A slow, rasping scrape, like claws dragging across glass.
The plates of black chitin creaked as they shifted over one another, sealing his body in an unbroken carapace. Every surface was smooth and seamless, absorbing the light until he was little more than a silhouette carved from the shadow itself.
His head elongated into a predatory dome, the smooth chitin broken only by a vertical slit of pale yellow light. Below it, rows of pure white teeth pressed together in a grin that was too wide, too sharp, glistening with saliva that hissed where it splattered against the stone, eating tiny pits into it.
The tendrils writhed once... then twined together into a single, massive appendage—a tail lined with serrated edges, swaying behind him like a living guillotine.
He was at least seven feet tall now, his erriely elongated arms ended in clawed hands with hooked talons that clicked softly as they curled and uncurled.
The way he moved made my skin crawl.