I gave her a sympathetic smile, “ I'm going to find more food, okay, stay here.” I take off, it is almost 1:00 P.M now and we both haven’t had anything to eat, because I spent most of the day walking in the woods trying to find food. I hardly ate anything yesterday besides that one rabbit. So the hunger pains are taking over and I’m afraid that I might do something irrational to satisfy my hunger.
I checked my traps and of course, it appears that my luck has run out for now because all of them happened to be empty and one of them was smashed up by something and unfortunately I couldn't tell if it was a normal animal or some type of fantasy-Esque creature. As I trailed throughout the forest I wasn’t finding a goddamn thing and the sun was beginning to start to set. Meaning I have been out for about four hours, I can’t risk being out here. So my search for food continued to become hastier and hastier and then I saw a deer. A glorious white-tail buck, twelve points on its rack, a trophy deer for sure, but more importantly it was food!
I started sneaking up on it making sure it couldn’t spot it by staying low and making sure to make as little noise as possible. A branch snapped, shit. The buck turned its docile face toward me, then I saw its signature white-tail flag up and it started to dash away. I charged it and actually managed to stab it in the throat. Yes! The deer gasped and sputtered with the spear lodged in its throat.
I whipped out my new dagger and stabbed in the neck twisting the blade, gritting my teeth. It finally fell, well that was exhilarating. I pulled the spear out and wiped both the spearhead and the dagger blade on the deer’s pelt. I then started to lug it toward the cave then everything went dark for a moment.
I fought for consciousness as I glared up to see an abomination staring down at me with gore in between its thin lips. An old man’s head appeared to be stitched onto a lion's body that had a whip-like tail with multiple spines hanging loosely off it. Or at least it looked stitched on until it opened up its horrid maw that unhinged to an abnormal degree that looked like snake-like fangs in place of its canines and the rest of its teeth were janky and malformed.
Its eyes seemed to be smiling at me as it got closer to my face slowly as if it was some sort of sadistic hunter taking pleasure in its kill. It went past my face as it leaned closer and whispered out in a raspy, hushed and falsely concerned voice, “ Does it hurt?” It didn’t even move its mouth, the sound came out like it was being played off a recording.
“Does it hurt?” It once again whispers into my ear as I struggle to breathe as it has placed its paw on my chest pressing harder and harder. I gasped for air and noticed the dagger was by my side. I strained my arm to even pick it up and I grabbed that bitch and shoved it right into its throat and ripped it toward the side of its neck and pulled it out.
It screamed, It sounded like a man screaming along with the roar of a lion and the screech of an eagle, all blurred together in a hideous mess of sound. I pulled myself from under it as I watched a viscous green fluid drip down from its wound. I decided if a wound like that couldn’t put it down there is almost no way I could finish it in my current state so I had to run.
I picked up my spear just in case it ran after me, I only made it about ten yards before I heard something whistle by and it nailed me in the back. I felt the air leaving my body as I screamed my lungs out. The spine that hit me had venom on it, it felt like someone poured battery acid on my back, I could feel my blood boiling as I somehow managed to keep running. Tears poured down my face as I ran in a serpentine pattern to avoid the spines.
It's following me, I could feel it catching up to me as I got closer to the cave I now could consider home. But the closer I was home the closer the creature was to hitting me with one of its spines or pouncing onto me. It knew this as it started taunting me as it got closer, it repeated the same sentence as before in a feverish manner.
“Does it hurt?”
“Go to hell!” I screamed back at it. The cave came into view and I shouted out, “Beau! Beau help!”
My lungs felt raw as I approached the cave opening, another spine whistled by again scraping against my cheek with the new dose of venom enough to cause me to writhe in pain and I dropped to the ground silently screaming. I saw Beau come into view as she ran to see me and she let out a cry of anger that caused the creature to stop in its tracks and it let out its garish war cry and charged Beau. I barely managed to see it pounce toward Beau.
Beau intercepted the larger monster by clamping down on its already open wound with her middle head and grabbed onto its front legs with her other heads. She shook her middle head, tearing the wound open farther. It started to flick its tail around trying to catch her so it dug its front claws in desperation between the small gaps of her necks. She cried in agony as it raked its claws onto the sides of her neck. It saw its chance as it started to whip its tail to get Beau.
Everything seemed to slow down as I somehow found the strength to stand and I dashed toward Beau. I could see the malice and joy the creature was taking in hurting Beau, I could see Beau in pain as she was crying out and I could see the sunset, the slight breeze blow-by, and the tree leaves gently falling as the breeze caught them in midair.
I threw the spear into the flank of the creature; it returned the favor with fury by throwing the spine meant for Beau into my stomach. I gritted through the pain as I lunged forward driving my dagger into its eye then I collapsed, unable to move any longer. Everything sped up again as the creature looked toward Beau with victory in its mind believing it had this. Beau reeled back and saw me barely conscious laying on the dirt.
That fear that I felt originally when Beau first hatched I could see it in the creature's face when she whipped back roaring in complete bloodthirst. Her left and right head latched onto the creature’s top and bottom jaw, ripping them open as it struggled to get away and her middle opened up and unleashed a torrent of the reddish-purple fire into its mouth. It screamed like when I stabbed it before, but this was a true terror as it kept on clawing at Beau’s necks but she just kept going and unleashed hell onto it. Then at some point, it stopped moving. The fire ate at its insides and I could finally see flames jetting out of it. Beau breathed in deeply again taking the purple flames back in as she walked towards me and gently picked me up with her jaws and slung me over her back.
“Good job, Beau.” I softly whispered.
I heard her soft, pained cooing again as she walked back to our cavern, and then I lost consciousness.
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