《Monstrous》


 Something Wicked - 1

    "It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change."


    - Leon C. Megginson


    ***


    A rational, thinking mind was not meant to experience certain things.


    This is why the most effective torture methods are much more punishing psychologically than physically. Pulling a man''s fingernails out at the root is painful yes - but he can understand, at least theoretically, what is happening.


    This is not the case with being born. When human children are born, they lack cognition. They have no context for what is happening, so they aren¡¯t trying to fit any of it into a pre existing framework. They just take it for what it is because really, babies are fucking stupid.


    I can¡¯t quite say at what point I became aware of my situation. I remember sitting down in front of my television. I remember working. I¡¯m pretty sure I had a cat. But I couldn¡¯t quite put my finger on what my work was. Or my cats name. Ormy name. Somehow though, I do remember that cats are ungrateful shits, and if I¡¯m in a coma having a nightmare right now, then mine is probably eating me alive.


    I struggled in futile terror while I was thinking this. Because as soon as I became aware of my circumstances I became aware of three things. One, I couldn¡¯t see. Not one iota of light penetrated my eyes. This wouldn¡¯t cause me so much panic except for Two; I was suspended in a slick, viscous liquid that made it impossible to breathe. I could feel the stuff squick against my eyes as I writhed in terror lashing out at anything I could to try and swim up. Which is how I learned the third thing: I was in a man sized orb with no exits.


    So to sum up, someone, somewhere, had decided to trap me in an inescapable chamber full of goo.


    Well fuck that.


    I began smashing my fists into the walls of the room, putting as much force into the blows as the putrid liquid flooding my mouth would allow. At first, nothing happened, and my heart began to hammer faster, and faster, as my body desperately tried to force oxygen through my veins that my lungs just weren''t taking in. I was beginning to feel myself growing faint when the first inklings of a crack appeared before me. The only reason I could see it was because of the glorious flicker of light that spill through into my prison.


    With renewed vigor, I braced myself against the wall behind me and lashed out with my feet at the crack. Each strike expanded the damaged area until, with a wet popping noise, a hole appeared and the liquid presently drowning me began to drain out of the chamber.


    Almost painfully slow, the goo spluttered out of the hole and I took my first wheezing breath of oxygen. After inhaling deeply a few times, I calmed down enough to note the distinctly terrible smell in here. Wrinkling my nose I looked down at the light spilling in from the hole. My vision was blurry from goo, and I couldn¡¯t wait to get out of here and wash my eyes out.


    Assuming whoever put me in here isn¡¯t waiting for me outside on a tricycle with a creepy mask on anyway. I most certainly did not, want to play a game.


    Less urgently now, I cautiously began to kick out the edges of the hole I had made, more and more light spilling in until I was able to make out dark brown muck coating the floor outside. Finally wide enough for me to pass through, I hesitated for a moment. I didn¡¯t know where I was. I didn''t know who had taken me. I was pretty sure I was naked. I wasn''t exactly filled with confidence.


    I took one last breath before I heroically flopped out of the hole - and was immediately blinded by light. A searing pain stretched straight from the rays of light above me directly into the back of my brain. I screeched on the ground for a moment, a high pitched keening emitting from my throat as I raised my hands to cover my eyes and find relief.


    It only lasted a moment before my hands were pried away by a strong grip on each of my wrists. That same grip easily hefted me up onto my feet, letting go of my hands and wrapping around my shoulders to steady me.


    I found myself staring directly into someone''s crotch. My still bleary eyes tracked up the massive form of the man in front of me, taking in sparse patches of fur, scale, and smooth pitch black skin that seemed randomly placed along the heavily muscled frame. When my eyes finally alighted on his face I stared dumbfounded.


    This man had no face. Or rather, He lacked facial features. The odd combination of scales, fur, and skin continued until it reached his neck, where it flowed into one single patch of leathery, midnight black skin that stretched across the face. There was no nose, no ears, and only the barest movement of his¡­ of it¡¯s jaw muscles told me there was a mouth somewhere on it. And crowning it all, were two oversized, sickly yellow orbs where eyes should have been. Each one was easily the size of a fist, and the eye sockets around them seemed to shift and change size at random in a way that made me think it was quirking its eyebrows at me - even though it absolutely didn¡¯t have eyebrows to quirk.


    ¡®What the fuck?!¡¯


    I had meant to yell the words but instead only a perturbed gurgling noise escaped me. The thing towered over me for a few moments more before stepping past me. I turned my head to track his movements, too afraid to make any sudden movements and have it refocus its attention on me. With a sickening popping noise my head continued to turn until it was quite literally on backwards.


    I wish I could say that was the point at which I realized I wasn¡¯t in Kansas anymore but like I said - babies are fucking stupid. No, what really set off my spidey senses was the ¡®chamber¡¯ I had just escaped. I had been expecting to see some sort of Saw inspired drowning chamber. Maybe something with mirrored glass walls so some sicko could watch me die slowly. Instead I was faced with the insane image of a man sized egg. It was stuck to the wall by an amber orange substance that greatly resembled tree sap. It was nestled amongst over a dozen other eggs, that even now were beginning to crack and break open, releasing confused duplicates of the thing into the open air. There were slight differences of course. For one, the Big Thing was ripped. Corded muscle rippled along its body as it moved in a way that gave it the bearing and postureof an action hero.


    The smaller things were scrawny mewling creatures. Like me, they had no idea what was going on, newborn as they were. Also like me, they seemed to really hate the rays of sunlight drifting down to the forest floor through the canopy of leaves above us. Big Thing walked up to each newborn in turn and yanked their hands from their faces, standing over them long enough for their eyes to adjust to the shade he provided, and then moving to the next thing in line.


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    With another squelching pop I rotated my head back into position and shakily lifted my hands to stare down at them. Patchy black scales and fur glared back at me, daring me to deny the truth before my own eyes. I was still staring at my hands when my brothers and sisters ambled up next to me chirping at each other in a way I found oddly comforting.


    Of course, that was when another question dropped itself onto the mental backlog I¡¯d been building for myself.


    Where the fuck was my dick?


    ---


    Things as I had decided to mentally classify whatever the fuck I was right now, had some really weird biology. For one, I couldn¡¯t talk properly. I stood in the middle of my cohort of Things for the better part of five minutes trying to speak to the others, who watched me with varying degrees of amusement as we all waited for what I¡¯d guess was our Dad to finish checking on all of us.


    I realized pretty quickly that I neither had vocal cords or lips with which to form words. I did however, have a mouth full of tiny serrated teeth three rows deep that seemed to take up almost the entire contents of my skull. When I finally mustered the courage to open my mouth as wide as I could to check, I found I could easily widen my jaw enough to fit one of my brothers or sisters heads inside. There was also a thick ropey tongue in there that was shaped more like a worm than a tongue, and my motor control over it was fucking terrible. It took me another five minutes to reposition it so I wouldn''t bite it off when I closed my mouth.


    So I couldn¡¯t talk. The bright side was, it wasn¡¯t hard to make and interpret the chirping noises the other Things were making, and I was busily pretending to be as happy to be alive as the others were when Big Thing stalked over to us with panther like grace.


    His monstrous maw opened and shut a single time, making a terrible grinding sound as its larger, more ferocious looking teeth brushed against each other. I guess we all instinctively knew Big Thing was calling for silence, because the chirping noises we were making cut off abruptly and we all huddled together around him.


    Nodding in approval, Big Thing led us out of the dense grouping of trees our eggs had been nested in and deeper into the forest. I couldn¡¯t tell if the trees were huge, or if I was just really tiny, but some of them had trunks so large that I was pretty sure I could hollow out just a portion of them and still have more space than my entire house back home allowed for. The forest floor was covered in the thick black mulch of a thriving ecosystem and I had to force down a chittering sigh as I lamented my lack of shoes.


    As we trudged through the undergrowth I tried to get a feel for my surroundings beyond ¡®forest¡¯. My sense of scale was out of whack - probably because I was a child - but even then, when I compared Big Thing to the shrubs and bushes we were passing through I found that they dwarfed even it. Memories of the Jurassic Park movies flitted through my mind as my only frame of reference for this type of fauna, and I shuddered then began to pay more attention to the dark corners that seemed all too common once I started looking for them.


    My brothers and sisters ambled along mindlessly behind Big Thing, complete without caution or worry. Big Thing himself seemed equally unconcerned, striding forward and shoving foliage out of its way with careless abandon.


    Something about this entire scenario seemed really weird to me. For one, if that was our ¡®nest¡¯ why were we all leaving it? Where was our mom, or whatever the hell it was that laid those eggs?


    I surreptitiously began glancing at the other members of my cohort, trying to gauge if they had a better understanding of what was going on than I did. I was brought up hideously short when my return to reality was accompanied by the realization that the only one still walking forward was me.


    I turned to find the cohort of Things standing in a loose, outward facing circle in a clear area at the center of a copse of enormous trees. They seemed to have completely forgotten about me, and I quickly darted back to them, wedging myself at the outer edge of the impromptu formation.


    Big Thing was nowhere in sight, a fact not lost on my brothers and sisters who mewled plaintively into the forest and shivered as we huddled together. It dawned on me in that moment that while I had been thinking of my fellows as thinking beings, I really had no way of knowing if Things were really all that smart at this age.Big Thing at least seemed to have something approaching human intelligence. I already knew my situation was weird, but the uncanniness of it all just continued to ratchet up a notch whenever I actually thought about it.


    So that¡¯s why, cowering in a clearing with what was essentially a group of children, I was the first one to spot the Bile Spiders.


    They were slow at first. The first one inching a single wicked sharp looking limb out of a nearby shrub and slowly dragging the rest of its bear sized body into view. It was one of the most horrible things I had ever seen in my life, putting modern horror movies to shame.


    They were spiders in so far as they had Eight legs, a bunch of eyes, and a huge abdomen no doubt used to spin webs of some kind. The rough shape was all there. But the details weren¡¯t. While I knew spiders in my own world were typically covered in fine hairs that allowed them to sense changes in their environment, these things had a complete lack of such auxiliary parts. Instead, their waxy grey bodies were positively riddled with glowing green sacs of fluid, with sharp ridges of chitin rimming each one like the fangs of a vampire just waiting to bite down on them.


    Seeming to notice that I had spotted it, the Spider focused in on me, with a baleful intelligence that scared the ever loving shit out me. Panicking I urgently tugged at my nearest siblings arm and made a trilling noise that I hoped conveyed my desperate need to run the fuck away.


    No answer came, and when I turned my head to see why, I understood. Two more of the Spiders were behind us. The three of them were penning us in with their prodigious girth in a way much more reminiscent of wolves than Spiders.


    The stillness lasted only a few moments more, before something strange happened. My cohort, every last one of them, exploded into motion with a synchronicity that boredered on the supernatural. Like bolts of black lightning, they split up, a handful of Things running at each Spider, their jaws unhinged to display a maximum number of teeth. I stared disbelieving at the sight before me, wanting with every fiber of my being to take this opportunity to run the hell away. Yet somehow, I too found myself running towards the danger I found myself in.


    God help me I was going native. Traitorous body. Stupid instincts.


    There was only one upside to the madness. I hadn¡¯t noticed it until just that moment, but I was unreasonably hungry. I mean, I was so hungry that I think if I¡¯d acknowledged it before this moment, I would have tried to eat another Thing. And damn if spider wasn¡¯t starting to look really tasty.

 Something Wicked - 2

    So, you ask yourself. You¡¯ve found yourself naked and running at the spider satan has nightmares of. Your accompanied only by a bunch of other, equally naked, children.


    What¡¯s a guy to do?


    Apparently, some instinctual part of being a Thing allowed me to skip the type of fear and hesitation a normal, sane person has when faced with such a hellish imagining. I was running to my death and all I was feeling was an all consuming hunger.


    My brothers and sisters raced ahead of me, having given in to their instincts well before my rational mind would allow me too. As the first of the five Things oriented on this particular spider reached the monstrous thing, the Spider reared up to display yet more spikes and fluid sacks on its underside. With an almost supernatural quickness the creature lashed out, hooking two of its eight legs around the Thing and tossing it viciously into the horrible spikes lining its body.


    As it did so, the fluid sacs burst, with a soft hiss that I could barely hear over the combined keening of my cohort. The poor grappled thing wailed in pain, impaled by ridges of bone and slowly being burned to death by what was apparently acid.


    Then a peculiar thing happened. Instead of flailing, struggling, or panicking - like I would certainly be if I was going to die - the Thing turned its still unhinged jaw on the spider and chomped down, tearing a dog sized hunk of flesh out of the creature and consuming yet more acid in the process.


    More of us had begun to arrive by now, and the spider began to frenzy, whipping its scythe like legs towards us in wide, haphazard swings. It seemed desperate to keep us back from it and I could see why. Despite being barely alive beneath its tremendous girth, our man on the inside was going to town on the beast. Each moment brought another ripping noise and the sound of torn flesh.


    I wondered if spiders could scream as we evaded the spiders attacks and began to crawl over it like a horde of cannibal midgets. I was beginning to feel pretty good about this fight, and so, last to arrive, I hurled myself forward past the outstretched limb of the spider and rolled to a halt under it, my brothers and sisters already savaging its body with their mouths. I was just about to try and find a spot without any acid sacs left to bite into when the mewling of our brave fallen brother reached my¡­ shit do I have ears? I don¡¯t think I have ears. How the fuck do I hear anything?


    I rotated my head to look at the dieing Thing that had first struck the spider and noted that any minute now, this thing was going to die and probably fall on him. I narrowed my¡­ eye¡­ sockets¡­ in thought while I eyed him, and it was only the sudden horrific thought that he¡¯d probably be safe to eat that snapped me from my hunger induced Frenzy.


    What the fuck was wrong with me? I stared dazed around me, the sounds and shrieks of the battle fading as my rational mind reasserted itself. Sure we were winning, with all but one spider having been more or less hurt so bad that it would be impossible to survive without medical care I doubted existed in a forest full of giant fucking acid spiders, but it was a Pyrrhic victory at best. We were getting slaughtered out here. Half my cohort were too stupid to avoid the acid sacs covering the spiders, and the other half were swarming around and over each other with so little coordination that they were actively shoving each other into oncoming attacks. When one of us actually got close enough to deal some damage the world around us seemed to stop existing as we went into a feeding frenzy. We weren¡¯t helping each other at all.


    With an effort of will, I managed to resist the desperate urge I had to consume everything I looked at and ran towards the thrashing underbelly of the spider. Leaping as I ran, I latched on to my injured brother and pulled his mewling body off the spider, quickly dragging him away across the ground when I landed. He was probably going to die anyway, but too much of my thinking was entirely human in nature to just let what was probably my brother die without trying to help.


    The poor guy didn¡¯t look good. Huge swathes of his skin were burned away to reveal the sickly yellow muscles and fat beneath them.


    I made eye contact with him, and for a frozen second I thought I saw the glimmer of intelligence in its eyes. And then the sockets of its eyes shrunk into non resistance as it closed its eyes. It was still breathing, but I doubted that would last long.


    Rising from the ground I surveyed the battlefield once more. The single remaining spider was having a much better time of it, now that the majority of my cohort had converged on the two dead spiders to eat. Only two of my overly focused fellows remained to harass it, and I feared they too weren''t long for this world.


    Annoyed I ran towards my nearest feasting brother, dug my fingers under the hinge of his jaw and yanked him away from his meal stop the quickly disappearing corpse of the spider we brought down. It must have fallen at some point, as the other Things were languishing around it as they ate.


    The Thing I had pulled from its meal made a gurgling noise at me and waved its it''s open mouth at me in what was probably a threatening gesture that ended up just looking funny to me, its mouth opening so wide it almost seemed like a cartoon character.


    Scared and aggravated, I kicked its legs out from beneath it and climbed on top of it, my small hands catching at the edge of something on its face. It struggled beneath me for a moment but I managed to direct its head towards the remaining living spider. It froze for a moment and I chirped angrily, point at the beast. Trilling in aggrieved acceptance, the Thing beneath me waited for me to get off and make some distance before snapping its jaws at me and turning to run towards the still living spider.


    I repeated the process several more times,  dragging the wounded towards the first Thing I had helped, and browbeating the others into helping with the remaining spider.


    It wasn¡¯t much longer afterwards that the beast was brought down, and the horrendous hunger I had been staving off returned. Glancing around to make sure I wasn''t in any more immediate danger, I crept towards the head of the spider - and promptly began to dig in.


    Spider eyes, it turns out, taste like chicken. A fact I guess you''d never notice eating the palm sized ones back home.


    It was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten in my life. It was juicy, and plentiful, and I had ripped and torn my way across the corpse until I reached a section doused in acid and paused in thought.


    A curious trilling noise echoed out from behind me, and I turned to see the handful of Things I had shoved off the spider staring plaintively at me, darting furtive glances at the spider corpse and then back to me.


    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    Most of them had eaten enough not to be as crazed by now, and their intelligent eyes gazed at me with something hovering between awe and fear. One of the less injured things had pushed itself up and was standing watch over the others I¡¯d dragged off, and those injured that were still conscious gave me stares filled with pure devotion.


    Confused, I made an agreeable chirping noise, and gestured at our kill. I hadn''t actually helped kill it, so I had no idea why they thought I would or even could stop them from eating.


    At my gesture, with a collective¡­ well not a sigh - more like a gurgling exhalation, they descended on the spider like Piranha.


    A sizable area around where I was standing was left completely untouched however. I stared blankly at the sight, unsure of what was going on.


    Before I could wrap my mind around it, the din of something tramping through the bushes drew my attention and I whirled to face the disturbance.


    ¡°Great.¡± I thought. ¡°What fresh fucking hell is this?¡±


    ***


    A few moments passed as the sounds steadily grew closer to us. I trilled a warning to the other Things and noted that the group that had been gorging on the other spider blithely ignored me, while the group I had bullied lifted their heads to peer attentively in the direction I was looking.


    All at once.


    Setting that aside for a moment I tensed, prepared to run the hell away if another murder spider appeared.


    Instead of what I had been expecting, Big Thing trudged out of the bushes, coming to a stop just inside the clearing. In unison my fellows returned to what they were doing.


    I peered at Big Thing, suddenly peeved with it. Where the fuck had it gone just now? Weren¡¯t we its children? It had basically just left us to fucking die!


    I left my meal to begin stomping towards him, noting I rarely that he seemed confused as he glanced about the clearing. Not at the spiders, or at the feasting, but at the neatly lined up injured that were quietly mewling at the side of the clearing.


    I chirped angrily at the him as I approached, and for a second I thought he was going to ignore me until, at the last moment, his head turned at a 90 degree angle to stare at me, pointing angrily at it from a scant foot away.


    A complete lack of interest was present its eyes when it turned to me. It wasn''t angry, it wasn''t worried, it wasn''t even annoyed. My ire continued to rise each moment the blank stare lasted until finally I snapped, giving up on the the idiotic thing.


    If it wasn''t going to protect us then I didn¡¯t want anything to do with it. I''d look after the myself. I snapped my jaws at it once and then pivoted to walk towards my injured brethren, an idea taking hold as I approached them.


    Most of them weren''t hurt too bad. Yeah there were puncture wounds, but they didn''t look all that deep really. If I could jury rig a bandage to cover to skin damaged by the acid, maybe stop some bleeding, a few of them might live.


    My eyes narrowed in thought for a moment before I spun around, headed back to the spider. Stopping in front of the massive spinneret, I began slowly pushing at the spiders behind, hoping I could pressure it in a way that would make some of its webbing come out.


    It was crude. I mean, it was definitely not modern medicine, but after warning the other things off, I managed to get it just right, although I practically had to punch the spiders behind to get what I wanted. Soon enough I was pulling thick green leaves off the nearby bushes, packing them together with the spiders webbing and pressing them against the wounded areas of the other Things to create adhoc bandages. When that was done, I trundled back towards the remains of the spider and began tearing hunks off the wretched thing, dragging the bits of putrid flesh back to the wounded Things.


    It wasn¡¯t long before the unwounded Things began mimicking me in a confused daze, doing what I did because I was doing it, more than because they understood it.


    What made this especially aggravating to me, was that I didn¡¯t even know why I cared about these things. It was obvious that they didn¡¯t, or maybe couldn¡¯t, empathise with their fellows - they were content just to eat what was in front of them until I started shoving them around.


    And yet, they had some kind of intelligence. Then again. Maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see. Maybe being a good person for me, here and now in this moment, was the best I could do to prove that I wasn¡¯t one of these creatures. I was a human being - and no one could take that from me.


    Emotionally anyway. Physically, I was definitely a Thing.


    All the while Big Thing watched me work. I glanced at it from time to time, to find it¡¯s head rotating like an owls to track me as I moved. I¡¯d have kissed my teeth at it but since I couldn¡¯t I opted to keep ignoring it.


    I had decided I was going to be in charge of these things, and until someone disapproved me of that notion that meant I had to figure out where the hell we were going to sleep. Assuming Things slept and didn¡¯t just live horribly brutal lives of unending hunger until they managed to breed or died finding a meal.


    I shuddered at the thought, and my eyes landed on the torn apart corpse of another spider. My part of the cohort had made quick work of ours - taking it apart with brutal efficiency and leaving nearly nothing left except the spinneret. The others spiders were a mess. Maybe it was the lack of a clear leader in those other groups, but the Things frequently left swathes of spider uneaten as they snapped and chirped at each other. Fighting over who got what I guess. But there was some benefit in that to me.


    Leaving my group to meander over to a less tattered spider, I carefully pressed a finger against the sharp inner edge of one of its legs. Almost immediately I felt my skin part, and I cringed, remembering the brothers and sisters that had taken hits from such a sharp object.


    Finding a length of the appendage that wasn¡¯t broken up by joints, I steeled myself and slammed my teeth down on the joint. It wasn¡¯t a clean cut, and I had to tear the sharp limb from the remaining gore very carefully lest I cut myself on it, but eventually I had a remarkably light shortsword equivalent.


    That done, I headed back to the intact spinnerette, snapping at the few Things from the other group that took issue with me taking some of their food. The minor conflict garnered the attention of ¡®my¡¯ Things, who stopped eating to snap at them along with me, the sound of our jaws clicking shut like the rattling of a machine gun in the quiet forest.


    Big Thing watched the whole ordeal with great interest, shooting a knowing glance at the hungry little assholes I was walking away from. So I snapped once at him too - because he was an asshole and it made me feel better.


    Taking great joy in the shocked look it sent me, I moved towards the spider, using more leaf bundles and spinnerette glue to make a makeshift handle on my spider shiv. Swinging it once or twice to be confident it wouldn¡¯t slip from my grasp I turned to take in the clearing again. At least half of our cohort was hurt. The injured from the other groups had died attempting to take part in the feeding frenzy once all the spiders were safely put down, and my group was only doing marginally better in that our injured weren¡¯t dead. I hoped anyway.


    Seeing me finish everything I was doing, Big Thing lurched into motion, gathering up all the Things that could move and heading off into the forest. The Things from my group glanced back and forth between Big Thing and me for a moment, before loping off after him. I didn¡¯t, and Big Thing left the clearing without giving me a second glance, leaving me with three spider corpses, and five wounded things.


    Fuck him though. I wasn¡¯t stupid - that spider attack hadn¡¯t been a coincidence. Big Thing had brought us here on purpose, even if I couldn¡¯t understand why. It was the confusion when it¡¯d seen how many of us had survived that did it for me. Even if it wasn''t on purpose, it clearly didn''t have any intention of helping - but clearly knew most of us could have died. Coward.


    Maybe Things had a super spartan culture. Maybe survival of the fittest was the rule of law here.


    But I wouldn¡¯t know. I¡¯m not a Thing.

 Something Wicked - 3

    It had been nearly a day since Big Thing had left us. Much to my surprise, none of the injured things in my care died - though they did whimper and mewl for food every ten minutes like spoiled fucking children. They could all stand now, if not run or fight, and I had them help me gather up as many useful parts of spider as I could save from there hungry stupid maws.


    I had managed to squeeze enough webbing out of our kills to make two more spider shivs, but I had at least five more scythe like spider limbs on top of that, wrapped up in a single huge leaf from the nearby bushes.


    We were going to have to move soon. I counted myself lucky that nothing had attacked us in the single day of recuperation we¡¯d already done, but I really didn¡¯t look forward to traveling through the woods with five defenceless snacks for the next probably flagrantly demonic animal we came across.


    I tried to teach the least injured Things to use the swords, but the morons kept trying to eat them until I took them away. I also tried to get them to respond to specific combinations of chirps and trills - names basically - but they were too stupid for that too. By the time the afternoon of my second day away from Big Thing had come around, we were still no closer to leaving the clearing with anything resembling organization or safety but we had no choice.


    Not because we were forced out mind you. But because the spider meat had run out. Already, I could see idiots one through five hungrily eyeing each other, and I decided enough was enough.


    I trilled once and started off in a direction perpendicular to where I remembered Big Thing leading the rest of the cohort. It would have been nice to say the my group fell in neatly behind me but they really didn¡¯t. Without Big Thing to shove branches and other obstacles out of the way, we tramped through the woods like five extremely loud, delicious, morsels. Every step I took ratcheted my paranoia up another notch, and I held a death grip on my spider shiv as we travelled - praying we could find a cave or something to set up in before night fell.


    The forest was oddly cheery given how full of death I perceived it to be. The leaves were a nice bright green, a gentle breeze wafted past tickling my face, and the waning light of the late afternoon danced among the treetops to give the entire place an almost picturesque appearance.


    And that was what scared the shit out of me. If the forest was withering and magical or some similar bullshit, I could wish the spiders away as an aberration - something not meant for this world. But the healthy state of the forest said otherwise. It said that those spiders were a part of a functioning ecosystem. And that scared the shit out of me - because it meant there was a food chain, and unless the Bile Spiders were at the top of it, there was at minimum, at least one much scarier thing in these woods.


    My heart was jackhammering so hard when something finally happened that just knowing what it was was enough to help me calm down.


    We had started to follow a little stream of water we had chanced upon in our blind stumble through the forest, and I was angrily kicking the tenth pebble I had stepped on out of the way when the familiar sound of construction work filled my ears. I thought I was going crazy at first - I mean, it sounded like there was heavy machinery churning the earth somewhere ahead of us, which would have been a welcoming though if I wasn¡¯t presently some kind of cannibal goblinoid.


    But then the sound began to grow closer. Urgently, I began trilling quietly at idiots one through five, leading them off the clear path the stream presented and shoving them down to hide in the nearby bushes. Once we¡¯d all settled to my satisfaction - I waited.


