Pregnant alternate version.
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The Visitor

The room was quiet, calm, save for the hum of the machinery and terminals. The wall had a soft vibration to it as a finger caressed its surface, leaving behind a glowing orange line in its wake. That line, carefully, intricately laid, created a web of glowing circuitry and LEDs; it bathed the room in a purple glow, one that reflected off the masked face of the mage.

He wound his finger around the last of the shining beacons, slid it across the smooth, concrete surface, back to the start-

And then the wall exploded.

There was an unearthly scream. The mage rolled across the floor, collapsing in a heap of robes and shower of sparks. There was a thump next to him, then a ear-splitting screech like nails on chalkboard, then a louder slam.

The hum wasn't the only thing in the room anymore. There was something else - wetter. Guttural.

He threw the robe off his face and pushed himself up.

There it was. Opposite a wall that was intact, but its circuitry torn asunder in a scar-like rift, was a creature. Like a canine - in the same way that a fire is like a candle. It was half-collapsed against the far wall in a pile of books and debris from the shelf it had crashed into, at the end of lines of lines of scratches in the floor. Its legs were akimbo, claws shining in the residual purple light - bones shining too, all along its back, along its legs, sticking out from its head in great horns...

And its eyes... red eyes, eyes that shone with an otherworldly fire, held him in a maddened gaze. Razor-thin pupils fixed on his. From between black lips, a long tongue flicked to taste the air. Saliva dripped from a row of fangs.

Black flesh, nestled in fur, gleamed invitingly in the low lighting.

Fire flickered in its jaws. A growl suffused the air, drawn from the creature's chest, and resonating through the room and everything in it.

The mage pushed himself up on trembling hands.

The ritual...

It had worked.
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Suggested by Stefan Wulph
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This is part of the Someone's PC project, a group dedicated to bringing you tales of danger and delight from that familiar Universe.

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