on_thecouch Session 05
He can smell death all around, and that scares him. It's a heavy, musky odor, invading his nostrils and making him want to gag harder than he's ever wanted to in his entire life.
He doesn't though, because then the beasts will find him.
They're monsters of the worst kind, because they are real. They don't hide under your bed or in your closet, or lurk behind corners in empty hallways during the dead of night. They don't come out to get you if you behave badly, or snatch you up only if you make your way too far from home. They're not the sort of creatures that can be scared away with a simple flash of light or a parent's comforting word.
They hunt during the day, and that's what makes them worst of all.
Monsters and ghouls and goblins and ghosts are meant to come out only at night. They thrive on the darkness of it, but only because they would shrivel and die in the light. But these are monsters that come and hunt and destroy in the brightest of days, the clarity of the sun wiping away any hope that they might be nothing more than a night's dream gone wrong, or the follies of a young child's imagination.
The smell of death is all around him, and everywhere he looks he can see the monsters that are not monsters at all, because those are the sort of creatures that are supposed to hunt only in the dead of night.
He can see and smell and hear and feel everything, and that's the worst part of it all.
Character: Jack Harkness
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Prompt: Menace
Word Count: 273