    It didn¡¯t take long to arrive, and I thanked whatever sick designer had created this world that Things didn¡¯t seem to excrete any waste. Because I just about would have shit my pants. If I was wearing pants I mean.


    Tearing through the underbrush directly in the center of the stream, came the form of what I can only describe as a fuck off huge snake. It¡¯s head was recognizable enough - elongated snout, long flicking tongue, ophidian  eyes on either side of its head. But everything after the head was one continuous whirling series of bony axelike scoops. They came in sections as big as I was, like the notches on a spinal cord, connected to each other by a coiling network of tendons and sinew that never seemed to tangle or become wound too tight.


    The rotated at dizzying speeds, in a pattern that undulated across the snakes body like a sine wave - propelling the monster forward as fast as any car I had seen. The speed it was travelling at gave me hope that it would simply pass us by, by as it did, its tongue flicked out, and its head swivelled slightly to turn one single, freakish orange eye towards the bushes we were hiding in. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The scales on its head, I noted, were a sickly bone white to match the coloring of the bone spurs it used to move. Then, like lightning it whirled around in the opposite direction from us, diverging from the easily traveled stream.


    Shit. It¡¯s going to double back on us isn¡¯t it.


    I quickly started shoving my cohort out of the way, urging them to stand and begin fleeing, but there was a hungry look in their eyes that I feared might be mirrored in my own. On the one hand, the feeding frenzy meant I wasn¡¯t going to panic and then die frozen still in fear. On the other, I could feel my body tuning up for a fight, half thought out reasons why it was a good idea to stay already flitting through my mind.


    The Gyre Snake - as I had decided to call it - must have turned around, because the sound was no longer growing distant, instead I could hear more than see the thunderous crashing of trees as it tore apart the undergrowth on its return path to us.


    I could feel my mouth salivate, and a plan begin to take form in my mind. Still, I was rational enough to know that I was probably going to die in a few moments.


    Stupid god damn biology. Where are the breaks on this thing? I want to get off!


    ***


    It was easily the dumbest plan I had ever come up with, and that includes my adult life before becoming a Thing.


    It had all the subtlety of a matador and none of the finesse. I was going to bury some of my handleless spider shivs in the ground at an angle so that the snake would plow into them. I was going to stand behind them so I could be sure the snake actually hit them.


    And then I was probably going to be turned into snake shit.


    It was a testament to my single minded focus on obtaining food that I considered this a workable plan. It was an even greater testament to the human mind''s ability to fuel itself with fear that I got all the makeshift piles in to place in time.


    The snake must have had some trouble moving with speed or delicacy through an environment with lots of obstacles because it should have reached me much faster than it did. It must use the streams and other clearer paths to get around, only diverging from them when it couldn''t find pray along them.


    I had just managed to bury the last shiv when the thunderous destruction of trees was punctuated by an almost quiet splash of water.


    The snake had crossed the stream.


    Certain I was about to be plowed into by an angry snake the size of a semi truck, my hands and feet began scrabbling across the dirt, quickly lifting me off the ground and into a running posture.


    And not a moment to soon I realized as the snakes cavernous maw burst through the foliage charging towards me.


    Its head dwarfed the makeshift trap I had crafted, the spears - which were nearly as tall as I was - only slightly longer than a single one of its massive fangs.


    Those same fangs crashed through the air toward me, even as the snakes own momentum carried it forward into my trap. The results were less than I had hoped. Only a few of them landed on the softer flesh of the snakes head, one managing to wedge itself in an immense ophidian eye.


    The sudden blindness the wound caused was probably all that saved me from  being impaled on the snakes fangs. I dove forward out of the way of the snakes attack, its mouth opening and closing with such swiftness it was nearly impossible to follow the movement. The snake wasn¡¯t to be deterred however, and it continued to drive forward thrashing blindly in my direction as the pain of its wounds distracted it.


    Unfortunately none of those wounds were mortal, and I had no way of escaping or fending off the beast.


    I continued forward, zig zagging back and forth through the underbrush, narrowly avoiding death with each erratic movement. I jumped over stumps and stones, changed directions at random, and at one point - my body beginning to grow tired under the exertion - even considered trying to jump on top of the snakes head. But  nothing worked, and I was still rational enough in my fear and hunger to pointedly ignore the last idea.


    Holy shit I was going to die. I was going to die, and I hadn¡¯t even figured out what the hell had happened to me yet. I was going to die fucking hungry God damnit.


    Panting, I burst through the tree line onto a fairly wide meadow that ended abruptly at a cliff.


    ¡®Shiiiiiit¡¯ I thought as I came to a halt in the center of the meadow. A moment later the Gyre Snake exploded into view, its prodigious body arching through the air above me in a leap that would have probably allowed it to swallow me whole if I''d still been running. The rotating sections of its body ripped through the air inches from my face as it passed and only a last minute jump to the side stopped me from becoming pasted under its girth when it landed.


    Heart hammering I turned, hoping for some of that pulp fiction luck, desperately praying that the snake would careen off the edge of the cliff.


    It was a close thing, but Flash Gordon wasn¡¯t on my side this time, and the snake made a wide turn that sent part of its tail slipping over the edge of the cliff before it reoriented on me, mouth wide and ready to swallow me whole.


    Shit fuck shit.


    Jerking back in to motion I made one final futile attempt at to sprint back into the tree line - knowing I wouldn¡¯t make it in time.


    Why does everything here have to be so god damn big? I swear if I reincarnated I want to be a mountain sized bear. Only seems fair what with all the bullshit I''ve had to deal with.


    Mt thoughts trailed to a stop when I realized I hadn¡¯t been eaten yet, and I glanced over my shoulder, nearly plowing into a nearby tree as I skidded to a halt.


    I wasn¡¯t dead because the snake wasn¡¯t chasing me anymore. It wasn¡¯t chasing me anymore because - somehow - my injured things had jumped onto its fleshy head and begun eating it alive.


    ¡®How!?¡¯ I mentally howled. These useless fucks could barely limp let alone make that jump so how did-


    My question was answered as the last of the Things jumped from a tree to land haphazardly on the snakes spine. The snake was flailing wildly, shaking its head and doing basically everything short of smashing it''s own face into the ground to get my cohort off of it.


    I winced as I saw the spinning disks of bone on the snakes back tear apart one of my allies. But with this, we at least had a chance.


    Taking a firm grasp on my spider shiv, I - for the second time since birth - ran screaming at a nightmare creature.


    Because of course, I was hungry.

 Something Wicked - 4

    Getting close enough to the snake to hurt it turned out to be really goddamn hard.


    As though it was reading my mind, it had started liberally bludgeoning its head against the ground the shake off its attackers. This posed a significant problem for me, and I stutter stepped just at the edge of its thrashing, trying to find a good moment to jump.


    The snakes movements were shaking the meadow, and its gyrating body parts had started to dig a sizable trench in the ground where it was struggling.


    The tipping point between hunger and self preservation came when a loose shred of flesh from one of my brothers tend ministrations landed on my face, and I subconsciously allowed my tongue to come out and flicker across it.


    Almost despite myself I felt my mouth drop open, and I lurched forward, slamming my shiv home in a ridge beneath the beasts eye, feeling myself being carried up as it raised its head to continue thrashing.


    There was a moment of free fall at the apex of my flight, and I released my makeshift hand hold to avoid being jerked to the ground by the return motion.


    Its movements were slowing now, blood loss no doubt forcing the creature into a panic as its death drew near. My body landed neatly on the base of its head, just above the first spinning bone disk that made up its main body.


    Without thinking I closed my jaw on the faded white scales, expecting to be jarred by the sharpness and hardness of them. Instead my teeth bit deep, holding me just out of reach of my oncoming mangling and presenting to delicious crunching sensation of potatoes chips.


    Jesus how fucking strong were my jaws?


    My newfound appreciation for the weapon nature had blessed me with didnt get alot of time to breath as the delirious snake decided to take drastic measures.


    Unable to see, (one of us had eaten the eye that hadn''t been blinded by my trap) the creature lowered its head, the gyrating of its body increasing in speed to send it careening towards the edge of the cliff.


    There was a clear moment when every single one of us Things could have let go and leaped off. It wasn¡¯t as though the cliff was falling apart - and the snake wouldn''t be a problem if it jumped off a literal cliff. Probably anyway.


    But instead, an unspoken agreement seemed to pass between us. By now two of our own had been pulped by the creatures mad struggle, leaving me and idiots one through three latched to it only by the strength of our jaws.


    I began to wonder if Things even had brains - or if all the space our prodigious maws took up made them so small that we had no hope of greater intelligence.


    Because so help me god I was going to fall off a cliff for snake meat.


    We cleared the edge of the cliff in one smooth motion, the horrible grinding sound of the snakes trowel like body parts suddenly stopping as we entered free fall and my stomach leapt up into my heart.


    I barely had time to register the view of our height afforded us before the ground shot up to meet us, but I thought I saw smoke in the distance.


    Beneath us was another expanse of trees, there foliage so overbearing that the tree floor must be in constant shadow. We plunged through them with a vengeance, and I felt more than saw the slap of branches as they scoured my skin, causing me to bleed for the first time since being born here.


    The snake had it far worse. It¡¯s great size made the oncoming trees into a huge spike trap, and death struck it almost immediately as the gargantuan trees limbs impaled it, then cracked and fell off because of its downward momentum. The fact that the snake was taking the brunt of all the impact was probably all that saved us from a similar fate, albeit on much smaller branches.


    And then we finally hit the ground. The snake was long dead, but the impact caused its body to crunch and kink up like a broken slinky before its tail slapped the ground with a dull thud that shook the birds from nearby trees. My body spun at an odd angle to my head, slapping into the remains of a moist ophidian eye and eliciting a surge of pain through me. If I were human, my neck would have almost certain snapped. Instead it just hurt. Alot. Slowly, I righted myself, tearing the hunk of snake flesh I had been hanging onto out and swallowing it whole.


    Only two of us had survived that fall. Thing One and Two look as though they had caught some branches at a bad angle, and were stuck nearly as bad as the snake. Their jaws remained firmly clamped about its head though, like ticks hanging limply. I wanted to mourn but found I couldn¡¯t bring myself to cry. I didn¡¯t think Things could. I wanted to be angry, but the snake was already dead. The last few days had all been so surreal. I was happy I wasn¡¯t dead, but at the same time, if every day was just going to be one continuous struggle to survive, I wasn¡¯t sure I wanted to live anymore either.


    My body, moving without my conscious instruction, lurched forward to begin devouring the Gyre Snake - as though the action was only an afterthought to all the insanity.


    I don¡¯t know how long I shut down after that. Just mindlessly satiating my hunger, slowly stripping every last edible piece from the snake. If I couldn''t eat it, I discarded it. I came to greatly enjoy the tendons holding its spinning tail together. It was like¡­ spaghetti made of meat.


    Days passed. I wouldn¡¯t say I¡¯d gone entirely native - I¡¯d simply lost hope. There were only the two of us left now, and I doubted things would get easier from here. I didn¡¯t know where I was. I didn¡¯t know how I got here. I didn¡¯t know what I had to do. They say that the great torment of humanity is being smart enough to contemplate your own existence, and that is exactly the hell I found myself in. I couldn¡¯t see the point in any of this.


    But a small, still reasoning part of me knew that I couldn¡¯t just do nothing. So I ate, and ate and ate and ate. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Until finally, something broke the monotony I had chained myself up in. The rustling of nearby brush, as something bigger than I moved through it. I hadn¡¯t seen any animals in this forest smaller than I was. Not even a squirrel. Which meant that whatever was coming, was almost guaranteed to be a threat to my life.


    I almost cheered at the prospect. Either I was going to die and be done with this shit hole, or I was going taste something new.


    So, like an animal, I whirled around, unhinging my jaw to protect the snakes remains - and found myself staring straight at a very nonplussed looking old man.


    An old, human, man.


    ***


    I froze on the spot, slowly closing my raw to stare in rapt bewilderment at him. He looked old enough to have great grandkids. His face was weathered and tired looking, with several laugh lines to document what was probably a joyous life prior to this. His hair was short, and white. A pure white so bright it looked dyed more than the result of age. His thick beard twitched slightly as he pursed his lips and looked over my shoulder at the dead Gyre Snake¡¯s remains.


    He raised a single well manicured hand and pointed off to my right, his eyes flicking too and fro as though looking for something.


    With a start the last of my brethren lunged forward, directly in line with the old geezers pointed finger. My eyes widened in panic and I jumped forward, slamming into the stupid creature sending both of us sprawling to the ground in a confused heap. I felt a flash of heat behind me, but put it out of my mind as I snapped at my brother, not sure how to convey to him that I¡¯d rather kill and eat him than let him hurt the only human I¡¯d yet encountered.


    When I thought to look up and glance around, The old man had moved, stepping forward to peer down at me from a good five feet away. I looked around him to where he¡¯d been standing before and saw a giant black scar in the earth tracing a path from his previous location to where my idiot brother had been before I tackled him.


    The old man waved his right hand in the air again, and a ball of white hot fire appeared in the air next to him, slowly warping as though it were wrapped around an invisible arrow pointing straight at me.


    Fuck me he was magic.


    Fuck me, he was magic, and he was going to fucking kill us.


    Whimpering I did the first thing I could think of. It wasn¡¯t jump out of the way, or to roll to safety. I never even considered trying to fight back. No, the appearance of another person had made me revert to the most basic of instincts a human from earth was going to have when a gun is pointed at them.


    I stuck my hands in the air in the universal sign of surrender, closed my eyes, and thanked god I wasn¡¯t physically capable of crying or defecating myself.


    When the searing heat of imminent death didn¡¯t scorch me after a few seconds, I cracked an eye open, itself an extremely discomforting feeling owing to my lack of eyelids.


    The old man was staring perplexed at me, the lance of flame he¡¯d conjured hovering only a foot away from his head, but seemingly causing him no discomfort. He looked first to me, then to my brother, then back to me. Then slowly, he gestured to an area just to my right, as though telling me to move out of the way.


    I raised one foot to comply, but my attention was still caught on the white hot flame the man had conjured, and I turned slowly to look down at the last living member of my cohort. He was a hungry little asshole, true, but he¡¯d saved my life, along with all my other now dead brothers and sisters.


    Groaning inwardly, I slowly pointed backward at Thing Two, and met the old man''s eyes, shaking my head. Contrary to my expectations, this didn¡¯t seem to bother him. Infact, an odd glint appeared in his eyes, and his previously dour expression showed the hint of a smile. He lowered his pointing finger then turned his head back towards the cover of the brush.


    ¡°Nadeen, come here!¡± he yelled in the gravelly voice of someone who smoked a pack a day and didn¡¯t regret a moment of it. He kept me in the corner of his eye the entire time, and the glowing blaze of fire beside him cast a sinister shadow over his face.


    I suddenly didn¡¯t feel so good about stopping my brother from killing him. Not that he needed it. He was walking around the murder forests of wherever the fuck this is like they were his backyard.


    My suspicions that he feared nothing in these woods were confirmed when young girl poked her head out of the bushed, shoving her way into the small area we were in and making aggrieved sounds as she picked twigs and leaves out of her long chestnut colored hair. She couldn¡¯t have been older than thirteen, but she was covered in equipment. Where the old man wore only grey pants tied at the waist with rope, simple leather boots, and a white linen shirt covered by a blue vest, she wore polished leather armor that looked like it had never seen real use. She moved jerkily in it, as though unnaccustomed to the weight, and fussed noisily with the short sword and hilt attached to her belt.


    Thing Two hissed meanly at her as she entered the clearing and I snapped my jaws at it urgently to make it shut the hell up.


    ¡°I told you, so long as you are with me such mundane precautions would only be a hindrance¡­¡± chortled the old man. The girl glared at him as she continued to comb bits of forest debris out of her bobbed hair. Instead of directly answering him, she turned her glare on me.


    ¡°What this then?¡± she said, petulantly ignoring the man¡¯s comment. The old man pondered the question for a moment before gesturing at me and my brother, his floating spear of flame dissipating as he did so.


    ¡°These¡± he said grandiosely, ¡°are Gremlins. They aren¡¯t well known for their intelligence. If I had to describe them in a single breath, they mostly just exist as a fast breeding food source for the bigger creatures in the forest. Although¡­¡± He glanced at the Gyre Snake corpse behind us.


    ¡°They have a propensity for using overwhelming numbers to occasionally defeat enemies far larger than they are.¡±


    ¡°So?¡± the girl snapped, obviously annoyed by his lecturing tone.


    ¡°So, there are only two Gremlins here my dear Nadeen - and one of them is patiently waiting for us to finish talking so it can take its kin and run away. What does that tell you?¡±


    Shit. That was a good question. I really wasn¡¯t sure if the level of intelligence I was showing them was normal in¡­ Gremlins¡­ or not, but I doubted it. Part of me hoped this old guy was about to answer the great mystery of what the hell was going on to me, but I should have known it wasn¡¯t going to be that easy.


    ¡°It means, my dear, given that it seems be relatively young, that one or both of its parents has been eating humans for a very long time. It¡¯s the only way a monster could develop such intelligence.¡± the old man said, clearly proud of his deduction.


    ¡°Then why is it smart Bastok.¡± the girl seethed, clearly wishing he would get to the point. The old man - Bastok - deflated immediately, turning a tired eye on Nadeen with seemingly no care for me or Thing Two still on the ground behind me.


    ¡°Maneaters, are dangerous. They have the natural advantages all monsters have over humans, in addition to an almost human intelligence. Some have been known to develop strange and unique abilities.¡± he flicked his head towards me and a chill shot down my spine.


    ¡°By contrast, their offspring have a high chance of bearing intelligence, but lack the strength to defend themselves without the care of their parents. - in short, this beast would make an excellent first monster for any aspiring Binder.¡±


    ¡°But you said Gremlins were weak. I don¡¯t want a weak monster - I want something big and dangerous that I can show off when I go to school!¡± whined the young girl.


    ¡°Nadeen, this is a rare opportunity for you to-¡±


    Yeah, that didn¡¯t sound good. Slowly now that the old man was paying direct attention to me, I nudged Thing Two and began sliding towards the brush, hoping to get out of Bastok¡¯s line of sight and then make a run for it. Thing Two caught my intent, and together, we slowly faded away from the argument the two humans were having over my fitness to serve.


    I¡¯ve read cultivation novels. I¡¯m no dummy. They were going to kill me and use me as material for some bullshit powerup ritual. Nu uh. No way.


    Unfortunately, before I could quite reach cover, there was a blinding flash of light, and a minivan sized tiger stood menacingly between me and the relative safety of the murder forest. It had fluorescent red fur, and on closer inspection, was more akin to a sabertooth than your standard zoo quality tiger. Flames wafted up from its body following the black stripes covering it, giving it an intimidating mien beyond the mundane reasons to be afraid of a giant fucking sabretooth tiger.


    How the fuck does something like this even EVOLVE? Who¡¯s idea was this?


    Belatedly I noticed Thing Two slip around the monster completely unmolested and I started hopefully after him before being stopped by the shifting of one massive clawed paw.


    A shadow passed over me and I turned to see Bastok staring smugly down at me. I glanced between him and the tiger, noticing a glow in his eyes that matched that of the tigers.


    And that was when it all clicked.


    Impossible to understand biology? Check.


    Ridiculously dangerous magical wild life? Check.


    Casual disregard for ¡®mundane¡¯ weapons? Check.


    I was a fucking pokemon.

 Dark Nights - 1

    ¡°Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.¡±


    - Theodore Roosevelt


    ***


    Bastok¡¯s gaze on me was steady, and menacing as he slowly made to reach a small pouch adorning his belt. I had to hold in a hissing snicker for fear he might interpret it as a threat.


    But god damn it, it was a fanny pack.


    I was getting hysterical if that was all it took to distract me from my imminent enslavement and/or death.


    When Bastok finished rummaging about in his pouch - a task that took entirely too long for such a small container - his hand came up holding a brilliant purple gem the size of his fist. It was crudely shaped to like very similar to a mammoth tusk, and had a glittering band of silver metal wrapping around its center. The band was positively covered in little impossible to decipher scratches and I tried to step away as it entered my sight.


    Fear and anticipation filled me as I tried to find a way out of this situation. Even if they weren¡¯t going to kill me, I doubted whatever they were going to do to me was going to be pleasant.


    I had, of course, forgotten about the Saber Tooth Tiger that was literally on fire less than a foot away from me, and was reminded only when an errant swipe of passing heat from its claws at my back prevented my flight again.


    ¡°Do you remember the ritual?¡± Bastok said, raising a single condescending eyebrow.


    ¡°Of course I remember the ritual you infuriating-¡± Nadeen seethed, apparently now tired of Bastok¡¯s casual assumption of her incompetence.


    I was beginning to get the feeling that Bastok didn¡¯t really want to be here, and it showed. He was clearly something akin to a babysitter, and, assuming the gem was a pokeball or something similar, I wondered why he didn¡¯t just capture me himself and give me to her later.


    I shuddered as I considered what being inside a pokeball must be like. Was it like a resort I came out of just to fight? Or would my existence be the null blackness of a waking coma? Would I be pliant and helpful, just so I didn¡¯t have to go back in the crystal? Suddenly the context of all those children¡¯s cartoons took on a dark tone in my memories as I contemplated be imprisoned for all eternity.


    ¡°Then. Do. It.¡± Bastok ground out from behind gritted teeth, cutting off what was obviously going to be the start of an oft repeated argument.


    ¡°I¡­¡± Nadeen looked back and forth between the crystal and me like she was unsure of herself for a moment, and I could actually see the moment her rage at feeling inadequate drove her to action. Her face tightened into a firm grimace and heated eyes turned on me like with all the force and drive of an executioner to his calling. This girl had a chip on her shoulder the size of my head, and seeing as how I was likely about to become her primary weapon in any fight she got into, that didn¡¯t bode well. With a quick jerking movement she snatched the gem from Bastok¡¯s hand, scowling at him the entire time.


    I took a stuttering step forward, hands still raised in the air in a clear show of surrender. Bastok seemed to find this highly amusing, chortling at my obvious willingness to do anything if meant not fucking dying. He was an ass. And I promised myself that I¡¯d find a way to get back at him for this someday, if I could.


    ¡°By Oath and Blood,¡± intoned Nadeen, stepping towards me with the gem, itself now beginning to emit a faint glow that was visible even in the waning daylight.


    ¡®Fuuuuuck¡¯ I thought, now less than a few feet away from the young girl.


    ¡°Your Fate Undone,¡± she continued, making a grasping motion towards me with her free hand. Immediately, I felt a pull on my very being. A tug at my very core that left me feeling as though my soul was leaving my body. Glancing at my up raised hands I was terrified to see the outline of my body beginning to grow hazy, as though I was turning into a faint black mist being drawn towards the purple crystal.


    ¡®Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck¡¯


    ¡°My Soul Is Open,¡± she whispered, her tone growing quiet, as solemnity seemed to outpace her anger, and her face became fell into the stoic image of someone officiating a funeral. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement, but I was so busy trying not to be dragged into the crystal that I hardly had time to register it before giving up on my submissive posture.


    Remembering the prodigious strength of my jaws, I whirled around, opening my mouth and slamming my jaws into the ground, my teeth finding purchase on years of stone and roots strewn just beneath the surface of the earth. But the sensation didn¡¯t lessen. In fact, I felt it grow stronger. The pull didn¡¯t feel like a physical sensation. It felt like the sinking gut feeling of anxiety on the rise. It felt like the first, horrible drop on a roller coaster. It felt really god damn terrible. And I intrinsically knew that if I succumbed to the pull, I would lose something I could never get back.


    Desperate now, slobber dripping down my face in lieu of the tears I could shed, keened pitifully, begging the young girl in every way except with words to please, stop hurting me.


    ¡°My Will Be-!¡± Nadeen¡¯s cant, the final line of her spell faltered as she gasped, and that horrible soul draining pull lessened greatly. In wonder at the fact my desperate pleas had gotten through I relaxed. I mean, of course they had gotten through. I was a rationale, thinking being. I could communicate, I was sentient. That much was obvious. Slowly unclenching my jaw muscles so I could rise I shuddered.


    Thank god the poor girl had realized in time.


    Turning around and hopeful of my new ability to coexist my hopes were high. If they knew I was sentient and not, you know, a vicious man eating monster, maybe they would take me into town. I could live somewhere with a roof instead of this hellish murder forest. Assuming they came from a town anyway. Not that I cared. They had to have somewhere to sleep at night that was safe from the monsters. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    My hopes were dashed when my slow turn finished. What I saw was not the benevolent gaze of a young girl who had realized her folly. No, what I saw was Nadeen gazing in absolute terror at Bastok just next to her. Bastok too, seemed shocked at what had happened. His face was pale, and his mouth moved to form words he no longer had enough breath to speak. From the center of his chest, was a single spider shiv. I stared at it in horror, realizing it was my shiv, dropped at some point during my days long hunger fugue. My vision tracked down the blade, past Bastok to the gremlin behind him. Wads of leaf were still stuck to its body where I had done my best to bandage it. Its eyes were pinpricks in its now malicious looking face, and it was holding the handle of my shiv like it had no idea what it was doing, one hand on the safe handle, but the other cut open and oozing onto a sharp part of the blade near the bottom.


    ¡°B..Bastok?¡± whispered Nadeen, clearly afraid for his life despite her previous ire at her treatment at his hands. His head panned towards her as if in slow motion, and I felt a lurch behind me as the flaming saber tooth tiger that had been blocking my escape let loose a victorious growl. It stood stock still, its eyes shockingly intelligent as they flicked between me, my brother, and Bastok, hope filling the dilated blacked orbs of the massive predator.


    Holy shit it was sentient. It was sentient, and it obviously hoped Bastok would die so it could roam free again. Fear gripped my heart as I pondered what this creature could do stalking forest. Stalking me.


    Too late, I lurched forward, trying to stop Thing Two from finishing its grizzly task. But it was a waste of effort. Faster than I could cross the distance between us, It¡¯s jaw unhinged and widened in one smooth motion, its teeth still liberally spersed with shreds of undigested meat. Then they clamped down, tearing enough of Bastok¡¯s torso from his body to guarantee his death. I turned away, unwilling to watch what I knew would come next. We were Things, we ate. Quickly.


