of seals whose removed skins and fur are modified at the hands of many humans.

  A small herd of seals who are now nothing more than a small number of fur coats made to be worn by humans.

  A small herd of seals whose home has been left abandoned and lifeless.

  A small herd of seals whose lives can never be returned after being lost.

  A small herd of seals whose species could be gone forever if not cared for.