    The sounds of meat tearing sickened me as it rang out behind me, and my eyes fell on Nadeen, whos panicked gaze had turned to me in desperation. Her hand, still holding the crystal, raised towards me again, and I could see the thoughts flash across her face. She was alone in this god forsaken place now. Bastok was dead, and I doubted his tiger was going to stick around to protect her - I doubted it was going to let anyone in the clearing live at all.


    And she knew it.


    ¡®Don¡¯t you dare!¡¯ I hissed at her, lunging forward in an awkward dive the put me barely in range of her outstretched hand.


    ¡°My Will Be Done!¡± she bellowed, and I felt myself lift off my feet.


    My entire existence felt compressed down into a single point, my focus entirely dragged towards the crystal as inexorably as a moth to flame. It was beautiful in its own way. Sitting there, gripped as tightly as Nadeen¡¯s young hands could manage. Her fingers so supple and soft¡­ the knuckles white with tension. I had never seen anything so fascinating in my life.


    And as I gazed at it, my rational human mind enamored by the magic of the crystal, the instincts of a Thing kicked in, and I felt the dull crack of bone snapped as my mouth opened and shut on the most exquisite taste I had ever experienced. It was like I had been eating rare steak with no spices on it. No accompanying flavors or textures. Hell I didn¡¯t even have any fries on the side. And this¡­ this opened my eyes. It was like going from McDonalds to two thousand dollar dry aged steak. It was almost orgasmic.


    And then my consciousness snapped back to reality as the god awful wailing of a young girl split the clearing. Like waking from a dream I took in my surroundings once more.


    Nadeen¡¯s was on the ground screaming as I finally swallowed the delicious morsel. The arm which had been holding the crystal was entirely missing, and her arm from just past the elbow was missing, replaced with the rapid flow of her flavor as it escaped her body.


    Her flavor!? I hedged, recognize it for what it really was. Nadeen was bleeding out. I had taken her entire arm, the bone, muscle, armor and crystal, entirely into my mouth. Severing them with a single sharp snap of my jaws shutting.


    I wanted to wretch, to vomit out the terrible, horribly cannibalistic meal I had just taken. I wanted to scream, and rail against whatever higher power had put me in a body so reflexively cruel that I could start trying to eat another human being any time I got distracted.


    But mostly, I wanted to cry. Because I was too busy basking in the amazing taste of human flesh seasoned with unfinished magic to do either of those things.


    <ol>


    <li> Am Not. A Monster. I cried to myself, advancing on the girl with the intent to do anything I could to staunch the bleeding. To stop the crying. To stop the delicious sent of of her life essence leaving her body from driving me into a feeding frenzy that I knew my damaged spirit could survive.</li>


    </ol>


    And she gasped and backed away, shaking and white from blood loss. Her pale skin, which I would have once called the mark of a safe upbringing, was now  the sickly white of deaths out stretched hand. And I blanched.


    I couldn¡¯t be responsible for this girls death. I just couldn¡¯t. She had tried to enslave me yes, but she was a child. She was just doing what she was told, damnit!


    Panicking, I glanced around the clearing, seeing a burning hole in the brush where the tiger had once been. Bits of flame danced around the edge of the cauterized tunnel of greenery, and I stumbled towards them, confident that Nadeen couldn¡¯t possibly run off and get herself killed by something else in the state she was in.


    I could still hear the slick sensation of chewing behind me, and I tried desperately to pretend Thing Two didn¡¯t exist. He had saved me, and I should be grateful for that, but I had a very hard time judging that against my still very soft, human sense of right and wrong. So while I knew we did have to eat, and that, - being gremlins - it was not technically cannibalism, I was still disgusted.


    Scrambling about the brush, I grabbed a loose branch, and then another and another, sticking them plaintively in the remains of a guttering fire. When they merely smoked instead of sparking to flame themselves, I gurgled forlornly at them.


    How the fuck do you make a torch. Wood burns right? WOOD BURNS DAMNIT.


    Like a mental patient I began shaking the smoking wood and hissing at it, as though that might somehow help. Then I heard the tearing of frabric as Thing Two continued his meal and an idea struck me. Torches in movies werent just bundles of wood - they had a cloth wrap on top!


    Cursing my inability to remember even a single thing about basic wilderness survival, I sprinted towards Bastok¡¯s corpse. His arms and legs were missing, and I nearly slipped on the slick of his blood where it was spilling out of his still warm body. I felt a part of my soul die as I struggled to pull a strip of linen from what was left of his shirt, wrapping it around my bundle of sticks as I stumbled back to the flames.


    This time, they lit, though with much more smoke than I remembered a torch making in a video game or movie.


    Whirling, I turned to head back to Nadeen, who had long since fallen unconscious, either from shock or terror. I hoped it was terror. At least that wasn¡¯t a sign of near death.


    Raising the bleeding stump of her left arm, I careful laid her elbow across my knee, and pressed the fast burning torch to the wound.


    Nadeen woke immediately, screaming into the forest like a banshee and struggling weakly against me, like a mewling kitten unable to stand in its first few hours of existence.


    I ignored her weak slapping and continue to hold the torch against her wound, the blood slowly stopping its flow. The smell was amazing. Like barbeque steak.


    ¡®More like long pig.¡¯ I thought, a black humour taking me as the depth of how fucked I was filled my mind with hate for this terrible place.


    Snapping my jaws in the air once to so Thing Two would stop staring longingly at Nadeen, I lifted the torch to check my progress. The stump was burnt to a crisp, but there was no blood anymore, and I held onto hope that the girl would live if I could get her safely to a town where someone with a medical degree, or more likely, fucking magic could help her.


    Nadeen had long since blacked out again, and I was certain this time it was because of the pain. Disgusted, I hurled the torch into the remains of the Gyre Snake, its flesh beginning to rot un-appetizingly.


    Then I sat down, and drooled. There was a burnt, human girl laying on the ground next to me, and I was hungry. More importantly, I realized, I hadn¡¯t slept since being born. I hadn¡¯t slept in days.


    Weariness overtook me, and sending a faint trill to Thing Two, that I hoped it took for ¡®don¡¯t you fucking dare eat me in my sleep¡¯, I closed my eyes, and darkness overtook me.

 Dark Nights - 2

    Unconsciousness is a funny thing. It comes in a lot of flavors. Sleep, Knock-Out, Coma. I¡¯ve been told over the years, by many people, none of whom had anything approximating a degree, that sleep is how our mind organizes information. Like turning your computer off because too many things are running in the background, sometimes you just need to do a soft restart to function properly.


    But, getting back to the point.


    I am reasonably certain that I was not asleep. Sleep takes two forms for me. The exhausted blink and then five hours have passed kind, easily recognized by anyone with a nine to five trying to hold onto some semblance of a social life. And the deep, soothing embrace of dreams. Dreams, it is to be understood, are easily recognizable for what they are when you start examining them. There is something subtly wrong about them in most cases. A vagueness around the edges, where all the details your mind usually filters out as unnecessary, simply aren¡¯t present, or are filled with cartoonish approximations.


    It is noticing these differences, that allows lucid dreaming. It is also, how I usually wake myself up from a bad dream.


    I was floating in a vast black void. A soft purple glow illuminated my immediate surroundings, providing just light for me to fear what I couldn¡¯t see, and not enough for me to truly understand the depth of the shadow. This was true darkness, the absolute absence of any celestial body, of any presence in the distance to move towards. There was only me, and the softly glowing, very familiar, purple gem beneath me. Nothing else.


    I didn¡¯t think it was a dream, because despite only getting the barest glance at the crystal, the elaborate etchings about the ring in its center stood out in clear detail. In a normal dream, focusing on those strange runes should have snapped me to wakefulness, as my unconscious mind recognized that it had nothing to fill in the blanks available to it. But instead, I could see every detail.


    Faced with this alien presence, I was at a loss for what to do. I could move, in a vague sort of way. Drifting back and forth like a kind of disembodied point of view. But try as I might, I couldn¡¯t leave the crystal, only orbit it to a greater or lesser degree.


    Giving up on my futile attempts at escape, I settled in to look more closely at the gem. At a glance, it looked rough hewn and imperfect. As though it had been only half heartedly worked on by an experienced jeweler. But the longer I stared, the more intent my focus, the more it felt like there was a subtle pattern to the facets. And as I followed the pattern, I began to feel it. The warm, welcoming feeling of home. The bracing shock of that first dip into a cold pool. The first succulent bite of steak when your starving. It was all that and more, a feeling so indescribable, so impossible to replicate, that for a brief moment in time I entirely gave up on ever escaping from the endless nothing I found myself in.


    As though that acceptance was all it was waiting for, the gem began to pulse, slowly at first, but growing in strength and intensity with each passing moment. Every time the gem pulsed, some of its soft purple light would linger in the darkness. Small motes of energy that slowly pushed against the darkness, like pressing a needle through a thick black cloth. Individually they were insignificant in the face of the overwhelming nothingness. But together, they created a tapestry of blinking white stars in the distance. Little holes in the veil of blackness penning me in that began to produce their own light.


    Excited, and unable to contain my curiosity my point of view began to drift slowly towards one of the holes, following the flow of the energy now entering into the space I was in, back to the crystal, as it continued to maddly pulse, stronger and stronger until the waves of energy it was giving off began to jar even me in my bodiless state. Finally, with a harsh crack, the gem exploded, dispersing into smaller and smaller flecks of dust until they were all but lost in shadow.


    But the inscribed ring remained, rotating gently around a core of the now pure white energy flowing in from behind the veil of emptiness.


    And then, I woke up.


    ***


    When I opened my eyes, something was very wrong. More so than the usual wrongness that seems to pervade the entire world I now find myself in. Everything around me seemed just a little bit smaller than it was before. Of course, everything in this shit hole was uncomfortably large in the first place, but even still. The bushes seemed just a bit less safe to hide in, and the ground just slightly too far away.


    Grinding my teeth in worry I slowly stood up to look around. The girl - Nadeen - was still unconscious, her burned stump having fallen from my lap as I rose. Only the barest rise and fall of her chest told me she was even still alive. I was still alive, so presumably nothing had come to kill all of us in our sleep. Which was good. I was kind of worried what with all the god awful screaming that we¡¯d attract something, but unlike a real forest ecosystem, the creatures that lived in the murder forest seemed to live fairly far apart. I chittered in annoyance as I realized that if I accepted that as normal, I also had to accept my repeated encounters with danger as a result of terrible, hideously bad luck.


    Looking around the clearing, I was shocked to find the corpse of the Gyre Snake completely missing. Even the huge hunks of bone that I found too unpalatable to bother chewing were gone, making me worry that Thing Two must be getting mighty hungry to disappear the whole corpse in a single days sleep.


    Reminded of the gluttonous idiot, I whirled around to where I¡¯d last seen him only to see something completely fucking alien looming over the bloodstained bit of cloth that was once Bastok.


    It looked like a Thing on steroids. It wasn¡¯t tall, maybe only a foot or so taller than me, but it was thick. It had muscles in places that I was reasonably certain didn¡¯t actually contain muscle groups, and the weird divergence from normal human physiology left me reeling as I examined it, not daring to move an inch more lest I make it mad. Where a normal Thing trudged about happily naked, this thing had bone epaulets on its shoulders, and an intricate lattice of bone and cartilage all the way down its gorilla like arms that ended where its knuckles pressed into the ground to keep its stupidly large upper body upright. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    ¡®Seriously? I can¡¯t get one fucking minute to myself in this fucking place?¡¯ I thought as I slowly stepped back to try and wake up Nadeen.


    The movement attracted the creatures attention, and a familiar - if much deeper - trilling noise escaped the things maw. There was a glint of intelligence in its eyes, and it pounded the ground with its fists to sort of half jump, half shuffle towards me at a speed I would have called impossible for something so thick a few moments ago.


    Bracing myself to be torn apart like a poacher in the gorilla enclosure, I was surprised when the fast moving mass of meat lurched to a halt in front of me and gave me a hug. Slowly craning my head up (and therefore backwards out of its quite biting range) I looked the Thing in the eye and recognized it for what it was.


    Trilling questioningly at it I awkwardly hugged it back. After all, Thing Two was the only family I had left.


    Seeing the hesitancy in my gaze Thing Two chuffed in a way very reminiscent of a laugh and then shot a questioning gaze at the still form of Nadeen, its tongue flicking out the drag across its upper set of teeth like a hungry tiger.


    ¡®Did this fucking guy get evolve? And get smarter?!¡¯ I thought incredulously. What bullshit was this? I save his life and he gets to evolve into a¡­ a¡­ whatever the fuck the second form of a Thing was?!


    Feeling indignant, I snapped my jaws to indicate a negative to the unspoken question of if we were going to eat Nadeen, then trudged over to the unconscious girl. She was¡­ much smaller than I remembered. Closer to the same size as me actually. Wondering if I just remembered her being larger because I was scared out of my mind when we first met, I glanced down at myself.


    I was not child sized anymore.


    Where before I could generally be described as a kind of very toothy pygmy, now I was closer in body type to a very emaciated teenager. My arms and legs were stick thing, and my torso was only just large enough to keep me shaped like a normal person is supposed to be. I stared incredulously at myself for a moment, try multiple angles to get a better look in the absence of a mirror.


    Someone explain to me how Thing Two gets to evolve into the Thing That Lifts and I¡¯m just a skinny geek! I turned to glare balefully at Thing Two, but was met only with a quizzical look by the musclebound idiot. He may be smarter than he used to be, but deductive reasoning apparently still wasn¡¯t part of skillset.


    Annoyed that I couldn¡¯t even vent my considerable rage at him, I turned back to Nadeen, hoisting her good arm over my shoulder and trying to lift her in a fireman''s carry. Then I dropped her because holy shit was I weak. Seriously, a human preteen shouldn¡¯t be this hard to life. We were the same god damn size. I briefly considered slapping her awake, but was pulled from my considerations when Thing Two ambled over and easily swung the girl over a single shoulder, turning its gaze on me as though asking if this was really that hard.


    I fought the urge to hiss and spit at the oaf. He was helping, and for now at least, seemed full enough that it was safe for him to carry Nadeen, so I turned my thoughts to what my next steps should be. I couldn¡¯t keep living day to day in this god damn forest. I was bigger now, but I was willing to bet based on Bastok¡¯s description of Gremlins that I was still the bottom of the local food chain. Thankfully, I wasn¡¯t an idiot. Bastok and Nadeen had clearly been traveling away from where I had seen smoke during my fall with the Gyre Snake, which meant that there was probably a town in that direction.


    All I had to do was get there, keep Nadeen alive, and make sure I wasn¡¯t killed or captured on sight when I ambled into town. Easy right? Right?


    I could feel a headache coming on as I started walking in what I thought was the right direction, Thing Two stomping along behind me. I really wished I could talk. This would be alot easier if I could talk.


    ¡®Hey I¡¯m sentient, I saved this girl, please don¡¯t kill me.¡¯ Boom. Single sentence, problem solved. But nope, I had a fucking worm for a tongue, and my body was so optimized for swallowing things whole that nature apparently didn¡¯t see fit to give it a voice box.


    Thanks nature. Really. Your the best.


    ***


    It didn¡¯t take long for Nadeen to wake up. She came too screaming in a way that clearly irked Thing Two, its mouth opening and closing in an obligatory Thing warning that she probably only recognized as ¡®hungry¡¯.


    Huffing like a tired dog I halted our slow march through the woods, then walked behind Thing Two so I could face Nadeen, pale and sickly from blood loss. At first I tried to gesture for her to be quiet by lowering my hands palm down, like a conductor trying to quiet his orchestra. When that didn¡¯t work I tried to physically cover her mouth with my hand. When she inevitably bit me, I slapped the shit out of her.


    That seemed to work, and she stared dazed at me as I raised a single finger to my mouth in the universal gesture for shut the fuck up. She seemed to understand that, but stared at me, her lower lip beginning to quiver. Jesus she was going to fucking cry. I mean, granted, I bit her arm off. And killed her protector. And I guess we were basically kidnapping her but¡­


    Shit.


    Looking around for a way to communicate, I pulled a branch off a nearby bush and used the pointed bottom to begin drawing in the dirt at our feet. Slow and methodical, I drew an elementary school rendition of a house. Just a square with a triangle on top, and a rectangle on the front to show a door. Nadeen stared confused for a second before recognition seemed to spark in her, and relieved I pointed from her to the picture several times, hoping she¡¯d get the point.


    ¡°Y.-you want to take me¡­ home?¡± she whispered, clearly on the edge of bawling her eyes out.


    Finally. Progress. I nodded emphatically, giving her a thumbs up - another gesture I assumed had to be universal.


    ¡°...why?¡± she said, her voice growing slightly stronger as hope filled her that we weren¡¯t just going to drag her into a cave and eat her. I couldn¡¯t really think of a response to that, so I stared blankly at her and shrugged once. I mean, I knew why I was helping her. She was a desperate kid alone in the murder forests of wherever the fuck. But that¡¯s a hard concept to convey using simple shapes in the dirt.


    The silence and relative safety seemed to trigger something in her, and like a dam breaking, tears began to flow down her face. She didn¡¯t wail, or scream, or really say anything. She just cried, and hiccuped and moaned. Releasing all her pent up frustrations and despair in the only real way a truly helpless person can.


    She didn¡¯t seem keen to stop anytime soon, so I turned away uncomfortably, and moved forward to continue the long trek to anywhere but here.


    Man, I really have to find a map or something.

 Dark Nights - 3

    We marched through the day, the sun rising and falling with no encounters of any kind. Usually, I would judge that to be a good thing. Infact, Going a whole day without imminent death being a factor in my decisions was positively delightful. But I quickly realized the problem we faced. I had never gone this long without having something to eat nearby, and I was actively carting around a human being that my biology emphatically insisted counted as food.


    Said food was trudging slowly and painfully along behind me and Thing Two, unable to easily keep pace with even my spindly form. It surprised me that Thing Two seemed almost entirely unconcerned with her presence. Which boggled my mind, because having her there was about as distracting to me as a playboy bunny taking her shirt of and doing jumping jacks a foot away. Even when I wasn¡¯t actively looking at her I found my attention constantly stolen by her presence. The passing breeze would change directions, and for just the briefest of moments the delicious aroma of meat would fill my mind and set me to salivating. Every errant twig she stepped on resounded in my head like an explosion demanding I turn around and address my hunger.


    In short, it was fucking hell.


    ¡°I¡¯m hungry.¡± Nadeen whined, nearly making me stumble on a loose stone I had been attempting to step over. Immediately I stopped and spun towards her, and had to immediately clamp down on my instinctual attempt to bite her when I found her standing almost directly behind me. I quickly hopped a step back so I wouldn¡¯t be such a tempting distance away and then schooled my slavering jaw to stillness, cocking my head to one side in question.


    This was the first Nadeen and I had spoken since her first little outburst upon waking, and I was doing my best to mimic obvious human gestures and body language. Thing Two made no such effort, and he halted where he was when she had spoken, his head swivelling around to face us curiously.


    ¡°I need food to replace all my blood.¡± Nadeen continued, practically hissing the statement through gritted teeth while she waved the stump of her left arm at me. I winced at that, not because I felt bad, but because seeing it made me really hungry.


    The realization shocked me to my core. I genuinely didn¡¯t feel bad that I had torn her arm off. How could I? In that moment, it had been her or me. By rights, if I was a normal Thing I would have eaten the rest of her like Thing Two did Bastok.


    Wait. Is that why I¡¯m so scrawny? I didn¡¯t finish my dinner?


    Shaking my head to clear my thoughts I gestured around the area of forest we were in, clearly indicating all the food available to us. All none of it. Then shrugged and patted my own belly to indicate that I too, was hungry.


    I think she got about half of the point I was trying to make, because she immediately flinched and took a step back, seemingly only just now remembering that she was basically defenseless. I tried to rub the bridge of my nose in irritation at the fact that she obviously thought I was threatening to eat her, but became even more annoyed when I remembered I didn¡¯t have a nose. Well, I probably had something that acted like a nose, because obviously I could smell - but it¡¯s not like I could cut myself open and look for it.


    Shakily, Nadeen raised her good arm and gestured at a spot a little to our right. I couldn¡¯t tell what she was trying to show me, and I guess neither could Thing Two, because his head swivelled back and forth between where she was pointing and me as though expecting me to explain it to him.


    ¡°T-there are wolf tracks!¡± Nadeen squeaked out, her voice cracking like the adolescent she was while she spoke. I ambled over to the spot she was pointing at, but evidentally my forest craft was shit, because all I saw was some grass.


    ¡°Wolves. Meat. Food. That way.¡± Nadeen must have noticed my confused look, because some of her spoiled haughtiness crept back into her tone, though she still pointedly stayed just a bit further away from me than would make for a comfortable conversation.


    I looked dubiously in the direction she pointed, somehow doubting a thirteen year old had the questionable ability to locate and track wolves. Then I remembered the leather armor and sword she wore, and had to remind myself that medieval societies typically married kids off by this age - so it was entirely possible she had an actual skill set of some kind.


    Begrudgingly, I trilled once and looked in the direction she pointed, Thing Two happily taking the hint and shoving the foliage out of the way for us. I swear this better not be my final form or I¡¯m going to have to be the skinny geek who¡¯s brother does all his fighting for him the rest of my life. I felt my face flex and twist as I reflexively tried to snort, then made a gurgling noise in the back of my throat instead. I really didn¡¯t like thinking about my future here. I found it highly unlikely that I would survive very long in this forest, especially considering the sheer number of my brothers and sisters that had died in the extremely short period of time I had been alive.


    I threw a glance at Thing Two as he casually bashed saplings out of his way to make room for us in the underbrush.


    Then again, we had ¡®evolved¡¯ or something so, maybe we¡¯d be okay?


    I stumbled back as I found myself colliding with Thing Two¡¯s back where he had stopped moving. We had come out of the woods at the top of a small ravine. Brush on either side practically hid the small gorge from casual observation, and there was a cave entrance just beneath us, on the opposite side of the ravine. I could hear growling coming from the depths of the cavern and I tensed in anticipation. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    I had yet to encounter anything in this forest that didn¡¯t make me want to cry myself to sleep every night, so I doubted the local equivalent to wolves would be any different. Suddenly, I really wished I¡¯d had the wherewithal to bring my spider-shiv with me when we¡¯d left the clearing, but I¡¯d wanted to get moving as fast as I could once I¡¯d woken, fearing another predator might stumble onto us as we prepared.


    Glancing around for a weapon of some kind, I nearly screamed in frustration when Thing Two merely took a single step forward, using his powerful gorilla like arms to launch himself off the ledge and down into the ravine. Scrambling to keep up I looked for a way down that wouldn¡¯t hurt as badly as literally falling ten feet, and when I couldn¡¯t find one I resigned myself to it and jumped after him.


    ¡®Okay. Tuck and roll. Easy peasy.¡¯ I told myself before promptly slamming into the ground and sprawling forward like the world''s worst stunt double. Pain rocked through me and I cursed my idiot brother for leaping in without getting my permission first. Or carrying me. I would have really preferred to be carried.


    ¡°Look out!¡± Nadeen yelled from the ledge where she pointedly didn¡¯t try to come down and help us. Not that she was in any shape to help. She looked like she could barely stand now that I was looking at her and not just hungering after her.


    Heeding her warning almost too late, I rolled to the side just in time to avoid the savage bite of what looked like a wolf with two heads. Before I could even push myself to my feet, Thing Two had reached out and wrapped one meaty hand around the base of one of the two necks on the beast, and squeezed eliciting an immediate pain yelp and the creaking of bones grinding together. Then the wolf was yanked away, lobbed like a tennis ball at the mouth of the cave it had come from.


    I followed it with my eyes as it flew, my vision finally falling on the other five double headed wolves that had emerged from the cave to snap and snarl at Thing Two. I realized belatedly that he was holding them back, whip crack fast jabs of his boulder like fists keeping the creatures at bay while I wheezed for breath on the ground.


    It was nice that he could hold them back, but I wasn¡¯t stupid enough to think this stalemate could last. They outnumbered us nearly three to one, and I could already see the wolves at the edge of the formation beginning to shift around my giant brother to flank us. Finally stumbling to my feet jumped forward to place myself behind Thing Two, face the other way and keeping an eye on the two wolves trying to flank us.


    All at once they moved, bursting into motion as one. The three wolves infront of Thing Two darted forward, taking turns distracting him so they can scour at his legs with the claws and teeth. They were light, glancing blows at best, but it was clear the tactic was meant for bringing down much bigger, much stronger creatures.


    I had no time to think of a way to help because the wolves to either side of me darted forward at nearly the same time. Whirling I snapped my jaw at the beast to my left, only to be bowled over by the one that had been on my right. I thrashed as I hit the ground, lashing out behind me with a spindly arm and feeling my elbow connect with one of the wolves two noses. Hurt but not deterred, its two heads bit down hard on both of my shoulders and pain lanced through my body. Panicking I gurgled a desperate cry for help, and Thing Two whirled around to bring both its hands down on the wolves back in a single downward motion.


    A sharp crack wrang out in the ravine and the wolf above me fell limp, its spine smashed beyond use. But Thing Two paid a price for coming to my aid, and the group of wolves that had been harassing him moved fully onto the offensive, two of them leaping out to bite at his ankles while the third leapt upon his back to bite at his neck.


    Shit we were going to die to mostly normal fucking wolves. Sure they had two heads, but they weren¡¯t exactly shooting lasers from their eyes.


    Suddenly, I felt very ill, and time seemed to slow around me. The surviving flanking wolf was charging towards me, snarls on both its heads, and Thing Two was going to be torn apart but the combined efforts of its three attackers. There was nothing I could do. I was useless here, unaccustomed such savagery. The urge to vomit overtook me, and time seemed to snap back into its usual flow.


    Falling forward to wretch, I was surprised to find I could feel something sliding up my esophagus. It didn¡¯t feel like stinging acrid bile of vomit. Instead, it almost seemed to slither out of me. Feeling an abrupt pushing sensation, my mouth fell open as wide as it would go, and from deep in my gullet three absolutely horrific tendrils a blackened flesh erupted. The sensation of muscles I had no frame of reference for filled my mind, and I instinctual turned my head towards the wolf charging at me. Almost as though they had minds of their own the tendrils shot forward, each as thick as my arm. I wondered briefly how I was even breathing with these things sticking out of me, or staying upright when their solid weight stretched the five feet across the ravine to my attacker.


    Then I got a better look at them. Each one of the three tendrils had a mouth at the end. They looked like toothy exaggerated moray eels, and they almost immediately latched on to the two headed wolf, hefting it into the air and tearing it apart, both its hind legs and a hunk of flesh from its back disappearing down their gullets before the monster even knew what had happened.


    Have you ever heard a dog scream? Not howl, not yowl or whine. Scream. Thats what happened in that moment, and I stared at the poor creature being torn apart as though by piranha, shuddering in rapture as each hunk of flesh traveled into my stomach. When the wolf was finally dead, the three eel like heads bit and snapped at each other, fighting over the scraps of its flesh that remained littered over the ground.


    With a final hiss towards each other, they turned, the force of the movement practically spinning my head around backwards. Then they descended on the wolf that Thing Two was viciously trying to swat off its back.


    That one went as quickly as the first, disappearing in a flurry of teeth and blood. I was getting tired now, exhausted really. It was as though I had vomited all my internal organs out, but that they were stilled connected to me and functioning. The sensation was extremely discomforting, even if my stomach thanked me for my sacrifice. The wolf on its back gone, Thing Two had little problem pulverizing the two remaining monsters gnawing at its feet, and I began to relax, thinking the battle was over.


    Then I realized there was one other thing still nearby. One of the eel like heads turned to present one half of its face to me, a beedy black eye giving me a malicious, knowing look, before it and its two compatriots turned towards Thing Two.


    Shit fuck shit.


    I lurched backward, dragging them gnashing teeth away from him before they could latch on in all their gory glory. They seemed none to pleased by that, and I marveled at the state of my life that I was now having a domestic dispute with one of my own organs.


    I continued to back up, dragging the tendrils further and further from their intended target until my back bumped into the edge of the ravine. Slowly, and painfully, I began to force my jaw shut, every inch of movement seeming to reel the eel headed monstrosities further and further back, until with an aggravated hiss, they disappeared back into my stomach.


    I stared at my stomach disbelieving, pressing against it with a my fingers trying to feel where the tendrils had gone. But it was a futile effort. Forget three, there was enough room in my entire reedy torso for one of those things. So. Clearly fucking magic then.


    Giving up on that mystery for now, I glanced around to find Thing Two happily chewing his way through the remains of the wolf nearest him. He was bleeding from his wounds, but seemed almost entirely oblivious to the damage.


    Above me, I craned my neck to find Nadeen staring down from the top of the ravine, blatant horror in her face.


    Fuck me. I had tentacles.

 Dark Nights - 4

    I was quickly finding that not fucking sleeping could be kind of detrimental to your health when you become exhausted. I had assumed that sleep was something I was - at the very least - capable of when I had blacked out yesterday. I mean, everything sleeps. Except Things apparently.


    I was sitting very still just inside the mouth of the cave the two headed wolves - which I had decided to call Hellhounds for lack of a pokedex. After the fighting had ended, I¡¯d decided I was too fucking tired to keep moving, and fuck Thing Two and Nadeen if they thought otherwise. If that had been the end of it I would have been pretty happy with things as they stood, but Nadeen, apparently quite terrified of me in the moments after the battle, had patently refused to climb down into the ravine.


    At first I thought she just didn¡¯t want to jump down - hell, I definitely hadn¡¯t wanted to - but as I moved around trying to find an easy way down for her, I realized it was more than that. Her eyes tracked me across the ravine with the twitchiness of a rat eyeing a cat. She could barely stand, and was clearly hungry, but absolutely refused to use the slightly less steep ramp of dirt the wolves must have used to enter and exit the ravine until I had moved about eight feet away from it. A distance I judged to be just a bit past the outer limit of my¡­ Hydra¡­ tongue¡­ thing.


    I was still working on a name for it. I really, really, didn¡¯t want to admit that I had tentacles. There was just something so spectacularly wrong about the word, like H.P. Lovecraft was waiting somewhere nearby to study me. As a Thing, I may be a monster, but I was still pretty much human in shape. The differences in biology were something I could come to grips with if I viewed them through the skein of what I was used to. But this new tidbit of information about my much changed physiology didn¡¯t follow that same pattern. It had always been obvious to me that there was something magical about the stomach of a Thing - after all, I had easily eaten twice my bodyweight in food without feeling appreciably full or uncomfortable - but ¡®tentacle portal¡¯ was not something I was having fun coming to terms with.


    Did I even still have a proper stomach, or when I took a bite of succulent Hellhound meat, did the food travel down into the hollow my tentacles existed in for them to chew on. The whole thing gave me a headache.


    Nadeen sat a good ten feet away in the depths of the cave, Thing Two standing dutifully between us like a child being forced to choose between its parents. She was hopelessly grinding two sticks against each other in an amateur attempt to start a fire. I would have gone to correct her, but any time I got too close to her now she flinched and shuffled away.  Ungrateful Brat.


    Sitting to the side were the scraps of wolf fur that had survived Thing Two¡¯s post combat feeding frenzy, and a single haunch of wolf meat. It looked so small and insignificant that I almost gazed with pity at Nadeen for having only that to eat. Then I remembered that if I was human, that much food would last me a couple days before it went bad, and I was overtaken with despair and the frankly abhorrent amount of food a Thing seems to need to survive. I was beginning to understand why Big Thing hadn¡¯t been too keen on a bunch of us surviving to adulthood. We must be like locusts - completely decimating local wildlife when our numbers were high, quickly resulting in a food shortage that killed us faster than any exterminator ever could.


    I peered around the mouth of the cave and gave a cursory glance up and down the ravine. My shoulders hurt like hell from my wolf bites, easily the first true wound I¡¯d suffered since getting here. I¡¯d figured Things might have some kind of healing factor or something since Thing Two had gotten by covered in acid burns pretty well, but now I was starting to think he might have just been too stupid to let it slow him down.


    Lifting my arms was a hassle, and I didn¡¯t look forward to trying to climb out of this ravine anytime soon. There was a deep, ache in my core that I couldn¡¯t explain as simple fatigue or a wound though. Like I had used something up and was now feeling its absence.


    Thinking I had to figure this whole tenta-...Hydra Tongue thing out before I got into another fight, I trilled at Thing Two, who quickly ambled into place to watch the entrance in my stead, while I padded out into the night.


    I slowly dragged my aching body further up the ravine, making sure I was well out of range of the cave before stopping. Then, I tried to call my Hydra Tongue.


    Nothing happened.


    Annoyed, I tried to remember the sensation when I had first felt them slithering out of my gullet. The sick, nauseating feeling like I was about to throw up. I focused on that feeling for a while, and still nothing happened. Getting more and more annoyed I opened my mouth and stuck a hand inside, trying to induce vomiting. Only, I didn¡¯t really have a gag reflex.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Withdrawing my hand and shutting my mouth I glanced up to the edge of the forest rimming the ravine. Pick a relatively large tree, I opened my mouth again and began pushing outward. Flexing the muscles in my stomach and straining to expel something. It was eerily similar to being constipated, and not for the first time I wished I had just gotten big punchy muscles when I had evolved instead of whatever the fuck this was.


    Slowly, I began to feel a stirring in my gut, and then the frankly disturbing sensation of something crawling up out of me. Like a snail from its shell, the three eel headed tendrils of pure muscle pushed their way out my mouth, immediately orienting on the tree I was focusing on.


    Then all fucking hell broke loose.


    Instead of attacking the tree, or lifting me up and out of the ravine, or doing anything I had wanted to try now that I was in a relatively safe environment, the three heads of my Hydra Tongue glanced around, realized there was no food, unanimously turned three sets of baleful eyes on me, and then tried to fucking kill each other.


    They writhed and darted at one another, each one unable to get a firm tearing grasp on the other with the third taking advantage. And I felt, every. Single. Bite. I hadn¡¯t until that point been aware that I could ¡®feel¡¯ the Hydra Tongues, but the sharp stinging sensation of something biting me repeatedly quickly proved to me that I could. Worse, the more they moved the more I could feel that hideous ache in more core growing, the pain of it somehow worse than my body parts trying to eat eachother alive.


    As though sensing my plight, the Hydra Tongues seemed to come to a mutual agreement, then zipped back down my throat. A single one snapped its fanged jaw at me as it went, a clear warning not joke with it again about meal time. As soon as they were gone, I sank to my knees in exhaustion. I felt wrong. Empty somehow, like all the light in the world was gone and would never come back. I barely managed to crawl back into the cave before falling over at Thing Two¡¯s feet, shaking violently as though I were naked in a blizzard.


    My vision roved desperately over the the cave, searching for something I didn¡¯t quite understand, until my eyes fell on Nadeen. Then the emptiness was filled with something else. Something primal, and furious. And it was only the fact that I could barely move that stopped me from trying to eat her whole in that moment. Nadeen too had stopped her futile attempts at starting a fire to stare at my writhing form. And when our gazes met, she slowly reached down to her belt and drew her short sword, a pale, shaky hand gently placing it in her lap as though waiting. Fear was in her eyes, but there was also defiance. A fiery refusal to simply accept death.


    Finally, my will reasserted itself over the all consuming need to feed, and I tore my eyes from her, curling up into the fetal position on the ground. Dimly I could hear her return to fire, one hand quickly rubbing one stick against another stick held in place between her knees. But I didn¡¯t hear the rasp of the shortsword going back into its scabbard. And I didn¡¯t hear her cry, as she had been for much of the day.


    She had resolved herself, and I really hoped it was to survive, and not to kill me.


    I sort of drifted off then, my body slowly easing as the wracking spasms of pain dulled and then stopped. It wasn¡¯t quite sleep, because I was still dimly aware of my surroundings for the entirety of the night, but I wasn¡¯t quite awake either. It was like that fuzzy moment between dreams and wakefulness, when your not quite sure if your still asleep anymore.


    By the time the spell was broken, I felt better, if not necessarily good. The painful ache was gone, and I had enough of my wits about me to think straight again. It was early morning, and Nadeen, who had fallen asleep well before getting her fire started, snored blissfully next to her uncooked haunch of Hellhound meat.


    Making a gurgling sigh I ambled over and picked up the two sticks she had been rubbing together. The bark was scoured from them where she had been scraping them together all night, and I gently placed one in the center of the loose collection of twigs that was probably meant to feed the fire once it got started. Then I placed the tip of the other in a groove at the first sticks center, and began spinning it between my palms at a steady but quick pace.


    I had no idea if it would work of course. But I had to assume I¡¯d seen at least one more wilderness survival video than anyone else in this world had, so - maybe it¡¯d work?


    Nothing happened for a good long while, and Thing Two stomped over to loom over my should a few minutes after I started, but eventually a thin line of smoke began to rise from the twig, followed by the first burning embers of flame. Doing my best to coax the rest of the twigs to burning I quickly had mediocre fire burning.


    I considered waking Nadeen for a moment, but frankly the kid was basically on death¡¯s door. I would have probably given up and died a while ago if I was in her position, at least, I would have when I was a kid. So, reasoning she still hadn¡¯t actually eaten anything - refusing to eat raw meat - I snatched up the haunch of wolf and quickly began roasting it inexpertly over the fire. It looked horrible. We didn¡¯t exactly have a skinning knife, so I¡¯d basically just used my teeth pull the skin and fur off while leaving as much of the meat as possible on the bone. What resulted was a pitted and pockmarked hunk of meat that looked like a dog had been gnawing on it, liberally spersed with bits of dirt and rocks from its time laying on the floor of a cave.


    I mean, I¡¯d still eat it. Beggars can¡¯t be choosers afterall.


    Once the meat had started to really cook, I found it didn¡¯t seem so edible to me anymore though. Like it had lost something fundamental in the heat that made it little better than tree bark for consumption. Nadeen though, wiggled her nose once without opening her eyes, then rolled over, sending a single leg sprawling over me like I was just another pillow.


    ¡°Mm. Bastok, make sure you use mothers spices. Were not barbarians.¡± she muttered before wrinkling her brow and wiggling her foot where it lay sprawled across me. Then her eyes snapped open, and she all but jumped across the cavern away from me, terror fresh in her eyes. Her stump arm drew down towards the handle of her shortsword, and she seemed confused when it merely bumped into the cool metal uselessly. Then she seemed to fully wake up, and the hopelessness of her situation settled over her all over again, like a thick cloak blocking her other emotions.


    She glanced glassy eyed down at the haunch of meat cooking in my hand, and seemed to have to force herself to slide forward to sit down next to me. The mere act of sitting near me seemed cause her great distress, and so, disgusted, I handed her the probably cooked hunk of meat, then got up and walked away.


    ¡°...Thanks.¡± Nadeen whispered behind me between shuddering breaths, and I turned to see her holding back tears when she took her first rough bite of the meat. Her face screwed up in disgust at the taste, and she looked as though she was going to vomit, but a look of dogged determination overtook her, and she continued on, eating one small dainty bite at a time like a child trying to force its way through broccoli.


    Rolling my eyes, I turned away, feeling much better about myself.

 Once & Future Thing - 1

    Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.


    - Winston Churchill


    We quickly packed up what little we could from our camp. And by we, I mean Nadeen. Thing Two and I watched with varying levels of amusement as the beleaguered teen picked her way across the former Hellhound den. I couldn''t see why - there wasn¡¯t really anything here except dried and cracking bones in a pile near the back of the cave. They were old, and the only thing I felt while looking at the femur Nadeen eventually rose from the pile with was that letting them get too old to eat was a huge waste on the wolves part.


    Seemingly pleased with her find, Nadeen stumbled up to the cave entrance where I was waiting, and then cautiously followed behind me as turned to leave.


    Nadeen wasn¡¯t looking good. She had continued to grow pale and weak as the morning dragged on, despite the rest and food. Even her pleasant appetizing smell was starting to fade away, my compulsion to eat her still present but less¡­ urgent. I know big predators can smell sickness and disease, a survival trait developed to avoid eating something bad and dieing no doubt - and I wondered if that¡¯s what was happening here. If so, it meant there was a timer on how long we could stay out in these woods. Nadeen needed medical attention.


    Thing Two had been oddly quiet through the morning, and I sometimes caught him staring at me quizzically when it seemed I wasn¡¯t paying attention. Something in his sickly yellow eyes as they gazed at me - no pupil or facial expression to give away what he was thinking - sent a shuddering chill down my spine. It was a poignant reminder that Thing Two was a monster. A man eating beast that only a few days ago had consumed a man alive simply because he could. He may be following me around now, following my orders in so far as us Things were capable of communicating, but I had no idea how long that would last - or of it was even normal for our species. Bastoks description of us had been less than flattering, but it did imply we were pack animals.


    I eyed the thick corded muscles Thing Two had used to tear apart a Hellhound just yesterday, and shuddered again.


    Best to just hope the status quo lasts.


    After a few hours of blissfully uninterrupted travel through the forest, Nadeen spoke up again.


    ¡°I¡¯m...I¡¯m still hungry.¡± she said, almost in a whisper. My head whipped around to see her only to find her face scrunched up, as though in disbelief of her own words.


    There was no way she had digested that wolf.haunch that fast. For one, she had cleaned it down to the bone. For another, I was reasonably certain it was bigger than someone her size could physically contain without suffering greatly.


    And yet¡­


    My eyes flicked.down to her stomach, expecting some swelling or a paunch from the excessive meal. Instead, she seemed almost emaciated, her leather armor rattling on her frame as though she had rapidly lost weight.


    ¡°Why am I still hungry?¡± she said, a pleading tone entering into her voice.


    I had nothing to say to that, or rather, nothing I could say regardless, so I shrugged once and then turned back to walking. I¡¯d taken three steps before realizing I hadn¡¯t actually turned my body to face her, or stopped walking.


    I''d just blithely stuck my hand on Thing Two¡¯s back and turned my head around so I could look at her without stopping. Thing Two as well had immediately changed the length of his gait to make me comfortable, almost as though we had practiced it.


    But we really, really hadn¡¯t. I swear if Things have a hive mind or some such bullshit that I haven¡¯t been using I¡¯m going to blow a fuse. Then again, did I really want to become Borg just because it would be convenient?


    My thoughts were interrupted when Thing Two came to a very abrupt halt. Hopping once to stop myself from walking into his back, I peered around him to see why we had stopped, but even before I had finished moving I knew.


    I could smell it. The wonderful odor of human flesh. Still bleeding - no, still alive even. Almost before I could stop myself, Thing Two and I loped out from behind cover and onto what seemed like a dirt road.


    On it was what seemed to be an overturned carriage. Two horses lay dead in the road before it, full of arrows and weakly twitching as they slowly bled out. Thing Two immediately gave me a look that said ¡®dibs¡¯ and then pounded away towards them.


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    Hungry but cautious, I began to circle the carriage, even as the wet squelching of Thing Two eating began to ring out. It was a nice carriage, not that I was any judge of such things. The carriage had an elaborately designed roof painted bright green, and a large door on the side that wasn¡¯t lying on the ground. The doors had a weird symbol on it that - if I had to guess - looked like a very stylized picture of an elephant. If elephants had six legs and tusks the size of tree trunks.


    Slowly I shifted around the upturned carriage, until I was brought up short by the ragged breathing of a man. He was pinned beneath the carriage from the waist down, and my eye sockets shrunk in a wince as I noted how heavy the carriage must be. The mans face was positively covered in blood and muck, hiding what must once have been a devilishly handsome appearance that could only have been the product of one thing - money. His short black hair, once coiffed expertly was matted against his head by sweat, and he was exceedingly pale. His eyes were unfocused when I came to a stop in front of him, and he was weakly plucking at his tunic - itself the same green as the carriage roof while he mumbled to himself.


    This man was dead ready. There wasn¡¯t really any saving him. The carriage he was pinned by was so heavy that it had likely rolled most of his inside out like beneath its girth - like a tasty meat tube of yogurt.


    Oh God not this again.


    I salivated and cracked my jaw open stepping towards the poor guy ostensibly to give him a quick death. But even though as I allowed for that justification, I idly wondered what brains must taste like. I''ve known people who''ve tried brains in weird foreign restaurants, and always found it strange that somehow everything tastes like chicken if you''ve never had it before.


    Now leaning over the dying man I froze as his eyes focused and his attention zipped to something over my shoulder.


    Spinning towards the danger I only found Nadeen standing behind me. Actually she was more than just standing behind me - she was practice bending over me, panting like she¡¯d just run a marathon and was about to vomit. As our eyes met her mouth - which had been hanging open as though she was about to speak - clicked shut, and a look of annoyance, and the horror passed over her.


    If I didn''t know any better I¡¯d say it was almost like -


    ¡°La..dy.. Binder¡­¡± croaked dinner behind me, and I felt the tenuous balance of instinct versus humanity tip when he became just a bit more of a person and a bit less of  meat sac.


    Nadeen rocked to a halt over me, midway through the motions of hurling herself her usual eight feet away from me.


    ¡°Yes.¡± she said, her voice firm but her body beginning to shake violently. Poor kid is probably going to be fucked for life after this. At the very least I doubt she¡¯ll come into the forest again. She was staring like a deer in the headlights at the crushed man, her breathing getting faster and more ragged the longer she watched him.


    My heart went out to her. But my stomach kind of wished she could hurry the fuck up.


    ¡°Pl..ease. Tell¡­ my father... I¡­.¡±  the man fumbled one hand against the other until he managed to slowly pull a golden ring, slick with blood from it. He placed it almost reverently on the the ground in front of him - then seeming to have used up the last of his strength, his head fell, and he stopped moving.


    Slowly, Nadeen crept forward. She was shaking so much now that I felt it must be a minor miracle that she was even still standing. Her hands were shaking the worst, and as she knelt next to me to slowly pick up the ring, her gaze never left the dead man.


    This became one of the few moments when my rational mind and my monstrous side managed to agree on something. I stepped forward, blocking her line of sight and bent over to pick the ring off the ground. Nadeen had been fumbling blindly at the ground a few inches to the right of it, and making my movements obvious, I lifted her hand palm up, dropping the ring into it and closing her fingers into a fist.


    Her eyes snapped to mine, and seeming to only now remember her own circumstances, she scuttled backward away from me in a panicked crab walk I would have called comical if I couldn¡¯t see the burnt flesh of her stump tearing as she scraped it across the ground. Man I hope to god these fantasyland assholes have antiseptic. Confident I had managed to save some small part of Nadeen¡¯s sanity, I whirled around on my dinner. It didn¡¯t smell quite as appetizing now - still better than anything I¡¯d ever had in my life - but less mesmerizing now that the prick had died. Stupid last words. I doubted Nadeen would ever meet his dad, so with pretty much no guilt my jaw cracked open, and I began to feast.


    I am pleased to report, it did in fact, taste like chicken.


    ***


    Less than an hour later I found myself eyeing the carriage. Not because I wanted to use it - though I had noted that the wheels and axels looked like they might still work. No, I found myself staring at the overturned carriage, because there was a perfectly good half a human under it that I couldn¡¯t get at.


    I should have probably felt worse about this, given that this was the first time I¡¯d consciously eaten human flesh - but the guy was dead way before I met him, and I refused to take the bad karma for it. If anything, he should be thanking me. He got to be with someone in his last moments.


    No I¡¯m not lying to myself. I don¡¯t feel bad about this at all. At all.


    I darted a glance to the side of the road Nadeen had been curled up on while we ate, then turned back to the carriage.


    ¡®Not. My. Fault.¡¯ I repeated to myself. It had become my mantra in the last hour of gorging myself, second only to my greatest hit ¡®What the fuck is going on¡¯. Just can¡¯t beat the classics.


    Sighing, or rather, making a weird gurgling sound, I gave up on seconds and ambled around the carriage to where Thing Two was pawing through the dirt for any bits of horsemeat the glutton might have missed. Yeah I was a pig, but this fat fuck had eaten two fully grown adult horses in under an hour. It was a volume that frankly boggled my mind, and leant just a bit more proof to my personal belief that Things might have literal portals in their stomachs. My thoughts jumped to my Hydra Tongue and I ground my teeth together in agitation.


    The only problem with the portal theory, was that portals had to go somewhere, and I wasn¡¯t willing to accept that I was a walking hellgate just yet.


    Seeming to notice me looking at him Thing Two chittered pleasantly at me, the sound so deep in his chest it was more of a warble. Then, scenting the air, the gluttonous moron shuffled around the carriage, and with a single awe inspiring shove, pushed it back onto its wheels.


    I stared back and forth between him and the carriage, trying to gauge whether or not I wanted to fight him for the half a pancaked human that lay beneath it. Then an evil grin split my maw, as an idea crossed my no doubt peanut sized brain.


    No sooner than Thing Two had finished eating, I was ready. I chittered pleasantly at him, leading him towards the front of the carriage, where the horses would usually be. Checking to make sure he hadn¡¯t eaten them, I stretched a hand out, grabbing a torn part of the leather harness, and proffering it to him.


    He didn¡¯t seem to get it at first, but I mimed wrapping it about my fist and pulling. That about seemed to do it, and he gently nudged me out of the way, reaching up to grab a much more substantial amount of the harness and tugging experimentally. The carriage lurched forward, startling both of us. Then a curious glint filled Thing Two¡¯s eyes, and he calmed, testing his strength on the carriage again.


    Satisfied with my work I walked away to get Nadeen situated in the carriage. And unlike my previous convictions, I found I really didn¡¯t feel bad about this particular abuse of my relationships. After all, he¡¯d eaten basically everything here - and you gotta work if you wanna eat.

 Once & Future Thing - 2

    Nadeen was less than impressed with our little carriage. One side was covered in the dried blood of the man who¡¯d once owned it, and while the wheels still turned, there was a not insignificant amount of damage to the more decorative aspects of the vehicle. The inside of the carriage was a mess. Where two upholstered seats once sat facing each other, huge rents were torn in them, leaving very little comfortable sitting space. The tears didn¡¯t look as though they were made by somethings claws, and the damage looked limited to scratches where it met the wood, so it was either a very weak monster, or a man with a weapon.


    Or woman. I¡¯m sure highway robbery is a very equal opportunity business.


    Thing Two stood holding the harnesses coiled about his grotesquely large fists, occasionally stepping left and then right as he waited for us to get on with it.


    In was standing just outside the carriage, pointing at the open door and swinging my other arm in the air wildly.


    ¡°I am not riding in a stolen carriage!¡± she said, halfway between a whine and an angry rebuttal. She was standing her customary eight feet away, and I was beginning to think her reluctance to ride in the vehicle was less to do with its stolen status, and more to do with how close it would put her to me.


    I gurgled a cranky rebuttal at her, stomping my foot in the ground. It was probably good her sickly status was making her less appetizing to me the longer it lasted, because I was rapidly running out of patience. I was tired. I was scared. I was desperately trying to get somewhere that I could spend some time thinking without imminent fucking death lurking over my shoulder. I was fucking hungry which was basically just a constant state of being for me. And this woman wouldn¡¯t get in the god damn carriage.


    Calming myself, I eyed her, stoically ignoring all my gesturing. She had to know I wasn¡¯t going to hurt her by now. I¡¯d had more than one opportunity to do so, and obviously hadn¡¯t. She also had to know I was sentient - hell I was basically inventing sign language to communicate with her.


    So what the fuck was her problem?


    Giving up on forcing her for the moment, I padded up to the carriage. The remnants of a bench on its front stared back at me, denying me the easy solution of just not being in the carriage with her. I could ride on top of the carriage, but that would put me awfully close to the tree branches passing us by over head. And while I didn¡¯t really fear getting smacked by the branches as we traveled, I had a powerful fear of some kind of tree climbing predator snapping me up when I got too close to it. That was easily my biggest problem with this entire shit hole. I was constantly scared of something coming to kill me, but had no fucking idea what something was. So I was stuck being scared of literally everything. If I could get indigestion I¡¯d probably have an ulcer by now, although I doubt my Hydra Tongue would let that stand for very long either.


    Why is life so complicated?


    Making up my mind, I clawed my way up to the top of the carriage and sat down on it unhappily, hoping that my sheer agitation would cross the language barrier and somehow make Nadeen feel bad enough to apologize and let me into the safe wooden box on wheels I wanted to sit in.


    Unfortunately for me, Nadeen was either terrible at reading body language, or was just a stone cold bitch, because seeing me take position a glint lit her eyes. Faster than her stumbling, shaking form should have allowed for, she lunged forward and into the carriage, the heavy wooden door slapping shut behind her. A few seconds later her head poked out the window through the ripped curtains and she stuck her tongue out at me, before disappearing back into its depths.


    I almost turned apoplectic for a moment before giving up the ghost. That girl could switch from traumatized to bratty in a heartbeat, and I could never determine which one I was going to end up dealing with. I was beginning to feel like it was always going to be whichever one was the most disadvantageous to me, and I sent a wistful thought to my own younger sister. The brat would always¡­ always¡­


    I paused. I actually couldn¡¯t remember what she always did. It was like, the memory was there, but I couldn¡¯t hold on to it. It was only so much water dripping from the tap, and I simply wasn¡¯t equipped to hold onto it. I could only catch bits and pieces of it while the rest sloshed away.


    Thinking about it made me want to cry, but I quickly cut the moment short with a shake of my head. I had found recently that, my being a Thing, pretty much the only biological way my body could express feelings was by getting hungry and drooling. Sad? Eat. Mad? Eat. Bored? Eat.


    Stupid piece of junk. No wonder Bastok had such a low opinion of us. Were like fucking lemmings.


    Seeing me situated, Thing Two let loose a gratified warble, and then began pulling on the reins. It was slow going at first, but once we had gained some momentum we fairly zoomed along the dirt road. It was so fast in fact, that within a few minutes I¡¯d already been popped into the air by a bump in the road, nearly sending me sprawling off the carriage. Annoyed, I snapped at Thing Two who ignored me entirely, his mouth open and his tongue hanging out like a dog in a car.


    ¡®Bout as smart as one anyway.¡¯ I chuffed, then crawled forward to hook my fingers around the front of the carriage, laying down on my stomach to keep my head low.


    At least it was better than walking.


    ***


    I have no idea how this world works. I don¡¯t know if the sun rises in the east. I don¡¯t know if there are twenty four hours in a day here. Hell, I don¡¯t know if black people exist here. I¡¯ve only met a grand total of three other humans and they were all white. I have to ask myself if there are tribes of people across the ocean who worship Brother Wolf, and if Brother Wolf is a real fucking thing. I have to ask myself if they even have fucking oceans. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    What I¡¯m saying is, I can¡¯t accurately tell how long we were rumbling along the road when something happened. I was basically just averaging how far the sun had moved against how long I¡¯ve managed to go without something bad happening prior to this. Maybe divide by how hungry I was.


    That said.


    Four fucking hours. That¡¯s how long I got to pretend getting flung about the roof of the carriage every time there was a god damn rock in the road was ¡®relaxing¡¯ and ¡®peaceful¡¯. That¡¯s how long we¡¯d been passively bumbling along before two guys in scrappy looking leather armor stepped out onto the road from seemingly nowhere, bows drawn and pointed at the carriage. For a split second I debated having Thing Two run them over so we could have a snack, but then it occurred to me that these people still used bows and arrows, so of course the chance that I was using a legitimate toll road did exist. Inwardly grumbling about never being able to catch a break, I trilled at Thing Two - who promptly stopped.


    I would have started to wonder how the hell I was communicating proper ideas using a handful of variations on the two sounds I was capable of making, but frankly when I say Thing Two stopped, I mean he stopped. Went from moving to not on a dime. Unfortunately for the musclebound moron, the carriage still had to follow the laws of physics, and the two guys with bows got treated to the peculiar sight of a man sized Thing being completely run over by a horse carriage. For my part I was flung from the top of the carriage in such a perfect arc I swear you could have used a recording of it for seatbelt safety videos.


    I crashed into the ground only a few feet from the archers, who immediately turned their arrows on me. Something I only noticed because the landing twisted my head around backwards, allowing me to both moon the two men, and look at them at the same time. It¡¯s the little things.


    The men grunted, but seeing me remain completely still, they must have either assumed I was dead, or unwilling to get back up and fight them.


    ¡°Now, this is an interesting sight.¡± came a smug masculine voice from the treeline, and a well kempt man with a roguish cast and neatly trimmed blond hair sauntered up to the carriage. Again seemingly from nowhere. Seriously, I better get spider senses or something somewhere between now and my next evolution or I¡¯m going to die of a heart attack long before I fall in battle.


    Quietly, I could hear Nadeen shifting around in the carriage, no doubt having a hard time leveraging the door open with only a single hand. Quirking a brow in question, the blond guy waited until the door finally popped open with the crack of wood and Nadeen stepped out, the combination of red anger and sickly pale skin making her look like a cartoon character whose head was about to explode. Despite her obvious anger though, she stepped out of the carriage like she owned the place, managing to only shake slightly as she alighted on the ground in front of Blondy.


    ¡°Who the hell are you?¡± she quipped imperiously, gesturing with her palm towards me and crooking a finger in a come hither gesture that I found highly offensive. I¡¯m not a dog for gods sake. Still, she was a thirteen year old in a forest surrounded by adult men. I¡¯m a monster but I¡¯m not a monster.


    Gurgling as I uncoiled my spine and stood up with my head on straight, I trotted over to Nadeen, taking up a position behind her and to the right of the Blond guy. Her shoulders tensed, and I knew having me this close must be bugging her, but she quickly hid the gesture in an exaggerated stretch that I couldn¡¯t help but notice Blondy take in appreciably.


    I immediately decided I hated him, and decided to snap my jaws once at him, just because. His eyebrows shot up in surprise and he turned a more analytical gaze on Nadeen.


    ¡°I¡­ My compatriots call me Erwin. We noticed your carriage charging up the road and wanted to ensure the safety of it¡¯s riders.¡± Erwin¡¯s eyes flicked from me to the carriage, and I tried to show my teeth without opening my mouth. I didn¡¯t really have lips in the traditional sense, so instead I more or less just started shaking like a chihuahua.


    ¡°My¡­¡± Nadeen paused, clearly trying to find a word that wasn¡¯t ¡®Master¡¯ or ¡®Guide¡¯.


    ¡°...partner, and I ran into some trouble with a Tomb Adder a few days ago. He didn¡¯t make it, and I¡¯ve had my Bound helping me back to the nearest town.¡± She punctuated her statement by turning to face the carriage, hiding her panicked and desperate facial expression from Erwin. I saw where she was going with this. It was an easy lie to tell after all. We were monsters, but we hadn¡¯t eaten her yet. One of us was pulling ¡®her¡¯ carriage, and she had clearly commanded me a few moments ago. Chances are, her status as some kind of pokemon trainer was probably the only thing keeping these guys from doing¡­ something they¡¯d regret.


    I forced myself not to look at the clearly ogling archers in the distance, and gave Nadeen a slight nod. I really hope Thing Two is alive under there. I know I can take a single douche with a sword, but the arrows might be problem. I doubted my Hydra Tongue could reach them from here. Actually, I doubted my Hydra Tongue would defend me at all, the devilish thing far more likely to eat the nearest source of food.


    ¡°I see. Well, if you would like Lady Binder, our camp isn¡¯t far from here. Perhaps you would like the chance to rest by a fire? My compatriots may not be able to cook well enough to satisfy one of your - ¡° Erwin glanced at the broken, high class carriage and back to Nadeen.


    ¡°Esteemed tastes. But I stew must be a damn sight better than the trail rations you¡¯ve no doubt been eating.¡± Erwin watched Nadeen intently as he spoke, his eyes predatory as they looked her up and down. I had no idea if this was normal here, but even setting aside her age, she was clearly missing an arm and more or less dead on her feet. There was no way Nadeen would -


    ¡°I accept your gracious invitation.¡± Nadeen said, stopping me dead. What I found weird about the entire conversation was that Nadeen didn¡¯t normally speak like this. Sure it¡¯d only been a couple days, but in my experience she typically spoke in single blunt sentences unless she was very, very mad. This ¡®gracious invitation¡¯ crap was completely out of character for her.


    Grinding my teeth together I sent Nadeen a pleading look, and she shook her head at me slightly before turning back to Erwin.


    ¡°If your men could assist me in freeing my Beast of Burden?¡± she said, gesturing back at the carriage where Thing Two had yet to so much as twitch. I noticed Nadeen had said Beast of Burden as though it were a classification and not just a fancy way of saying horse. I guess Thing Two¡¯s official classification was a Beast of Burden, which¡­ would honestly explain so much. He was huge, stupid, and oddly agreeable for a monster. They must be fairly common in some places to have a name like that. It also explained why Nadeen was so much more comfortable near Thing Two than me - the too large Gremlin.


    I pondered the strangeness of going to sleep and waking up a different species. If it wasn¡¯t so mind numbingly stupid it¡¯d be pretty cool.


    Erwin distracted me from my musings by snapping his fingers in the air and gesturing like an army commando. Like flies, a swarm of armed men in tattered leather armor walked out of the treeline, where I seriously didn¡¯t fucking see them? As one they began lashing ropes to the carriage, several of them pulling on it from one side while those without ropes pushed. With almost choreographed precision, they yanked the heavy carriage off of Thing Two, who shook his head once then opened his maw wide to ward away the men surrounding it.


    Seeing a problem in the making I snapped my jaws once and trilled for him to come stand with me. Still wary, Thing Two looked angrily between me and the surrounding men, then, using his two massive fists, he launched himself into the air.


    The sound of rasping steel and bows going taut rang out in the clearing, and Thing Two slammed into the dirt next to me with his arms up and his maw gaping still. But he didn¡¯t attack anyone. For now.


    Erwin, who had been smirking at Nadeen when she¡¯d realized how outnumbered we were, stared agape at Thing Two for a few moments before regaining his calm.


    ¡°I thought Beasts of Burden didn¡¯t develop combat mutations?¡± he asked, trying to mask his caution with polite curiosity. It was Nadeen¡¯s turn to smirk now, and she pointedly turned her gaze on me before she spoke.


    ¡°They don¡¯t. But mine are¡­ a bit special.¡±


    I flipped Erwin the bird just to help her make her point. Preach it sister.

 Once & Future Thing - 3

    Erwin¡¯s team of heavily armed guys that just happened to be hanging out in the forest and who totally weren''t bandits were uncomfortably well organized. For all my bravado - I didn¡¯t think I could kill all of them. I could probably run away from them but watching them range ahead of us, throwing hand signals back and forth like navy seals I got the distinct impression that it might be the last thing I ever did. Thing Two had reigned in his agitation and was now merely plugging along behind Nadeen, no less than an arms length away from Erwin. Or rather, exactly one arm¡¯s length away from the man, who was still completely at ease while he made small talk at Nadeen.


    I say at Nadeen because the poor girl pointedly refused to answer his persistent advances with anything more than a tight lipped smile and occasional grunting noises. I think they were trying to decide whether or not we were hostages, given Erwin constantly seemed to come back around to the topic of Nadeens background.


    ¡°Pray tell Lady Binder, why does it keep doing that?¡± Erwin asked, suddenly departing from his previous topic. His tone was polite but strained - though I couldn''t tell why.


    Nadeen¡¯s gaze flicked up to me, then returned to jumping between Erwin¡¯s soldiers whenever they made a hand sign. Her attention was half way between panic and the kind of dangerous focus a predator gets before it pounces. I couldn¡¯t decide which, and I don¡¯t think she could either.


    ¡°Your standing too close to me.¡± Nadeen answered absently, carefully maneuvering her arm away from where Erwin was trying to reach out and ostensibly help her walk. I had to give it to her, because she looked like she might need the help.


    ¡°You think I¡¯m standing too close to you, or that creature does?¡± Erwin asked, making no effort to distance himself, and letting a note of annoyance creep into his voice. Nadeen turned to regard him for a moment before resuming her observation of the nearby men.


    ¡°Yes.¡± was her only reply, and I took that as my que. Turning my head fractionally to the side so I could catch Thing Two¡¯s attention, I clacked my teeth together once and gestured at Nadeen. Now that I understood Thing Two was some kind of highly specialized grunt labour, his ability to interpret my commands and willingness to comply with them made a lot more sense. Ofcourse, pretending to be docile is an excellent way to attract prey¡­


    Immediately taking my meaning, Thing Two stretched out one obscenely large arm and curled it like a champion weightlifter, directly under Nadeen. Predictably, she lost her balance and fell smoothly into the lumbering oafs grasp. Cradling her like a child, Thing Two made a hooting noise at Erwin and then loped over to me.


    ¡°Sir!?¡± shrieked the man who¡¯s belt I had been holding on to. My head rotated back around and I glared at him, reasoning that as long as everyone thought I could kill them they¡¯d keep their hands to themselves. The middle aged man who stared back at me had pure terror in his eyes, and I could see myself reflected in their depths.


    Inwardly I snorted. These people seemed disproportionately afraid of me. Yeah I could kill a couple before they got me maybe. But if Bastok was right then I was literally one of the shittiest monsters in this hellhole.


    ¡°Calm yourself. If it was going to attack, it would.¡± Erwin called out, though I noticed his voice cracked slightly as he tried to maintain his calm. We weren¡¯t really being cooperative, but we weren¡¯t being particularly argumentative either. Just¡­ annoying.


    Taking pity on the poor shmuck I¡¯d been using as my seeing eye dog while I glared behind me at Erwin, I let go of his belt and dropped back to be next to Thing Two. Nadeen was struggling weakly in his grasp, but at this point I doubted she had the strength to crack an egg let alone out do Thing Two. I eyed her then darted my gaze towards Erwin, and she seemed to get the message quickly enough.


    She stilled glared at me though. That special kind of glare only a teenager can give when they believe you wronged them greatly.


    The rest of the trip was much more relaxing for me. Not because I was less tense about all the armed men around me, but because Erwin seemed to orbit around us like an unwanted stepchild. On multiple occasions he attempted to fall into step with Thing Two, but had the words wrenched from him as Thing Two, Nadeen and I all turned our heads to glare at him at the same time.


    Slowly the atmosphere about is began to change. The men traveling ahead of us began to loosen up, growing more and more relaxed until they weren¡¯t so much scouting ahead as they were walking in a loose group and chatting with each other. I assumed we were close to their camp, but for the life of me I couldn¡¯t tell the difference between this part of the forest any other.


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Becoming a Thing definitely hadn¡¯t given me some innate forestcraft.


    Then we broke into a clearing that had clearly been man made, and I had to work to keep my jaw from dropping. This wasn''t a fucking a camp. It was a whole god damn village in the middle of the murder forest. Dozens of small log cabins stood in the center of the clearing, surrounded by an armies worth of tents, their sizes ranging from normal camping tents all the way up to building sized things that seemed like they might as well be permanent fixtures. There was no rhyme or reason to the placement of the tents, and nothing even vaguely resembling a road leading into the town. A small river flowed around the encampment in a a U-Shape, blocking access to the village from any side except the direction we had come from.


    And the smell. The smell was overwhelming. Like every person on your street having a barbeque at once. Like a whole farms worth of pigs baking in the oven. I felt like I had just walked into the kitchen at a mcdonalds, and was only jarred from my hunger when a cool droplet fell on me and I realized I was drooling so hard it was literally overflowing.


    Which was fucking gross.


    Nadeen seemed as stunned as I was to see the impromptu bastion of humanity, and she practically shook in Thing Two¡¯s arms, visibly fighting back tears. Mentally I reevaluated Erwin from child touching cretin to possibly Guard Captain child touching cretin.


    ¡°Welcome to the Wild Hunt Lady Binder. I¡¯ll have my men erect a tent for you, unless you¡¯d prefer the comfort of a bed?¡± Erwin said, making a proud sweeping gesture and allowing a wolfish smile to spread across his face. It wasn¡¯t the least tactfully invitation I¡¯d ever heard, but it was the most creepy.


    ¡°Tent.¡± whispered Nadeen hoarsely. Erwin leaned in to her, putting himself entirely too close to her face and smugly asked;


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry? Couldn¡¯t quite hear you.¡± It was clear he was going for a sort of sensual whisper in your ear thing, and I genuinely wondered how someone with such poor survival instincts managed to have a village in the murder forest. Thing Two seemed to be wondering the same thing because he actually growled at Erwin, his own slightly opened mouth only a few inches from the amorous idiot¡¯s own ear. Erwin had clearly forgotten the danger we posed once we had arrived in his seat of power, and he rocketed backwards as though struck. Taking a moment to recompose himself Erwin took a deep breath, and the spun on one heel to walk away from us.


    With my primary source of aggravation gone, I had time to take a second look a the town. There were people moving about the tents, moving equipment, carrying plates of food, talking amongst themselves. Almost all of them looked injured in some way, and not one of them was a woman. Curious, I scampered closer to the edge of the tent village, then, glancing back to make sure Thing Two was keeping pace with me, plunged into the maze of fabric.


    People scrambled away from us like we were three times our actual size, diving into tents, dropping food where they stood and sprinting out of sight the minute we came into view. I felt like a horror movie monster. I would have felt worse about it but the whole damn place smelled so good. I should have been thinking more about getting Nadeen to safety, or getting us someplace where we weren¡¯t surrounded by armed men, or finding a tent to lay down in. But the smell was mesmerizing. So I continued to shuffle forward, following my nose to the source of the scent.


    A commotion had developed behind us, but I could hardly pay attention to it now I was so entranced. Dimly I could hear Erwin yelling for calm, and saying something about bound this or bound that. Then finally I came upon an empty circle of space in the exact center of the little village. It was ringed on all sides by sturdy log cabins, and an unlit fire pit full of blackened firewood and ash lay at its center. Strung out above the firepit between two poles that had been hammered into the ground was what had attracted me here.


    Strung out like clothes left to dry in the sun, were Things. Unmoving corpses that sagged and bore the clear signs of battle. I¡¯d have been unable to determine if they were my brothers and sisters or not, except that a few of them still had sticky wads of foliage pasted to old wounds. Their eyes were hollow, and their jaws hung open. Beneath them, men moved back and forth under the direction of a shirtless and soot stained man who paid no heed to the sudden arrival of myself and probably half the villages guards behind me. They painstakingly pulled the saw like teeth out of the Things mouths, while those Things who had already undergone that process were pulled down from the rack. Around the edges of the macabre display were men with the corpses of Things in their laps, using sharp hooked daggers to flay the hide from my kind, then used the hooked ends to pull bits of bone out of the way so they could continue digging about.


    The entire thing was oddly surreal. Like I should be horrified, or want vengeance. I was, in part, quite distressed by the sight. I had an odd rapport with the other members of my cohort that had made me feel, if not safe, then at least comfortable. And now they were all¡­


    Blinking I looked around and noticed that the Big Thing¡¯s was nowhere to be found. Then I got annoyed as the last piece of the puzzle fit itself into place. This was the reason these people were so terrified of me. Big Thing must have lead the cohort here to feed, killing who knows how many people, and causing many of the injuries I¡¯d seen while walking about the camp.


    Then something else dawned on me. I didn¡¯t find the smell of other things appetizing. And normal, uncooked human flesh - while tasty - didn¡¯t trigger my hunger the way I¡¯d been experiencing. So what the fuck -


    ¡°Thane!¡± called Erwin from a safe distance behind me, and I had to fight the urge to spin my head around and glare at him. He sounded worried, but not panicked, which should have immediately triggered my warning flags. The huge sun tanned man with no shirt on who had been directing everyone else turned to face us, seemingly only just now noticing the ruckus going on behind him. His face, framed by greasy black hair that looked like it hadn¡¯t been combed, washed, or taken care of in years, scrunched up in annoyance. Then his piercing green eyes passed over Nadeen, Thing Two & I and his features fell into a mask of neutrality.


    He strode towards us, his gait confident and his eyes never leaving Nadeen. A necklace of teeth hung about his neck, held together by a bit of rawhide, and little symbols had been carved into each and every tooth. Every single one looked unique, like they had all come from different animals. When he finally came to a stop in front of us I realized what I had been smelling, what I had found so fucking appetizing.


    It wasn¡¯t meat. It was magic.

 Once & Future Thing - 4

    Okay don¡¯t panic. What do we know? We¡¯ve met exactly two people who can use magic. Bastok pretty much seemed capable of destroying us as an afterthought. Nadeen seems like she might not count. This guy¡­


    I was frozen on the spot. Every instinct in my monstrous body told me to kill and eat this man. Every rational thought my mind could produce said ¡®run the fuck away¡¯. We decided to meet in the middle which apparently meant standing very still.


    ¡°Erwin, what have you brought home with you?¡± the man asked. His voice was deep and resonant, and unlike Erwin, Nadeen and basically everyone I¡¯d been eavesdropping on as we made our way here, who had English accents, he sounded almost Scottish. Until this point I had just been ignoring everyone''s accent because frankly I couldn¡¯t do anything about it. Actually, it should have occurred to me earlier but why does everyone in this place speak english?


    ¡®Ugh. I fucking hate all this magic crap. Need a manual or something.¡¯


    ¡°Ah, yes. We found Lady Binder here during one of our patrols.¡± Erwin said, clearing his throat a touch nervously. The other man, Thane, finally turned his gaze away from Nadeen to fall on Erwin.


    ¡°Get her a tent and see me after dinner.¡± Thane said, his tone of voice almost a whisper. Then he turned away from us.


    That was apparently all my pea sized brain needed because the minute he was looking away from me I leapt at him. It was a completely involuntary reaction, something I did so completely without thought that I didn¡¯t have the time to convince myself it was a bad idea. One minute I was sort of standing there, and then I was sailing through the air with my jaw cracked so wide I could feel it bumping against my chest.


    ¡®Shiiiiit.¡¯ was the only thought I managed before Thane - seeming to notice my approach, spun around with much more grace than someone that large should have. He lifted one clenched fist and - instead of punching me square in the face, which probably wouldn¡¯t have worked but definitely would have been my first instinct if you ruled out ¡®curl up into a ball and cry¡¯ - he thrust his forearm into my maw like a crossbar.


    Where I had been expecting the soft give of flesh as my teeth tore into it, instead I was met with an unexpected resistance, and my sawlike teeth barely penetrated at all. Instead, the force of my leap and my newfound relationship with the immovable object slammed my body forward. Again I was saved by my skulls questionable relationship with my spine, as my head remained fixed in place by the pry bar that was Thane¡¯s arm while my torso whipped up and around.


    Thane¡¯s eyes glinted in the midday sun and the etchings on his necklace began to burn. That was the best way I could describe it. It wasn¡¯t a glow, or any visible kind of light. There was no true visual effect that I could discern. But suddenly I was unable to look away from the intricate carvings as a sense of ignition washed over me.


    Then my head hit the ground, as Thane leaned forward, trapping my still futilely gnawing mouth between his arm and the ground. I thrashed wildly, kicking and bucking with all I could. I scrabbled useless at his bicep, and when that didn¡¯t work, tried in vein to angle myself to kick him square in the gonads. Before I could complete the motion Thane¡¯s face hardened and he raised his other hand in a fist, preparing to bring it down on my head in a spectacular hammer blow.


    I froze, imminent and sure death apparently being more than enough to help my mind switch tracks from ravening hunger demon to rational thinking man. Thane saw the change and his fist, still poised in the air above me, paused. Slowly, I raised my hands over my head in the universal sign for surrender. The muscular man above me squinted at the gesture, as though unsure of what he was seeing, so I gently tapped his forearm twice and pointed behind him - to where Thing Two had both of his fists raised overhead.


    You know, in a lot of stories you hear people talk about measuring tense moments in heart beats. ¡®Between one heartbeat and the next¡¯ is a popular one. Those people are idiots. Anyone who has the wherewithal to measure their own heartbeat as a time gauge definitely isn¡¯t in nearly enough danger to be worth listening to. Every fiber of being being was focused on Thane. Focused on searching out that feeling of ignition, that spark of something metaphysical happening. And then Thane grunted and carefully lifted his arm out of my mouth. I widened it as best I could so he wouldn¡¯t get grazed as he did so, more because I wasn¡¯t sure what the taste of blood would do for my self control than because I cared if he got hurt.


    I made a gurgling noise at Thing Two, who lowered his fists to the ground, visibly stumbling as his unnaturally large upper body changed his center of gravity. Nadeen¡¯s legs hung limply over one of his shoulders where he¡¯d apparently lodged her like a particularly fleshy cell phone.


    There was a telling silence in the camp, while the locals waited for their leader to say something. Thane pulled a ragged cloth from his belt and dabbed at his forearm where tiny portions of his skin had been scraped by my teeth, his other hand passing quietly over his necklace in the same motion. It looked like a practiced motion, like a swordsman checking their blade before a battle, or a cops hand falling comfortably on the handle of their gun. My gaze flicked from his forearm to his face as I contemplated my predicament. I had bitten through truck sized snakes made of bone like they were made of butter. My mouth might as well be a power tool for how much damage I could do to a living body I got my teeth on.


    But this guy had only gotten a flesh wound. I might as well have stabbed him with a toothpick. Suddenly, I really didn¡¯t want to be in this camp anymore. I was no longer confident I could kill my way out if something bad happened. Thing Two padded over to me, and I realized I was still lying on the ground. I¡¯d have thought it was the natural instinct of a prey animal to play dead and be still, but honestly I don¡¯t think Things have survival instincts.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    The burly man broke my reverie by leaning down until his eyes were level with my own. He had a strained look to him, as though he was conceding something even by acknowledging me.


    ¡°Stay your hand against the boy and my men, and I assure you the girl will be cared for demon.¡± Thane said, practically spitting the last words at me. It took me by surprise. Not the vitriol. I just tried to eat him, that was a fair response. But that he was addressing me directly and as another sentient being. Nadeen spoke to me occasionally ofcourse, but I¡¯m sure at least half of that is because of all the trauma. I had assumed her tendency for terse, clipped sentences was because she was mad and sick - or just a bitch. She obviously knew I was smart enough to understand her. But the question becomes, exactly how smart does she think I am.


    And why does this guy seem to know better after only a few seconds of interaction?


    Slowly closing my still hanging jaw, I hesitantly nodded once at him. Apparently, Thane both accepted and disliked that, because a flash of anger passed over his face before it returned to its normal neutral look.


    ¡°Targe, Creek, grab a kit and guard the girl. The rest of you, get back to work!¡± Thane bellowed as he stood back up. He unceremoniously stomped towards the crowd of fearful onlookers, and began barking at them like a drill sergeant, delivering open handed smacks to anyone that didn¡¯t get moving fast enough.


    In mere moments the crowd dispersed, leaving only a shocked Erwin standing at the edge of work area, along with two men who I took to be Targe and Creek. The two were as unlike Erwin as I was. Thick, heavy-set men, with wary looks in their eyes, looking like it¡¯d be easier to count the teeth they had left than the ones that were missing. They hustled past Erwin into the work area, towards one of the log cabins in the center of the village, and disappeared inside.


    Erwin continued to stand stock still, staring between Thing Two and I, as though trying to puzzle out the answer to a question I didn¡¯t know. If he was used to being around a guy like Thane, his cockiness when he ambushed us makes a bit more sense.


    ¡°Erwin!¡± came a sharp call from further in the camp. The blond man immediately came to his senses, and marched - literally marched off into the camp.


    Moments later Targe & Creek trundled out of the building they had gone into. They came out covered in the rattiest leather armor I had yet seen - and the armor the locals had been wearing as they lead us here had looked second hand at best. There were jagged scratches across every available surface of the leather cuirasses, like someone had taken a box cutter to it while drunk. But as the two drew closer recognition dawned on me. Something had been cut into the armor all right - the same something that was carved immaculately into the bits of tooth hanging on Thane¡¯s necklace. But these ¡®runes¡¯ for lack of a better word seemed much lower in quality somehow. Like a childrens drawing to Thane¡¯s Mona Lisa.


    I frowned at that, and tried to commit a few of the symbols to memory for later. Then I realized the two thugs were standing awkwardly a few feet away as though unsure of how to proceed. I snapped my teeth at them in exasperation and shooed them off, then began following them when the surprise in their faces died back down to their usual stony faced look.


    Good help is just so hard to find these days.


    We made our way once more through the tent city. People scurried too and fro around us, and if not for the empty space our guardians seemed to create as they passed I felt we would have probably spent much longer navigating the tight space. Ofcourse, I can¡¯t attribute all of that to Targe and Creek. Everywhere I looked were men trying their best not to make eye contact with me, some of them going so far as to flee out of my line of sight when they realized I was looking at them. Word of my outburst must have gotten around, because significantly more of the fearful looks were directed at me now, instead of my much bigger, more dangerous looking brother.


    Eventually we came to a tent just big enough that you could expect it to hold three people, if not necessarily comfortably. Of course, since Thing Two was much larger than an average person, the fit looked like it would be tight at best. The tent was made of a thick fabric completely unlike the polyester I was accustomed to. It almost felt closer to pitching a carpet than a real tent. As I shouldered my way through the flaps leading inside, Targe & Creek split up to stand ominously on either side of the tents entrance.


    Protect us my ass. They were clearly here to protect everyone else from us.


    Thing Two hunched his way into the tent after me and I glanced around for a place to put Nadeen down. She hadn¡¯t made a sound since my¡­ impromptu confrontation with certain death, and I noticed the dim sound of ugly snoring emanating from her. I¡¯d have rolled my eyes, but the mechanics of the motion were so different for my weird contracting eye sockets that the few times I¡¯d tried it had been extremely uncomfortable.


    Instead, I trudged over to the two bedrolls I¡¯d found in the corner and began peeling back the sheets on one so I could stack them together into a fluffier, overall more comfortable bed. I should have been more annoyed that they had only provided us with two places to sleep, but Thing Two and I didn¡¯t really sleep anyway - not that I was going to go out of my way to make sure they knew that.


    Waving behind me I had Thing Two put Nadeen down in the bed, pried the hunk of wolf bone out of her hands where it had been ever since she¡¯d picked it up, and covered her with the blanket.


    Eyeing the hunk of bone, I noted the very human looking teeth marks on it with some worry before setting it down on a nearby by table. This tent didn¡¯t look newly put up. It looked¡­ lived in. Like someone had recently been evicted from it and we were moving in to take over. Besides the writing table - which I found odd for a group of people I figured were probably bandits, and therefore, uneducated rubes - there was also a wicker basket in the corner nearest the bed.


    Thinking I better find something to occupy myself with for awhile, I looked around for something to do. I couldn¡¯t go outside - Lumpy and Dumpy standing by the door would probably either stop me or follow me around menacingly, just waiting for an excuse to deal with me. But there was nothing to do in here. Before all this had happened to me I would have slept to kill the time until something happened, but that was definitely out for obvious reasons.


    That was about the moment it dawned on me that, even though I had been desperately trying to find somewhere safe to lay my head. Even though I had been bleeding myself dry, straining the very limits of my sanity trying to scrape together the willpower to find a bed and people. I had never, at any point, thought of what I was going to do when I was actually safe. I had just assumed that once I was safe and surrounded by people again I could somehow just¡­ go back to normal. Whatever normal is anyway. It was getting harder to remember the further away I got from it.


    The worst part was, now I was safe and the only thing I could think to do was fiddle with those runes to see if I could do magic. And the only reason I wanted to do that was because I wanted hunting for my food to be easier.


    I dared to send a look towards Thing Two, and found him standing eerily still, his eye sockets widened to the max to accommodate the darkness of the tent. Like a puppet with his strings cut. Watching me pace the room.


    He was hungry. Hell, I was hungry. And we were fucking surrounded by food. Thing Two knew it, I knew it. Hell, the people out there probably even knew it. That¡¯s why they were so scared. If it was any Thing but me they¡¯d be right too. My whole species was basically amoral killing machines. Piranha with legs and thumbs.


    I felt my mouth start to water again as the stress of near death finally managed to filter itself out of my short term memory, and my instincts kicked back in.


    ¡®Fucking figures. Finally find a safe place to stay and now all I can think of is leaving it to kill and eat something. I swear, if I ever evolve into something that can talk I¡¯m going to invent McDonalds here.¡¯

 Once & Future Thing - 5

    How does one think fast? That''s the thought skittering through my mind right now. I''m surrounded by food I don¡¯t want to eat, but I find the idea of leaving Nadeen here alone intolerable.


    Intellectually anyway. Physically I was already quietly digging a hole in the back of the tent I could escape through unnoticed. Hopefully.


    Probably should have paid more attention to what was behind this thing when I got here.


    Dimly in the back of my mind it occurs to me that whatever fuels my monstrous instincts seems to be taking just enough away from my usual cowardly self to be dangerous. If you¡¯d put me in this situation three days ago I would have almost certainly run screaming at the guards outside the tent - assuming I didn¡¯t just try to eat Nadeen. Now though, even in a hungry furor I had the wherewithal to try and make sure I would survive eating - a trait I was coming to find is not at all a normal thing for my species.


    But of course, it was a very dim thought indeed as I dug. Slowly at first, because the dirt was so hard packed beneath the tent - but soon Thing Two stepped in to assist, no doubt unable to understand why we were digging, but instinctually compelled to help me regardless. He was hungry too, but I got the distinct impression he wasn¡¯t quite reaching the limit of his patients the way I was. Actually, looking back on it, Thing Two¡¯s control or rather, situational awareness, was uncommonly high after his evolution or mutation or whatever it¡¯s called here. Inversely pretty much everything set me off post evolution. I felt like an adolescent boy getting an erection every time something caught his interest. I hadn¡¯t liked it then and I didn¡¯t like it now that my metaphorical boner was for cannibalism.


    Eventually we dug a hole big enough for me to easy out of, which I did so immediately, leaving a whining Thing Two behind without a thought. It was a testament to his wherewithal that he didn¡¯t just tear out the back of the tent after me, instead opting to drop back and paw dejectedly at the ground outside the tent.


    I almost would have felt bad, but I was beyond caring now. Almost beyond rational thought at all now that I was back in the open air where the scintillating scent of flesh and blood could flow past on the breeze.


    Looking around I quickly noted that our tent was nearly the farthest one possible from the center of the camp. The tent sat at the very edge of the site, closer to the river flowing furiously nearby than the center of the pseudo village. There was only one tent further away, one my eyes could only barely make out in the orange light of the evening. It sat a noticeable distance from the camp, not anywhere close to the seeming safety of the clustered tents. That tent was in the elbow of the river, where it turned to go back around the village on the other side.


    And my predatory little mind immediately latched onto it.


    You see I had two problems. One, I wanted to eat. Two, I didn¡¯t want to get caught eating and therefore die in a torrent of arrows and angry men. An isolated tent that no one was likely to check on helped move those concerns along nicely. My addled mind of course, gave no credence to the fact that I was only assuming no one checked on this tent. More than that, it never once occurred to me that I was the first person anyone would suspect if people turned up dead in camp or mysteriously disappeared. But while my instinctual drive to eat had been tempered somewhat by my natural cowardice, that didn¡¯t mean it had suddenly grown into a tactical genius.


    I darted across the camp, crouching behind tents and hiding anytime I heard or smelled food nearby. It was nerve racking, but I had to get as close to the other tent as possible before braving the cleared area around the camp to run for it. There was too much chance someone would look up and see me sprinting across the space towards it if I wasn¡¯t careful. It was getting darker with every passing moment, and my self imposed limits began to fray everytime a yawning man passed me by on his way to his bedroll. The temptation to reach out and feed grew until I practically felt I was going to vomit from the tension. But finally I reached my goal. I glanced around, trusting my pitch black coloring to deflect attention from me in the growing darkness of night I squared up, and then ran. The thought of finally, finally having an easy, tasty meal put a spring in my step that would horrify me if I was in my right mind. But I wasn¡¯t. Which was why I didn¡¯t stop to think about what I was going to do when I actually arrived at the tent. I didn¡¯t consider who or what could be in there, or why it was so far off. I especially didn¡¯t take notice of the fallen sword sitting in the dirt in front of the tent.


    If I¡¯d managed to add all that up before getting there I probably would have at least attempted to walk around the thing once to gather more information. As it was I practically pushed the tent flaps out of the way with my face as I sprawled forward into the diner.


    It was disappointing to say the least.


    What I found inside the tent was a single, thick stake made of what looked like bone jutting out of the ground. Circular holes had been bored into it, and ropes were looped through those holes. The ends of the two lengths of rope currently tethered look as though they¡¯d been cut - though I couldn¡¯t tell how recently even if I did have time to sherlock holmes it. Instead my attention immediately went to the back of the tent, where a huge hole had been rent in the fabric, invisible to anyone observing from the camp.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    I stared dumbfounded at the hole. Had my prey known I was coming? Had someone else warned them? Did the camp know I was here? I had to get Nadeen and Thing Two. No sooner do I agree to leave his men alone than I¡¯m founding trying to eat them? Thane would kill us all. Just the thought of the man was a bucket of cold water to the face. I was still hungry, still running on instinct, but now I was definitely falling on the flight side of fight or flight.


    ¡°...you sure...¡±


    Until I heard the whispers.


    Seeking confirmation of my fears I crept towards the hole in the wall, pressing the side of my head against the edge of the tear while making sure my body was hidden by what remained of the wall.


    ¡°Quiet. We need someone who can navigate this wretched devilwood. We don¡¯t know which way the road is let alone the border!¡± came a hissed response to the half heard whisper. It was a woman¡¯s voice, a fact I filed away to consider later. She sounded¡­ prim would be the word. Like the type of person who was raised to know what all the extra spoons are for in a full course meal. Her breathing was clipped and I could smell the faint tang of blood on the wind.


    ¡°We don¡¯t know that they plan to kill us. We should hide nearby and -¡± the second voice rang out, exasperation clear in the tone. It sounded like an older man, and his voice was smooth and mellow as he spoke. Like he was auditioning for a commercial or something. I almost wished I could talk just so I could ask him to say ¡®Autobots transform and roll out¡¯. But he was cut off before he could finish.


    ¡°No. We will leave this place at the soonest possible convenience. This is not a debate, it¡¯s an order.¡± came the first voice. A hint of steal had entered into it, as though she was girding herself for an argument and not looking forward to it.


    ¡°This is why your still not married¡­¡± muttered the man in lieu of continuing his argument, and there was a delicate snort at that.


    My curiosity was piqued but it was warring with my desperate need to feed. The more I listened to these people the more they were people and the less they were food, but the more I fought the urge to leap out at them the more my hunger fought back. Pulsing waves of desire rose up from my stomach, and a darker part of me pointed out that I wouldn¡¯t even get in trouble for eating these people. They were clearly prisoners in the middle of an escape. They were kidnapping one of Thanes men. Why, I might even be commended for stopping them.


    But it felt so wrong.


    My biology, it seemed, took that moment to take matters into its own hands, in one of the most disturbing ways I could have imagined. The conflicting feelings condensed inside of me, and the ungodly stress induced nausea I had been feeling cranked itself up to an almost mind shattering level before I remembered one very key thing about Thing biology.


    I couldn¡¯t vomit. Willfully or otherwise. Which means this acrid sensation of something leaving my stomach is -


    Pain rocked me as I struggled to hold my jaw shut, only for it to be forcibly pushed open to the limits of my physical frame. The three eel headed visages of my hydra tongue slithered out into the open air, gazing about the tent like apex predators surveying the killing ground. Their heads tilted too and fro irrespective of each other, weaving back and forth across their shared stump in a silent dance.


    Then they turned as one towards the rent in the tent wall, and one of them tilted its head to look me square in the eyes as though scolding an unruly child. As one, their horrendous mouths opened, and instead of the hiss of a snake words came unbidden from them.


    ¡°Oi! Whats going on in here? Where are the prisoners?¡±


    What the actual fuck? I couldn¡¯t talk but these fucking things could? How the fuck is this a useful evolutionary trait. Who the hell would ever-


    My incredulous and scattered thoughts were stilled when two people charge into the tent, wearing dinged and dirty steel armor that clinked as they moved. The intricate grooves and decorative flourishes on it made it seem as though it was intended more for show than use, but its current circumstances inevitably precluded that.


    The man and woman pair skidded to a halt as they entered the tent, their wide eyes taking in the presence of my Hydra Tongue with only a moment''s hesitation or fear before they each whirled about to the side, each one lashing out with gleaming swords at one of the heads. They seemed well practiced in fighting against strange creatures, and I watched in growing terror as they neatly deflected the two whip crack fast strikes from my Hydra Tongue with their blades, leaving red tears in the necks of the two creatures when they pulled back.


    At once they seemed to track the tongues back to their source. Back to me. The man - an older gentleman with salt and pepper hair cut close to his head and an almost unbelievable number of scars on his exposed face positioned himself to charge me, his blade pulled back in preparation for a lunging stab. The woman slid into position next to him, her arcing blows and graceful swordplay weaving a protective space around the two of them that was surely meant to ward off my tongues while the man prepared his attack. She two looked to be approaching middle age. Her hair was long and brown, and it hung behind her in the kind of ponytail I¡¯d expect on a runner in the park - not on the faintly wrinkled face of this cold woman.


    My Hydra Tongue seemed to take in all of this at once, seemingly not expecting anything but the barest token of resistance. Then as one, they began to retract, rushing towards me faster than the armored man could move.


    And then, as though my previous pain was merely a taste of what was to come the twined tails of the tongue began to push against me. I could physically feel myself being torn apart. The bones in my skull creating audible crunching noises as the tension from my tendons pulling apart compacting further and further. My mouth was now open so wide I was bleeding from where my jaw barely hung onto my face.


    Were these fucking things trying to escape? Realized I was going to die so they might as well make a last ditch effort to bail? My own fucking organs?!


    And then there was the voice again. Not my attackers. Not even the faux guard the tongue had previously emulated. No, this sound was considerably more¡­ monstrous. Like the sound of something that was never meant to have a voice.


    ¡°bY oATh ANd bLOod¡± intoned the creature I was no longer sure was actually a part of me.


    Tormented by the pain of being literally pulled apart, I felt it important to return to the classics. In that moment, all I could really think was;


    ¡®What fresh fucking hell is this?!¡¯

 Once & Future Thing - 6

    I can feel it again, the burning incense sensation of ignition that Thane gave me. Only its different somehow, weaker - like a lighter low on fluid or a candle that''s wick is all but gone.


    The man only a few steps away from me seems almost as confused as I am, but none of that confusion translates to hesitation.


    ¡°yOur fATe UNdoNe" continued the thing sticking out of me. The longer it remained the more my mind seemed to slide around it. To casually refuse to acknowledge it even though it was actively in the process of ripping me in half and yelling at the top of its - of my? - lungs.


    The swordsman completes his lunge, and his sword shoots forward, ramming straight into my chest, all the way up to the hilt. People, myself included, often describe pain as ¡®shooting¡¯ or ¡®exploding¡¯. But the truth is, pain just is. It¡¯s a signal our bodies send to our brains to inform us that something is wrong, and would you kindly freaking fix it. When a sensible person experiences too much pain, the experience alone can kill them. The overwhelming number of warning flares your body sends to your mind crash the whole damn system. That¡¯s termed shock. And fuck me if I didn¡¯t wish I could go into that.


    No, instead of going into shock, I was simply made excruciatingly aware of every individual atom of my body the sword passed through. Like when a kernel of popcorn gets stuck in your gums and despite it not being overly aggravating, you can¡¯t help but spend the next hour flicking it with your tongue in a vain attempt to get it out. Only the kernel was a fucking sword, and I was now unfortunately familiar with every dent, groove and scratch in the blades surface.


    What I¡¯m saying is it really fucking sucked, and I couldn¡¯t even manage to just fucking die and escape the pain that way. The male swordsman wasn¡¯t even all that pleased with having functionally executed me. He just relaxed slightly and reached forward to pull the sword out of my chest, as I sank to my knees and sprawled out on the ground unable to move.


    Which is another thing about fucking dying that you¡¯d never know without seeing it. People die ugly. It wasn¡¯t a dramatic fall into a crestfallen pose that I made. I just fell. Like a goddamn ragdoll. But then¡­


    ¡°oUR sOUL is bROkeN¡± crooned something out the corner of my eye. And my eye sockets jerked open. My head had rolled back so I was facing the ceiling, and my killer - so my Hydra Tongue was apparently still free to act. The swordsman panicked, blanching and turning to his partner who had charged forward with him to protect him from the eel headed appendages. They swiped desperately at the serpentine things surrounding them, always just barely missing. They adapted quickly, giving up on the Hydra Tongue and turning on me. Unmoving, helpless, me.


    The three eel like heads made a grotesque horking noise when the first blow struck me, and they seemed to pause what they were doing, each one turning a painful ophidian eye on me. Something I was only aware of because I could feel them moving around still. Also because focusing on that was the only thing keeping me from trying to rip my own throat out. No matter how much damage they did to me, no matter where they struck, it seemed I was incapable of death.


    Long story short though the swordsmen stabbed the shit out of me. I think at first it was panic, but when the Hydra Tongues seemed to leave them too it, they must have thought it was working. Jokes on them though. It hadn¡¯t taken me long to realize that the horking noise the heads were making wasn¡¯t pain. It was laughter. They weren¡¯t stopping it. They were amusing it.


    Then there was a break in the dismemberment, and that seemed to break the spell. All the noise in the tent seemed to stop at once, before the final verse of the strange rhyme Nadeen had first on me was whispered into the room.


    ¡°OuR wiLL¡¯S aRe OnE.¡± It was a voice like breaking glass. Like a baby crying it¡¯s last breath. It bubbled up and into the room like gas from a sewage line, and all at once, the swordsmen seemed to experience all at once the slow hazy disintegration I had first begun to experience a the hands of Nadeen seemingly forever ago. First they were their, then they weren¡¯t. Their bodies turned to mist and then - dispersed.


    That¡¯s about the time I guess I finally managed to die - because the world turned black.


    ***


    I was born on the banks of the Nereid, to two loving parents whom I spent the majority of my younger years hating. You see, when I was young the distinction between chosen nobles and hardworking vassals like my parents was fuzzy. If asked, in a very limited way I could have probably managed to explain that nobles almost invariably had the Spark that allowed one to become a Binder and use magic, but I couldn¡¯t understand why that should matter. I was so hard headed and rebellious about it, that when I was sixteen I stole my father''s sword - the one he¡¯d brought home with him from his time in the infantry - and started walking to the Titan Palace. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    My parents named me Barker, hoping I would be tough as tree bark. They added the extra syllable hoping it would make my name sound more like a nobles. A common practice at the time, when the roads were safe. Before lowborn like myself were allowed to test for the Spark. It¡¯s unfortunate for them that I truly was as tough as tree bark, tougher even then the famed Ironwood Fir¡¯s to the north. Maybe if I wasn¡¯t, I would not have walked away as I did.


    Such was it, that I - in my infinite wisdom, ranged out towards the frozen form of the first monster ever bound, to prove my worth.


    ***


    My eyes shot open and I lurched upward. I was still in the tent. I was¡­ I was alive. Actually, forget alive, I felt fucking amazing. And that worried me, because the last time I was in my right mind I was on my way to being in more than a few different pieces. The sun had completely fallen below the horizon and only the moons soft glow provided me with any light by which to see.


    The first thing I did - even before actually taking in my surroundings, which was stupid of me - was pat myself down in search of wounds, or changes. I had only ever slept once before this in my new life as a Thing, and the changes I had undergone then had been pretty much immediately noticeable once I got my shit together and started paying attention. Now though, I didn¡¯t find anything different. I was still a skinny, preteen sized black Thing. I even patted my head, wondering if maybe I had grown horns or something else cool. In a moment of genuine curiosity I stuck my tongue out hoping maybe I had evolved something useful like a tongue that could make complex noises. Alas, it was not to be, and I slowly came to accept that I was still just plain old more or less useless me.


    I carefully set aside the fact that I was completely healed from my previous ordeal as something I pointedly did not want to think about right now. Not because the why of it would bother me - though I¡¯m sure it would - but because I was willing to do just about anything to distract myself from the memory of the pain.


    Finally giving myself the go ahead to really look at the tent, I flinched. There was a new corpse in the room with me. He was dressed in the ragtag armor the locals seemed fond of, or at least resigned to. His arms and legs had been bound in front of him like a pig ready to go to roast. Only it was clear that someone had skipped cooking him. There was a deep furrow in the packed dirt beneath him that led outside of the tent, to where the two swordsmen had been talking before I had interrupted them, and I could see flecks of blood filling those desperate scrabbling rents in the ground the closer they got to where the corpse was.


    Clearly he had not gone quietly into the night.


    The corpse itself was arranged in an almost grotesque parody of a table. The hogtied arms and legs seemingly glued in place beneath it, holding the body completely still. The stillness was completely at odds with the ruin of the man''s back, where something with long, sharp fangs had clearly slowly torn the skin and muscle apart to reveal the organs beneath. The corpse was hollow now, an empty soup bowl as it were and I shuddered. This was more than just murder. It was cruel.


    And it reminded me of the whole reason I was out here in the first place. I didn¡¯t know how long I had been laying here, or how much if any noise this guy had made as he died - but I really didn¡¯t want to be here when the guard change came. I scampered towards the front of the tent before pausing, remembering my hungry brother back in our own tent.


    Experimentally, I prodded the corpse, causing it to fall over messily and eliciting another sharp wince at the sputtering noise the few fluids inside it made. Carefully I walked over and hoisted the thing onto my back, using the hogtied arms as a sort of chest strap to stabilize it. Then I scampered out of the tent and back into the camp.


    As I ran, and hid, and prayed no one would smell the corpse before I could have Thing Two dispose of it, I got the strangest feeling. LIke someone was watching me, just out the corner of my eye. Like knowing there is a fly buzzing about the room, but being completely powerless to spot or detect it before it lands on you. It was that kind of feeling, and it left me on edge all the way back to my tent, where I was face with a secondary problem.


    I didn¡¯t think the dead guy was going to fit into the me sized hole at the back of the tent.


    Thinking carefully about it, I opted to try the simplest solution first. I shoved the dead guys head and shoulders into the hole. I was not disappointed, because moments later there was a sharp tug, and the body all but disappeared, accompanied by a tearing sound as some of the tent had to give way.


    I quickly looked around to make sure that no one had taken notice, the slid into the tent myself. Thing Two was already happily pull the arms and legs off the dead guard, the gentle crunch of bones giving way to his prodigious strength filling the tent. Nadeen sat curled in the far corner, having clearly jumped away from her bedroll the minute the corpse had passed by her. She didn¡¯t look scared, or angry, or anything really. High on LSD maybe, given how dilated her pupils were. But then she saw me enter, and seemed to shake herself, her eyes returning to their normal size.


    I was really beginning to worry about her, and I hoped they¡¯d send a doctor around to see her soon - If they even had one. Then I remembered how fucked we were and I decided to stop worrying about Nadeen because we were all going to be fucked if the locals put two and two together and connected me with their missing dead guy and prisoners.


    If I was really lucky, I mean really, really, really, lucky. They¡¯d assume those prisoners had escaped had taken the dead guy with them. It¡¯s not like forensic science existed in this shit hole forest. Even if it did, there were too many types of magic that could easily obscure that type of thing from the King¡¯s justice for it to be useful so -


    I paused. Why did I know that? I literally don¡¯t know anything about the fucking King. Actually, I didn¡¯t know there was a fucking King. Scratch that, I don¡¯t know theres a fucking King. The thought had come so suddenly and slid so smoothly into my normal mental meanderings that I almost took it for reality instead of an idle fancy. Which was weird. Because if there¡¯s any one thing I¡¯ve had a lot of time to listen to since coming here it¡¯s my own thoughts.


    And those were my own thoughts.


    ...weren¡¯t they?

 Once & Future Thing - 7

    The night went by almost completely without issue. Thing Two scarfed the evidence down like the corpse was a two dollar burger, and Nadeen took the casual dismemberment and consumption of a fellow human with an odd petulance. As though she was aware that something like this was going to happen, and accepted it even though she didn¡¯t like it.


    Afterwards, Thing Two and I just sort of sat in the tent, spending the whole night in a wary state as though awaiting an ambush. The idea of letting my guard down - even for one minute - was so stressful that I simply couldn¡¯t bring myself to do it. Thing Two followed my lead, settling himself in the center of the tent, where I noted his grotesquely long arms could easily reach anywhere in sight. I was beginning to get the impression that my brother might be simple but he probably wasn¡¯t stupid.


    Nadeen spent a few minutes staring daggers at us while she rose to take off her armor and weapons, which we had unceremoniously put her to bed in. I¡¯d like to say that was because I wanted to afford her some modesty, but truthfully I just had no idea how armor stays on. In television the stuff just seems to stay on all by itself and come off whenever its dramatically appropriate. I also would have probably snapped at any of the guards if they¡¯d tried to undress her, setting off another impromptu fight or flight situation I doubt I would survive.


    When Nadeen had finally stacked all her belongings in a corner of the room just to the side of her bed, she crawled back into the pile of blankets, covered herself, and went back to sleep.


    So I waited.


    And waited.


    Aaaaaaand waited.


    The sun rose on the second day of our time in camp, and I patiently waited for the medical help I was promised for Nadeen. When it reached its apex at noon, I reasoned they must be busy with the scene I had left in their little prisoner holding area. By the time night fell, I couldn¡¯t tell if I was relieved that no one had come to ask where I was yesterday, or angry that I was being ignored.


    By the third day, Nadeen had been asleep from almost the time I¡¯d gotten back to now. Remaining still as the dead in her bed roll for over thirty hours - assuming this shithole planet had the same number of hours as my Earth. By mid day, she had begun to toss and writhe in her sleep, her temperature skyrocketing to ludicrous levels. The already thin girl began to waste away in front of me, her body eating itself to fight its fever. I began to worry that Things might be like Komodo dragons - our mouths full of hideous diseases and contagions that we were immune to but our prey were not.


    Thing Two and I finally broke our vigil then, and I rushed out to the river to get a damp cloth - turning around to steal one from a stunned soldier doing laundry when I realized I didn¡¯t have anything to wet. Thing Two caught on pretty quickly to what I was doing, even if he didn¡¯t seem to get how it helped. His one and only attempt to hold the cloth to Nadeens forehead ended why I noticed he was smothering her with his palm. After that Thing Two mostly stuck to ringing out the cloth and dunking it back in the river while I tended our teenage ward.


    By the night of that day I was pissed. It had finally dawned on me that medical help wasn¡¯t coming. Thane had lied to me, and I was going to get him for it.


    I shook my head and remembered Thane¡¯s effortless strength, while I waited for a nearby guard to pass so I could move out from behind the tent I was crouched behind.


    Maybe not Thane. But Erwin was fucked if I ever got my hands on him. Definitely. Probably. Maybe.


    Seeing an opening, I jumped from cover, staying low to the ground in a way that would have caused me immediate pain to maintain if my spinal cord worked the way a humans would. I didn¡¯t actually know where Thane slept. Or¡­ if he slept. I¡¯d noticed than in the three days since we had arrived the mooks that were guarding our tent hadn¡¯t left once, save to split up and trail me when I was at the river. They didn¡¯t seem to sleep, or eat, or get tired. More magic bullshit again.


    But I was gonna have the last laugh - because I didn¡¯t need to know where Thane¡¯s tent was. I was taking a page from ol¡¯ Toucan Sam¡¯s book. I was just going to follow my nose.


    My search didn¡¯t take long. I was hampered more by the roving patrols than I was anything else. And even they seemed more focused on discerning threats from outside the camp, meaning they weren''t paying all that much attention to little old me.


    Still my nerves were practically shot by the time I made it to my goal, an austere little grey tent somehow even smaller than my own. There was nothing to distinguish it as belonging to someone important. No sign in front saying ¡®Bosses Tent¡¯. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    For all intents and purposes it was just one tiny, shitty tent, barely a foot away from a bunch of other, tiny, shitty tents. Thankfully, that proximity allowed me to use the tent in front of Thane¡¯s as cover, as carefully crouched low to the ground then stuck a single finger under the tent flap, pushing it a few inches off the ground and letting me see inside the tiny enclosure.


    Thane sat cross legged on his bedroll, surrounded by fetishes and trophies - presumably from other monster stupid enough to pick a fight with the man. Random chunks of bone and scraps of tanned hide hung all over the tent, suspended by strings tied to the four posts supporting the tents square roof. Erwin sat across from Thane, his armor gone in favor of a pristine looking white silk shirt that probably cost more than the whole camp combined, and a simple pair of brown pants.


    Honestly, I probably should have been worried that the guy I refused to engage in combat was sitting in the same room as the guy I was slowly deciding I was okay with killing, but really the only thought running through my mind was a crass joke about brown pants and shitting himself when he died.


    ¡°...gave your word! It doesn¡¯t matter whether you think it is worth it or not!¡± Erwins said, his voice causing my eye to twitch in anger just hearing it.


    ¡°Boy, you are sitting in a forest playing at banditry while I train your retainers in The Art so you can overthrow your brother. Do not speak to me of honor.¡± Thane said, tired and obviously exasperated.


    ¡°My loyalty is to my people, not to my brother. Our lands will be destitute in a generation if he is left in charge!¡± Erwins voice shot back, clearly not willing to back down. Thane sighed, and though I couldn¡¯t see his face at this angle I could tell it was probably scrunched up in thought. His hand lowered a mug I hadn¡¯t noticed previously on to the ground.


    ¡°Erwin¡± Thane began calmly, with a tone of voice like he was about to explain something very simple to a child.


    ¡°The girl has failed to bind a nascent demon. At best she will die. Much more likely, that monster will devour the tattered remnants of her soul after a long process of flooding it with mana, leaving her a hollowed out husk at the whims of the beast.¡± Thane paused to make sure Erwin got his point before continuing. Erwin sputtered incoherently at the larger man, as though trying to find fault with his reasoning.


    ¡°The only, only reason I have allowed them to stay here after you so stupidly brought them to our camp, is so that I can perform my sacred duty should that monster ever finish its ascension. I have no idea why it¡¯s remained like this for so long, but no one of my order - even an outcast like me - would willing let a demon roam free.¡±


    ¡°What if you killed the monster now?¡± Erwin jumped in, perhaps seeing an opportunity to get what he wanted.


    Whatever the fuck that was.


    Jesus fucking christ I was killing Nadeen? And fucking Erwin was trying to help? What kind of fucking bizarro world was I in?


    ¡°It wouldn¡¯t matter. The creatures mana is too weak to truly succeed at becoming a full demon, and I¡¯m loathe to endanger the men if we fought seriously. And the girl would die either way. She forged a link to its mana source, but has no control over it. It¡¯s just flooding into her, constantly, with no outlet.¡± Thane¡¯s voice was full of a finality that sent chills down my spine.


    ¡°But-¡±


    ¡°Man was not meant to wield mana directly. We have the Spark, and they have the Fuel. Such is the way it has always been. Demons are the only exception Erwin. And that is why they cannot be suffered to live.¡±


    ¡°I will not suffer a woman to die under my care!¡± Erwin bellowed back, rushing to stand and knocking Thane¡¯s mug over in the process.


    Fuuuuck fuck fuckity fuck. Okay. What have we learned. Nadeen is getting mana poisoning from me. Somehow. I was some kind of fucking ubermensch monster that had to be killed on sight if I finished ascending. Whatever the hell that means. Erwin might not be totally irredeemable.


    It is a true testament to how shitty life has been since I got here that out of all those things, the fact that I couldn¡¯t be mad at Erwin over this was the most distressing.


    Thane was silent for a few moments following the outburst from the younger man, then grunted once and bent over to pick up his mug. I tensed as his face came into view, remaining totally still as I prayed the bandit boss would overlook the tiny gap I had made in his tent flaps.


    I released a silent breath of relief when he rose, standing up to place the mug on top of a small writing desk I hadn¡¯t noticed in the corner through all of the other knick knacks in the room.


    ¡°Erwin. Go practice your Sigils. I¡¯ll deal with the girl if it¡¯ll make you stop showing up at my door every night.¡± There was an edge in his voice, as though inviting another retort, and I noticed he didn¡¯t say he would help Nadeen. Just deal with her. I also took personal offence to calling the magical scrawl on Thane¡¯s necklace ¡®Sigils¡¯ and mentally resolved to refer to them only as Runes going forward.


    I¡¯m not petty. I swear.


    ¡°Fine.¡± Erwin bit out through gritted teeth, whirling around to stomp out of the tent like a chastised child. I realized I probably shouldn¡¯t be in front of the tent when Erwin left it and quickly rolled the the side. Then I scrambled on my hands and knees in a poor approximation of a soldiers crawl to the right of the tent - just out of sight of Erwin as he exited the tent.


    He stalked off into the night, and I slowly stood to surveil my surroundings. I had to get back to Nadeen and Thing Two - I didn¡¯t care how sick she was, we¡¯d find another way to get her healthy, this place was going to turn into a death trap real quick once Thane left.


    I sniffed the air, sensing something had changed in the few moments I had been thinking. There was a cloying scent there now. Like something burning. Like something igniting.


    If I could have blanched I would have, but as it was, nearly no time passed between when I realized what was going on and what happened next. A blade of some kind sliced through the side of the tent so quickly I barely had time to register I was cut, and was followed immediately by a muscular arm that grabbed me by the throat, and yanked me back into the tent.


    I was slammed down onto the ground with such ferocity I could actually hear my bones breaking, and I felt more than saw the depression in the packed dirt where I had landed. Thane was standing over me, his necklace glowing, along with his earrings, all the new rings he suddenly had on his hands, and the entire length of the curved blade of pure bone he had hanging over my head like a guillotine.


    The blade looked like an extra curvy scimitar, and where the bits of bone accessory Thane wore normally each had one rune on them a piece, this blade looked like it was practically covered in an essay¡¯s worth of them. They shone a dull blue light that I couldn¡¯t seem to look away from, even as it began the downward motion that would end my life.


    Man. I¡¯ve gotta stop trusting people just because they¡¯re people.

 Once & Future Thing - 8

    I rolled to the right, barely avoiding the scimitar. It rammed into the dirt where my head was seconds ago, burying itself up to the hilt with such ease I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if it was secretly a lightsaber.


    ¡®What the fuck is THIS now?!¡¯ I frantically cried. Of course, not having a voice box, what I actually did was make a panicked gurgling noise.


    Thane pulled his blade free with a flick of his wrist and an annoyed expression. Like my continued survival was nothing more than a mild inconvenience. And I twitched at the sight. He didn¡¯t draw the sword up vertically. He literally lifted it horizontally with his wrist. It tore out of the ground with no more difficulty than one might experience drawing a spoon through pudding.


    Wow. I cannot get hit by that. I mean, fuck I know I¡¯m probably more durable than a normal guy, but not that much more durable.


    Resolving myself to the inevitable aftermath, I set my feet and opened my maw wide, willing my Hydra Tongue forward into the fray. I let loose a garbled hiss as I did so and Thane quickly drew his blade in front of himself like he was a god damn grandmaster of the blade.


    This fucking guy had better not have a final form or some shit.


    I strain, every muscle in my body tensing as I await the coming discomfort of the Hydra Tongue, and remembering the ungodly pain the stupid thing forced on me the last time it reared its ugly heads.


    There was a comical moment where Thane and I both waited for something to happen. I reacted to the stillness a moment before Thane did, lurching backwards out of the tent and dropping to the ground faster than I would have thought possible.


    Also faster than I thought would have been possible was Thane¡¯s strike, his blade raking through the air over my head with such force I could practically feel the vacuum it made as air rushed to fill the cleared space.


    The feeling of ignition was still present, so strong it was almost overloading all my other senses, and I realized that if I focused on it I could loosely tell where Thane was even when I couldn¡¯t see him. A technique I was immediately forced to put to use when he followed me.out the hole in his tent he had just made.


    I was moving well before I saw him, and was halfway past the next tent over in my mad dash to escape. The entire time I ran, I was inwardly cursing. The stupid hyper murderous appendage I¡¯d taken to calling my Hydra Tongue was certainly fickle, but it usually showed up if I was planning on actually letting it eat something. Hell it usually showed up even when I had no goddamn intention at all of eating something.


    I seriously fucking hate this place. Can''t trust other people. Fine. Fair. People suck, nothing new. But can¡¯t trust my own body? Fuck you Murderworld. And if there''s a God of murderworld fuck him too.


    I jumped into a nearby tent as I felt Thane rocketing toward me, and tumbled to stop in front of a completely normal soldier in his nightclothes, his sword and already pointed at me.


    Before I could react, the familiar discomfort of my Hydra Tongue reared its ugly head, or rather heads. They launched from my throat like missiles, three distinct heads slamming into three separate parts of the bewildered soldier. His sword fell to the ground in a clatter and almost as fast as they had appeared, the eel like heads ripped the man apart and dragged the parts back down my gullet.


    I felt like I was choking to death for a few moments, and then the pain subsided. I paused to make another attempt at calling back my unwanted tenant but too late felt Thane moving.


    No. Not moving. Leaping. He was practically directly above me, descending at a pace I¡¯d generally describe as ¡®meteoric¡¯.


    ¡®mOvE .¡¯  spoke a voice in my head that I unfortunately recognized. Even more unfortunate, the sudden communication was much more of a distraction than a help and the moment I spend frozen because of it was one moment too long.


    Instead of quickly dodging, or running, I instead got through the first half of a bewildered hop to the right. Then the world was torn asunder.


    Or at least, the tent, the ground and my left fucking leg were. I didn¡¯t even see what happened - one moment I was in a tent, next I was flailing for balance because I was missing a fuckin leg.


    Thane rose from the crouch he¡¯d landed in, a distinct look of smug superiority on his face as he twirled his weapon in a little flourish that looked more habitual than anything else.


    ¡®uSE ThE-¡¯ continued grinding my thoughts to a halt again with how alien it was.


    ¡®Listen, I appreciate that we can talk now and all, but shut the fuck up for a minute.¡¯ I winced, hoping that thinking clearly would work as far as communication went. At the same time I winced, knowing I should probably shoot for a more polite tone when conversing with what was - knowing my luck - probably an eldritch horror or some equally insane bullshit.


    Thane was stalking toward me again, clearly on the lookout for any sign I might actually fight back. Give this to him, he didn¡¯t seem likely to fall victim to suicidal overconfidence. I hadn''t really hurt him once since this began and he was still treating me like a threat. Hell the only reason he hadn¡¯t shredded me with a horizontal version of that big cutting attack just now was probably because he didn¡¯t want to kill anyone in the adjacent tents. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    ¡®...tHaT is because he knows what we are.¡¯ the voice hissed at me again - this time quickly twisting itself into an older man''s voice that I recognized but couldn¡¯t quite place.


    Knowing I couldn¡¯t fight him head on, I let loose the warbling battlecry of my people, and promptly half hopped half crawled into another tent. I was lucky, or rather the soldier halfway through hurriedly donning his armor inside was unlucky. He seemed completely unprepared to see me hobbling towards him and was momentarily stunned as I leapt the remaining distance between us.


    Instead of biting him, which my jaws instinctively opened to do, I continued past the man, yanking his sword from its place on his belt a holding it firmly against his neck from behind. I tried to keep my weight off the side of my body that was missing a foot which resulted in leaning heavily on the confused guy I now held hostage.


    Thane¡¯s sword entered the room before he did, and he seemed shocked to find me holding random asshole A in place with a sword to his throat when he finally moved into the tent himself.


    ¡°You are entirely too smart to be left alone.¡± complained Thane as he eyed the solder between us who was slowly beginning to shake with fear. I didn¡¯t really think taking a hostage when I knew it would keep me alive longer was ¡®too smart¡¯ but I guess they didn¡¯t have day time television and about a million examples of tense situations like this to draw from so-


    ¡®Why do you ignore us. Do you not have quEsTIOns?¡¯ came the voice again. It cracked at the end, devolving back into the same painful primal noise that it had started in. I will never be able to accurately explain the sheer wrongness of that voice. Like a shard of glass being dragged across your skin. Or like someone trying to using the tearing of flash to formulate words.


    ¡®First. Fuck off. If you do that to me one more time I¡¯m going to die and then were both fucked.¡¯ I shuddered trying to formulate a solution to my current slate of problems.


    ¡®Second. Obviously I have questions - but unless you can answer the question of how to survive right now - in this moment - kindly shut the hell up like I told you the f-¡¯ My little conversation was interrupted when Thane casually lifted his sword. Sensing something was wrong I let go of my hostage falling to my back but still somehow suffering a huge gash in my chest. The man I¡¯d been holding hostage literally fell apart, his top and bottom halves falling in opposite directions in a shower of blood I was disgusted to note looked pretty appetizing.


    Ofcourse, I was now on my back, missing a leg, bleeding from a chest wound, and so, so, so fucked.


    Thane and my Hydra Tongue reacted at practically the same time, and I found the grotesque sensation of vomiting my organs out to be the most comforting thing I¡¯d felt all day. The three eel heads sped out of me to encircle and bite at the arm Thane was holding his sword in. They each slammed their toothy jaws shut on the arm, which shook visibly as Thane tried to lever his arm down to kill me.


    I was ending up laying on the ground under swords a lot recently.


    With a grunt of effort, Thane lift his other arm to grasp the back of one serpentine neck. Then he began squeezing. The head in his grasp began screeching like a banshee, the sound likely waking the whole camp if it wasn¡¯t already gearing up for a war.


    ¡®dO SomETHInG!¡¯ it cried in my head with a voice like a million babies screaming. I chanced a look at the other heads of the tongue and was terrified to note that they weren¡¯t even breaking skin at this point. They might as well have just been hands holding back that freaky glowing sword.


    I could barely think through the fear, and the unrelenting stench of something burning. What had Thane called it? The Spark? With a big capital S and a ¡®The¡¯ in front of it and everything.


    Something only humans had, but that only monsters could fuel.


    Something that only a demon would have both of.


    Time felt slow and gelatinous. Like my mind was wading through a river of sludge to reach its final destination. I felt, or rather, groped around inwardly for a second, willing something  - anything to happen.


    I blinked and found myself in an bleak dark space full of brilliant stars. In the center of that space floated a ring inscribed with dozens of intricate runes spun around an ever growing cloud of pulsating energy. Every pulse illuminated the bleak realm of shadow, and I realized for the first time that it wasn¡¯t empty space. The shadow flowed and moved like ink. It had currents, eddies and flows.


    Unsure of what the stuff really was I brought my hovering awareness close to it, and reached a mental finger out to touch it. For a moment nothing happened. And then like the entire expanse had suddenly become magnetically charge and tongue of energy leapt from the ball at the center of my being, and sparked against the inky shadow. Instantly an aurora of color shot across the expanse - and then ignited.


    I twitched and realized reality had reasserted itself over my sight. Thane had a deathly serious look on his face as he glared down at me. He was prying the last Hydra Tongue away from his arm, and would have probably skewered me on the spot - but that was when the magic finally kicked in.


    I won¡¯t lie here. I would have taken pretty much anything over the result I got. Not because it was bad. Just¡­ uncomfortable. Even acid vomit would have been acceptable really.


    But beggars can¡¯t really be choosers, so when my chest buckled and cracked to reveal a grotesque humanoid arm of muscle with no skin, wielding what was probably a piece of my ribcage as a blade I just sort of accepted it.


    The arm jabbed forward with its bone skewer, scoring a glancing blow against Thane that didn¡¯t pierce his skin but nevertheless made him wary. He released his hold on the last head of my Hydra Tongue and jumped backwards, coldly examining the new appendage. He didn¡¯t look overly impressed.


    Until another hand with another boney blade tore itself from my side. And another. And another. Then came the faces. Two of them. A man¡¯s and a woman¡¯s. I couldn¡¯t see them, because one was on my shoulder, and the other appeared on my back, but since the entire experience felt like there were people inside my body trying to physically hack and slash their way out, I was uncomfortably aware of their shape. And by uncomfortable, I mean, the only thing stopping me from writhing in agony was the legs that started to grow out of my at odd angles. I was literally growing into a freakish ball of limbs and eyes.


    A soldier came rushing to Thane¡¯s aid from behind me, and I realized with a start that I could see him from the woman¡¯s face on my back. At the same time, it didn¡¯t feel like my face. A sensation that was born out when, completely without my will, I half shuffled, have jumped backwards, the Hydra Tongue¡¯s wounded neck dragging along the ground behind me. Two boney weapons rammed themselves into the mans collarbones before the mutant appendages holding them pulled them free - directly out of the hapless subordinates torso.


    I experimentally willed myself to move, and found that though I didn¡¯t really feel like the limbs were mine I could command them. Thane watched in stunned silence at the entire murderous display, for the first time showing a look of genuine dismay.


    ¡®yeSsSSsS! wE ARe LEgiOn! wE ArE-¡¯ cried the enigmatic voice I¡¯d tentatively decided was whatever controlled my Hydra Tongue before I cut it off.


    ¡®Holy shit your chatty today.¡¯ I thought before freezing in shock. That voice hadn¡¯t been in my head. It had come from both of my hellish extra faces at once, in a single cacophonous chorus.


    I considered elaborating on my ¡®shut the fuck up¡¯ command but decided to let it go. It wasn¡¯t as distracting coming from the extra mouth as it was bouncing around in my head.


    ¡°Round two fucker.¡± I said.


    And was pleasantly surprised when that came out of the extra faces too. Thane was visibly disgusted at the abberant harmony my two voices created, and I laughed my first real laugh since coming to this world.


    Hell, I was a grotesque abomination that defied all logic and divinity, but fuck me if I wasn¡¯t going to appreciate having working vocal chords.


    Now heres hoping these go away when I turn the magic off.

 Stranger Things - 1

    Thane didn¡¯t seem particularly inclined to just leave me be, and even if I could technically speak now, I didn¡¯t get the impression my present appearance was going to lend itself well to negotiations.


    Thane flitted forward, raising his sword to make an overhand strike against me that I realized I was now far too ungainly to reasonably dodge. Once again to my surprise, a single mangled limb stretched up at lightning speed, using its bone spike to slap Thane¡¯s blow safely too my right. It was an immaculate parry, one that I was sure I couldn¡¯t reasonably pull off if left to my own devices.


    Before I could allow myself to dwell too long on that tidbit of information, My entire body was sent flying from the tent. At first I assumed I had been struck by something, but when I hit the ground and rolled from one set of hands and legs to another the truth dawned on me. I was running. Leaping really. The ungainly positioning of all my new limbs was such that if I had wanted to walk on them normally it would have been impossible. So instead, my new biology had responded to my fervent need to move away from Thane by using as many limbs as presently had access to the ground to leap away.


    Four legs and two arms enhanced by magic was apparently more than enough to provide the thrust I needed for movement. Experimentally, I put a bit more focus into actually controlling my body, and found that it was easier to give general commands than it was to perform minute control. It was less that I had extra arms and legs, and more that I was now three people occupying the same physical space. On the one hand, I probably wasn¡¯t going to be doing anything complicated with my extra arms.


    Thane sprinted out of the tent, almost too fast to see, unleashing a flurry of strikes that would have definitely killed me if I hadn¡¯t lurched to the side, and begun my own counter attack. Even a single blow from Thane at this range would kill me, but I was a living blender, parrying, jabbing, grasping and kicking at him from every angle, with no sense of timing or any discernible pattern.


    So on the other hand, I was basically ganging up on one person.


    Thane grimaced, being more and more forced onto the defensive by my rain of attacks. Disoriented was the best way to describe how I felt during the assault. The Hydra tongue still dragged behind me like a tail, preventing me from using my jaw to bite, and the means of my attack on Thane was such that I was almost rolling at him. The momentum and weight of my body assisted my strikes, while simultaneously spinning me around in a way that would make combat impossible if I didn¡¯t literally have three sets of eyes.


    ¡®Oi, wake up or piss off loudmouth.¡¯ I mentally complained as the battle raged on. I was doing my best to kick and punch at Thane with my original arms and remaining leg, but I was quickly becoming tired and sluggish. Both things I¡¯d rather not be when I¡¯m fighting someone to the death. There had been a couple times when the mad flailing of my body had put me in range to bit at Thane already - but the presence of my Hydra Tongue had made that impossible.


    ¡®...¡¯


    ¡®You know that we can hear each other thinking right you sandbagging asshole? Help or fuck off. Seriously what the hell is up with you?¡¯ I mentally berated. I was lying - I actually couldn¡¯t really tell what the fuck the damned thing was thinking - but I could definitely sense its presence.


    Actually. Damned Thing was a pretty good name for -


    ¡°We forbid you from calling us that!¡± denounced the Damned Thing. ¡°If we leave you will not allows us to return and consume his soul!¡±


    ¡®You won¡¯t eat fucking anything if we - his fucking soul? Really?¡¯ I suppose I should have probably figured this out already given my previous observations on the nature of my magic and well¡­ just how generally shitty this place was. But I hadn¡¯t really wanted to believe in the existence of the soul just because I¡¯d heard it mentioned a few times. Even if those few times were during magical enslavement rituals¡­


    Shit. I eat souls. Okay. Internalize it. Accept it. Move on. Survive now, freak out later.


    ¡®You know? Go ahead. If you help you can do whatever the fuck you want with his soul.¡¯


    The three heads of my Hydra Tongue jumped up, two of them visibly dripping a black ichor that I guess probably passed for blood in me. They immediately joined the assault, seemingly completely without heed for the tumultuous turning of my torso. They hissed and spat, and then spoke in concert with my newfound vocal chords.


    ¡°wE WiLl eAt ThEm aLL tHAnE!¡± the Damned Thing screeched. And I do mean screeched. It had subsided into a more normal tone of voice during our brief conversation, but it seemed maintaining that level of goodwill for more than a few moments was beyond it.


    I could hear Thane curse under his breath, and I turned my mind back to trying to find a way to break the deadlock we were in. We - I - honestly couldn¡¯t hurt him, though not for lack of trying. In the time I had been having my little detente with the Damned Thing we had scored dozens of blows on Thane, but all but the most ferocious simply glanced off him. Even where I had managed to break his skin it was no worse than a cat scratch really.


    A break in the back and forth appeared and Thane and I both lurched back, watching each other. Gauging the others strength and willingness to fight. Then I noticed it, that nervous gesture I¡¯d noted during my first ill fated attempt on Thane¡¯s life. His free hand slid up to rub a thumb across his necklace, and it might have been my imagination - but his sword seemed to glow less ardently now. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Knowing that Thane was completely without weaknesses was enough to free me of some of my worry, and the old frenzied hunger began to take hold. Adrenaline coursed through me, and I commanded the fleshy battle tank that had become my body forward. Like a man possessed, I attacked, now with a desperate need to drag down my prey. For the first time I felt my biology working for me instead of against me, my limitless stamina and drive helping me stay on top of Thane as we struggled. Thane began to jump away more and more frequently, and I tore tents and passing people apart with casual ease in my rush to chase after him.


    I started to lose track of my surroundings, My focus solely honed on Thane, and the Damned Thing seemed to relish the inattention as we ravaged the camp and its environs. Everywhere we passed it would lash out, taking bites out of anything and everything that got too close. I should have felt bad, but all I could think was that if they hadn¡¯t been moving to attack me - they wouldn¡¯t have had to die.


    The paradigm shift was slight. It might be hypocritical, but I was still largely unwilling to just murder and eat other human beings. But even I had to admit that at the point where someone is actively trying to kill me, all bets are off.


    My blows began to draw blood from the beleaguered human I was chasing, first in thin lines, and then more and more as the enchantments keeping him strong and invulnerable began to dull. Finally, he was beginning to grow tired and I rushed to capitalize on it. I decided to take a gamble, thrusting two partially injured arms forward, dropping their weapons and simply grasping at Thane¡¯s ankles like superhumanly strong children. He jumped, lashing downward with his blade. The two arms were severed in a quick spray of blackened ichor that stop as soon as it started - but I¡¯d achieved my goal.


    Thane could never hope to out think me - because really he was fighting more than just me. His triumphant attack left him open to attack, and the Damned Thing short forth latching onto his sword arm with a meaty tearing noise I was now intimately familiar with. It might be crude to say, but the look of shock on his face as his arm came free of its socket was immensely satisfying.


    He fell to ground then, blood fountaining from him like sweet nectar, and it annoyed me that my mouth was otherwise occupied. Slowly, I crept over him, arms and legs finding joints and limbs to rest on with uncanny strength, holding him down as surely if I was holding a cat by its collar.


    Then I rotated, all of the muscles in my body tensing in an odd approximation of a pushup that placed my actual head square above his dying body.


    ¡°You... ¡° Thane panted as he gazed up at me. Neither fear nor anger present in his eyes. Just a deep resignation. Unable to move he took a moment to compose himself, calling upon the last dregs of his strength.


    ¡°You will not survive the year demon. Already the men flee - once word of you reaches civilization they will not leave you be. You will be hunted!¡± Thane was practically screaming into my phase at the end, the vitriol in his voice clear.


    ¡°Hey, you attacked me fuckass.¡± I said, using the woman¡¯s voice. The response seemed to take him aback. Like he wasn¡¯t actually expecting one. His mouth opened to speak once more but whatever he was going to say next I never found out.


    ¡°dO nOT SpEAk. yOu WiLL tHAnk uS SooN.¡± crooned the Damned Thing.


    ¡°Never! Kill me and be done with it foul creature!¡± he retorted, clearly changing his mind about conversing for a few minutes before he died.


    ¡°BuT yoU WiLL. BeCaUSE SoON yOU will BE us.¡± the Damned Thing soothed him.


    ¡°bY oATh ANd bLOod-¡±


    ***


    Three minutes, one soul and a happy meal later, I was carefully carrying the creepy glowing scimitar at arms length towards the tent I shared with Nadeen and Thing Two. I wanted to stop using my magic - hopefully to changed back in to normal bipedal me, but though my missing leg and chest wound had started growing back and healing nearly the minute I had started eating Thane¡¯s corpse, the leg still wasn¡¯t quite up to a size I would consider useable.


    Also dragging myself forward on ten different arms and legs was way faster than walking normally.


    Now that the battle was largely over I had the opportunity to really look around the camp. Torn apart would be putting it mildly. The marks of my passing were obvious, with broken tents and people strewn about the grounds along my warpath. I winced when I realized some of those dismembered people were still alive, but didn¡¯t go to help. I wasn¡¯t a doctor. I couldn¡¯t help, and if I did - they¡¯d probably just trying to kill me anyway.


    Absently I pulled arrows I hadn¡¯t noticed anyone fire at me from various places across my body, my hands moving autonomously pretty much at the mere thought of action. Finally I came to a halt in front of my tent. It was curiously devoid of battle damage, which was strange. I would have assumed that anyone who didn¡¯t come to try and fight me would have rushed here - since the whole camp assumed Nadeen was my ¡®master¡¯ anyway.


    Instead the tent stood as placidly as it had before I had left, with not a single bloodstain or cut in the fabric.


    I debated turning my magic off and hobbling into the tent normally for a moment, but then Erwin¡¯s haggard and pale face appeared from the tent flaps leading inside. He was sweating, and snot was running down his face from his nose as though he had been crying for a little while now and simply had nothing to wipe it with. Upon seeing me his pupils shrunk down to pin pricks, and he fell backwards into the tent.


    Amused, I nosed my way inside, unable to fit my entire girth in without uprooting the entire structure.


    What I saw inside was¡­ unexpected. Erwin was there as were Thing Two and Nadeen. So that was all within expected parameters. What was out of place was everything else. The room looked torn apart like a fight had happened in here. All the of the previous owners knicknacks and furniture were strewn about the floor, and the bedroll was in a corner of the room like it had been kicked aside. Erwin was curled into the fetal position on the floor in a pool of blood that looked like it was approaching lethal capacity. He was naked, and missing most of his left arm from the elbow down. I¡¯d gotten pretty accustomed to wounds like that and could instantly tell the arm had been ripped off - not cut or bitten.


    Nadeen was similarly naked - which made me instantly feel less bad for Erwin - holding the aforementioned torn off arm. Or what was left of it. Blood smeared her face and hand, and when she looked up to see me hovering in the doorway of the tent I could see that her pupils had dilated so wide that the whites of her eyes were practically invisible. She was sitting in Thing Two¡¯s shadow like a child with a new toy, and her health seemed drastically improved.


    We stared at each other in silence for what felt like an eon, but was probably only really a couple of seconds. Then she proffered a hunk of gore towards me with one hand and quirked an eyebrow at me.


    ¡°Uh. The fuck?¡± I said without really thinking. Nadeen¡¯s other eyebrow rose to match it¡¯s neighbour at my question. Then her mouth stretched into a toothy smile that was full of about 2.5 times more teeth than a human being is supposed to have, all serrated and sharp.


    ¡°Oh so you can talk. Great. Let¡¯s clean up and leave before they rally and come back for us.¡± she said way more calmly than I¡¯d ever heard the bratty girl before. Then she added; ¡°Tiber, go grab my things.¡±


    Thing Two immediately trudged off to another corner of the tent, and that¡¯s when I knew we were going to have a problem.


    ¡°Okay so your a cannibal now. Great. Good for you. But his names not Tiber - it¡¯s Thing Two.¡±


    "Whatever you say William." she said one eyebrow falling again, leaving Nadeen gazing at me quizzically.


    God save me from fucking teenagers.

 Stranger Things - 2

    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°But it¡¯s noble! Anyone who hears it will know he¡¯s the strongest!¡±


    We were trudging through the forest. Again. I had turned my magic off within a few moments of judging myself safe, and immediately found solace in the knowledge that yes - all the extra appendages did vanish when I stopped burning mana. There were a few notable side effects though. For one, the extra body parts didn¡¯t just¡­ vanish. When I had ceased using my magic, and choked back the Damned Thing, the extra limbs had sort of sloughed off, as though they had started to suffer from rapid necrosis. It didn¡¯t really hurt, but there is something distinctly unpleasant about watching bits of yourself shrivel up and fall off. For another, something about the magic ending caused me to heal rapidly. My missing leg and chest wound had reformed pretty much immediately - which was good because we had to beat feet.


    ¡°Hey! Focus!¡± Nadeen snipped at me. From pretty much the moment we had left the camp she had begun making her pitch for Thing Two¡¯s name. She was also looking drastically healthier, with her skin regaining much of its lost color. I would have been happy with that if she didn¡¯t seem to use her newfound energy to argue with me like a nagging daughter trying to get the car keys for the night.


    ¡°I¡¯m trying to keep a lookout for danger.¡± The face on my right shoulder - the one facing Nadeen - said in an older womans voice. I wasn¡¯t in full on shambling horror mode, because I wasn¡¯t really sure how much Mana I had or if I could run out. But I had found the inability to talk intolerable, and the ability to look in four directions at once extremely comforting. Ofcourse, I would never admit it out loud, but the primary reason I had chosen to experiment with my new magic - which I had chosen to call Gore Terminal because I¡¯m technically a year old and need to take my enjoyment where I can find it - was because;


    ¡°Nothing in the outskirts is going to attack us. Humans pass through and cull the area too often Will.¡± Nadeen chided me, switching between watching the path ahead of us and looking my¡­ shoulder¡­ in the eyes like she thought it was rude to have a conversation with someone and not look at them.


    Yeah I was using precious, possibly finite, extremely dangerous, magic in order to argue with a teenager. It wasn¡¯t so much that I objected to the name William in general. I was just sure that William wasn¡¯t my name. Not that I could remember my actual name. But it definitely wasn¡¯t fucking William.


    ¡°First, you are human. Second, you and your master got completely fucked by two gremlins with a pointy stick. Your opinion on what counts as safe is literally worthless.¡± Nadeen¡¯s head whipped around to stare me in the shoulder and her hands went to her hips in that special way someone does when they¡¯re about to lean into an argument instead of accept being wrong. It might be petty, but seeing it made the two hours I had to spend figuring out how grow just the extra faces completely worth it.


    ¡°And my names not William, Will, Bill, or any combination thereof.¡± I added after another moment of silence. Thing Two was loping along behind us, a jury rigged backpack the size of a fully grown man hanging from his back, though it didn¡¯t seem to burden him in any noticeable way. We had scavenged everything we could from the camp before leaving. Bedrolls, a big ass tent, and as many tools and materials as we could manage in the time we had before fleeing. He seemed to notice the tension and came to a stop, quietly shuffling away from me and Nadeen. The bastard was dumb as hell but he¡¯d pretty easily grasped the concept of minding his own business where Nadeen and I were concerned.


    ¡°No. I¡¯m not.¡± Nadeen said in a somber tone that replaced her weirdly gung ho attitude from just a few moments before. She snapped her teeth at me once just to make her point, the click clack of too many teeth grinding together ringing out and forcing me to stop and face her.


    I had no idea how to address that just yet. In the first place, I didn¡¯t really fucking understand how it had happened, even if I could take a guess as to why. I also wasn¡¯t sure how the human population of her home village would take to her new condition. Probably not well. Medieval populations are not well known for their tolerance and love of diversity.


    So I did what all great men have done when a woman has said something they can¡¯t deny. I turned around and walked the fuck away like she hadn¡¯t said shit. After a few moments of silence, Nadeen and Thing Two continued after me as though nothing had happened. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°So what¡¯s wrong with Tiber?¡± Nadeen asked, her cheerful teenager demeanor returning in record time.


    Shit. She was learning. I actually didn¡¯t have a good reason to dislike Tiber except I just didn¡¯t like her naming him. He was my brother after all. Okay, when in doubt, say something nebulously sage sounding and pray.


    ¡°Be-because it¡¯s better if your opponents underestimate you?¡± Shit. Gotta work on the delivery.


    ¡®tEll HeR tHaT-¡¯


    ¡®Shuuuuuuuut the fuuuuuck uuuuuuup¡¯ I thought with more exasperation than I would have expected was possible. Nadeen didn¡¯t know it but the Damned Thing had taken the worst kind of interest in her. It had alternated between the idea of feeding her humans to fatten her like a cow before we ate her, and using her like a lure to bait yet more unsuspecting humans into the forest. Either way it basically considered her to be our stuff, and therefore not worth actually listening to or arguing with.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t as though I¡¯m going to yell his name every time I summon him to battle.¡± Nadeen pointed out, unaware of the other half of the conversation happening in my head.


    Shit. Fuck. Were not actually pokemon. Back pedal.


    ¡°You can¡¯t summon him at all.¡± I griped, realizing I had to make a real effort not to whine.


    ¡°Tiber, smash.¡± Nadeen said, pointing at a nearby tree. She didn¡¯t turn away from the path ahead of us when she did it. Didn¡¯t even look in the direction of the tree. But when Thing Two hurtled over us and into the tree like a furry black wrecking ball I swear to god her face twisted into a smirk. I could physically feel just a single one of her eyebrows raise in mocking question. Tib- THING TWO picked up his pace to return to his position behind me, blissfully unaware of why that had happened.


    ¡°See Will, the way I see it this can go one of two ways.¡± Her tone of voice was still chipper and playful, but there was a new, harder edge to the words. A subtle hunger that sent a chill down my spine as she spoke.


    ¡°You are obviously something special. Something big. But you have no idea how to deal with people. You don¡¯t know what we are capable of, and you definitely won¡¯t see it coming when your eventually either killed or captured by a hunting party from the capital.¡± The eyebrows on all three of my available human faces shot up at once and Nadeen glanced back at me with a hollow look in her eyes as she continued.


    ¡°So you need me. I¡¯m only an apprentice true, but I understand the workings of the kingdom. However I also need you. Obviously I can¡¯t go home like this, and I won¡¯t survive a day in this forest alone - not without at least one crystal to bind a monster with.¡± She sent me a dirty look at this last statement, no doubt still somewhat bitter at her missing arm.


    ¡°Ofcourse if you find me impertinent you could also just eat me. But you seem smart enough to know that far too many soldiers escaped that camp alive for you to ever be safe here alone.¡±


    Okay what the fuck is going on? This is a teenage girl right? Right!? I mean, she¡¯s absolutely right, I¡¯ve been thinking about how fucked I am for a while now. But she seems to be adapting to being completely fucked way better than I did.


    ¡°...If you stay with me people - maybe even ones from your village - will die.¡± I said in three voices at once, the harmony both beautiful and creepy. Nadeen rolled her eyes at me like I was being stupid for saying something so obvious.


    ¡°Will. You aren¡¯t stupid, so you should already know. The only thing that has made me feel better in the days of slowly dying in Tiber¡¯s arms was dear sweet Erwin. I - I really don¡¯t want to die.¡± Nadeen grew quiet, a cold determination straightening her posture and putting a predatory glint in her eyes. She had made her decision. Before this moment, it might have weighed on her, an intangible, unspoken question she had no choice but to answer. But now the die was cast.


    And what a fucking decision. I only came to terms with killing people like yesterday, but here¡¯s this thirteen year old girl casually deciding she was going to live the rest of her life in the woods eating other human beings.


    I made a mental note to never give Nadeen ample reason to want to kill me. She probably wouldn¡¯t succeed, but I was getting the sense that she had lived a lot of her life doing unto others much more than she had been done.


    We kept going, silence falling on our group as the day wore on. The forest path we were treading had begun to tilt upward, and the forest was beginning to thin. Finally, we came to a halt when a sheer cliff wall loomed out of the horizon ahead of us.


    ¡°Shit.¡± I said, not overly interested in scaling anything more taxing than the stairs to my bedroom.


    ¡°We walk along the cliff base until we find a cave to set up in.¡± Nadeen chimed in, clearly amused by my lack of a plan. It would figure that even the children here new more about navigating the wilderness than me. Before I ended up here I was more likely to know how many pixels were in an old television screen than to know a damn thing about plants and animals.


    It was a hard to life choice to regret given how frequently said animals had tried to kill me recently.


    ¡°Why?¡± I asked out of genuine curiosity. I didn¡¯t really have much of a reason to argue.


    ¡°Shardshire is at the top of this cliff somewhere. We want to be close enough to pick off humans, but far enough to be able to retreat into the forest.¡± Nadeen said. She shrugged as though this token bit of murderous wisdom was the easy conclusion to reach.


    ¡°Also, we should hurry.¡± she continued, eyeing me strangely.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m getting hungry.¡±


    Every. Fucking. Time.

 Stranger Things - 3

    Nadeen, Thing Two, and I scurried along the ground, following the massive cliff. In a fit of paranoia that I was starting to think might be the best way to live my life going forward, I forced us to hug the cliff wall as closely as possible. My reasoning was, that if there was someone standing at the top of the sheer rock wall looking down, they would be less likely to see two monsters and a child creeping up on civilized lands than if we were further out.


    Or at the very least, the theoretical watcher would have to put himself in danger of falling in order to see us.


    ¡°I keep telling you, Shardshire doesn¡¯t patrol this far out.¡± Nadeen complained. As though I was going to take a thirteen year olds advice on the military structure of a settlement.


    ¡°Was that before or after two ¡®Binders¡¯ and some rich guy disappeared into the - what did you call it again?¡± I paused to ask.


    ¡°The Devilwood.¡± Nadeen replied petulantly


    ¡°Fine. Before they disappeared into the Devilwood. You people have a horrible naming sense.¡± I snarked.


    ¡°You named your species THINGS and then named your brother THING TWO.¡± Nadeen cried out in protest at my accusation. Over the course of the last three hours walking along this stupid cliff, I had managed to convince her that - since only one of us was a monster - naming rights for my species were mine and mine alone. Not counting Thing Two - who was still kind of an idiot.


    And also couldn¡¯t talk.


    ¡°Yeah well. Them¡¯s the breaks.¡± I quipped, choosing selectively to ignore her jab at my own naming sense.


    I was feeling¡­ pretty good honestly. Life was finally starting to feel like it had some¡­ direction. Meaning I suppose. Oh there was still all that lurking bullshit in the back of my head. Killing and eating people and all that. But Nadeen wasn¡¯t a bloated corpse, I wasn¡¯t a slave, and the only human who had a demonstrated fear of my relative intelligence was dead.


    So, happy times all around basically.


    We bickered like that for a bit longer, until we came upon a steep ditch that narrowed as it approached the cliff face, and seemed to go under it. I eyed the ditch critically, pretty positive that if I tried to approach a Balrog or something would appear to kick the shit out of me. That was the direction my luck had been running since I got here. Nadeen though, squealed like a child - which was disconcerting to me - and then hopped down into the ditch without anything even vaguely like fear.


    One thing I had found about her now that she wasn¡¯t either A) Dying, or B) Trying to enslave me, was that Nadeen tended to flicker between acting uncommonly sensible and adult like, and behaving exactly like the kid she was. I wondered how much of that had to do with the medieval like society she seemed to hail from, and how much was just the tiny cracks in her sanity the Devilwood had been inflicting on her since our meeting. She probably didn¡¯t realize it, but when she thought I wasn¡¯t looking - which, because I had three extra faces I always was - I would occasionally catch her staring out into the woods, or back the way we had come, with a look of positively craven hunger on her face. Then just as quickly she¡¯d shake herself, like a wet dog, and go back to normal. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    It was usually at about those times that she¡¯d ask me something stupid, or start giving me shit about Thing Two¡¯s name.


    It was probably a testament to how fucked I was in general though, that I actually considered a little sanity slippage to be kind of a minor problem at the moment.


    ¡°Are you fucking crazy?¡± I cried in a discordant voice, scrambling to peer over the edge of the ditch. What I saw stopped the torrent of faux parental rage I was about to unleash. There at the bottom of the ditch, where the cliff wall should have continued, was a huge crack in the wall. It looked like teacup had fallen and a chunk had come off - only on a much, much larger scale. The crack was easily wide enough to fit Thing Two of he angled himself right, and a dull purple glow emanated out from it.


    ¡°Fuck is this now?¡± I asked curiously, hopping down into the ditch with Thing Two to pad up to Nadeen.


    ¡°It¡¯s probably an entrance to the mines. I used to play in them as a kid.¡± Nadeen said, somehow embarrassed by admitting she used to play.


    ¡°Okay so¡­ why isn¡¯t anyone here?¡± I queried, my guard instantly up now that I knew other people could be about.


    ¡°The mines are huge, and the deeper you go the more likely you are to meet monsters. No one knows how deep it goes.¡± Nadeen said with a shrug.


    A minor exertion of my will brought all three of my extra faces together in a hideous mixing of eyes and teeth on my chest. I could feel my flesh warp and twist as the extremities literally flowed through me to where I wanted them. It was largely unnecessary, but I felt the need to drive my point home, so eight pairs of eyes turned to stare at Nadeen for a few seconds before I spoke.


    ¡°So this cave.¡± I pointed for emphasis


    ¡°Has an equal chance of containing hideous monsters that want to kill you, and angry humans that want to kill me.


    ¡°And not only that, you don¡¯t know how deep this particular tunnel goes - which means it could lead directly into a dragon¡¯s lair for all we know.¡± I concluded.


    ¡°It¡¯s full of Magic Crystals! And Prey! We have to eat!¡± She jabbing a finger at me that I - very briefly - considered biting off.


    And that just about proved her point now didn¡¯t it?


    ¡°Fine. Stay between me and Thing Two.¡± I finally admitted. Then I eyed the tunnel suspiciously.


    ¡°Does it get bigger after the entrance?¡± I asked, not sure if Thing Two was going to be able to do anything but wiggle if a fight broke out.


    ¡°Yeah, turns into a proper tunnel after a while.¡± she confirmed.


    I considered for a few minutes, before making a decision. With an exertion of my will, the ignition I recognized as magic usage exploded to providence. Where before it was the barest of sparks I was using to maintain the extra eyes and mouths I had been using, this was a full blown inferno. I bore with the temporary discomfort, allowing the extra limbs to push uncomfortably out of me. This time, I had a plan of sorts. The limbs didn¡¯t escape me in the same haphazard and random way they had when I was fighting Thane.


    This time, with slightly more experience, I forced them into a sort of rough pattern. The legs appeared first. Six of them red and painful exploding from my torso, three to each side. Falling forward onto my stomach so the new legs could hold me up, the arms came next, four of them extended from different portions of my shoulders and neck, creating a set of fleshy, grasping mandibles. The last two arms stretched from my tailbone, first one, and then the other stretching out from the forearm of the first. This took my slightly longer, as I pushed my magic to its utmost, stretching ligaments and muscles to create two, much longer arms than a human being should possess. Finally, I spread two pairs of eyes along my back, and grew two more on my original pair of hands. The extra mouths I allowed to remain on my stomach, where they had been when I had been staring Nadeen down.


    All this was, of course, accompanied by a series of sickening crunches and pops, in addition to not an insignificant amount of pain. I had realized early in my attempts at mastering this new ability that while shifting my body parts around at random while fighting was useful, it also hurt like hell, and made it difficult to focus on fighting. This new arrangement was my first attempt at a semi permanent form - made to look like a scorpion.


    I quickly reached down with my ¡®tail¡¯ to the side of Thing Two¡¯s bags, taking a firm grasp on the blade Thane had used to nearly murder me. My muscles rippled and tightened as I accustomed myself to controlling them all over again, and slowly, I crept forward into the cave.


    ¡°For the record - I hate this.¡± I said, still not fully on board with invading the creepy murder cave.


    ¡°I¡­ don¡¯t have much love for it myself¡­¡± choked Nadeen, clearly resisting the urge to gag. I turned my head to look at her and understood immediately that she was talking about me and not the cave.


    ¡°Sorry.¡± I offered, before crawling forward once more.

 Stranger Things - 4

    The cave was much easier to navigate than I had originally been expecting. I had a certain expectation as to the dangers of spelunking caused by years of shitty television, and that expectation just wasn¡¯t being met.


    For one thing, I could see perfectly fine. Part of that was probably the fact that I wasn¡¯t human. Part of that was probably because some daylight was still spilling into the cavern from outside. But mostly? It was all the giant glowing crystals. The flickered and flared as we passed, as though reacting to our presence. I wish I could unequivocally write that off as ¡®some magic bullshit¡¯ but the chance that any given inanimate object could be intelligent and therefore hostile was not, in fact, zero. The result was that as I traveled, I would haphazardly bash any glow crystal of sufficient size that stressed me out. Which was most of them.


    ¡°Why do you keep doing that?¡± Nadeen asked me at one point, to which I could only reply;


    ¡°Assuming something isn¡¯t a threat isn¡¯t good for your health in the...uh Devilwood.¡± I looked at the stump where her hand should be to make my point. Not that she¡¯d notice. I had too many eyes to keep track of all of them.


    Satisfied that I had shut Nadeen up for a moment, and pleased I had managed to slip a ¡®you came to the wrong hood¡¯ joke into my statement - even if only for my own pleasure - I continued on.


    It wasn¡¯t long before we eventually came to a fork in the tunnel. Well, I say ¡®fork¡¯ but it was more like a lobby. We came upon a fairly wide cave area, inside of which there were a number of tunnels leading off the main chamber. Not every tunnel entrance was level with the ground, as a number of them were set in the ceiling or high up on certain walls. The protruding crystals were more than enough for me to be able to climb around and check them all out, but that was really only true of me. Thing Two could leap high enough to reach some of the ones on the walls, but the tunnels going straight up - I guess they¡¯d technically be shafts at that point - were too difficult for anyone without eight arms and eight legs to reasonably traverse.


    After crawling about the room for a bit, I came back to the center of the lobby area, where Nadeen and Thing Two had been waiting for me to complete my inspection.


    ¡°Which way?¡± I asked, hoping Nadeen had a better idea of how to navigate to somewhere ideal than I did.


    ¡°I have no idea. What¡¯s wrong with right here?¡± She said, gesturing around us. She looked at me for all the world like I had asked the dumbest question possible, and I knew she must still be annoyed at me for reminding her about her arm.


    ¡°I don¡¯t - it¡¯s not - Hm.¡± I thought about it for a second. Nowhere was really ¡®safe¡¯ in this shithole. Pretty much anywhere was fine as a basecamp as long as it had an exit we could reach easily. Still, I was leery of this place. I¡¯d played more than enough games to realize that camping somewhere you haven¡¯t scouted is borderline suicidal. So even though I figured this was okay - I still didn¡¯t undo my transformation.


    ¡°...Fine. Here¡¯s good.¡± I said eventually, and Nadeen gave me that smug grin children get when they realize they¡¯ve outdone their betters. I chose to let it go for the moment, and instead started having Thing Two unpack all our stuff. I glanced at him, snapped my jaw once, and gestured vaguely at the giant stack of bags we¡¯d strapped to him.


    I had never setup a real camp before. Since coming here I¡¯d slept basically twice, and they were both fairly traumatic experiences - so I wasn¡¯t overly interested in doing it again. But even if I didn¡¯t sleep, the idea of having a safe, stable place to lay down my head and be worried about the future appealed to me.


    I considered what we¡¯d managed to steal from the camp as we left. Some bedrolls, torches, miscellaneous bits of leather armor -


    ¡°How do you do that?¡± Nadeen suddenly asked breaking me out of my train of thought.


    ¡°Do what?¡± I asked, absently directing Thing Two on where to start putting shit. I wondered if we could dig some crystals out for me to experiment with and Thing Two obediently paused what he was doing to hammer away at the base of a fist sized crystal with those gorilla fists of his.


    ¡°That!¡± Nadeen yelled, and the sound echoed around the chamber, drawing every eye present towards her. When I didn¡¯t say anything, she continued.


    ¡°Your ordering him to do things, but your not actually saying anything!¡± she complained.


    Oh. That.


    ¡°Its a Thing thing.¡±  I said, hoping that would explain it. Apparently it didn¡¯t.


    ¡°That¡¯s not even a proper sentence.¡± she grumbled.


    ¡°Also I¡¯m a Thing now too! I have pointy teeth! I eat people! I -¡±


    ¡°You. Are not. A Monster.¡± I said with a touch more vehemence than I intended. Stolen novel; please report.


    ¡°You ate one guy who was trying to take advantage of you. Your not a bad person.¡± I clarified.


    I chose to ignore that eating someone and killing them are two entirely different magnitudes of fucked up.


    ¡°No offence Thing One, but I can feel myself starting to getting sick again. I can either die human, or live a monster.¡± she pointed out. She had a point, and once again, I chose to ignore it by latching on to something else she had said that bothered me.


    ¡°Thing¡­ One?¡± I asked, kind of annoyed because I could already see where this was going.


    ¡°Yeah. Thing One, Two, and Three.¡± She said, pointing at me, then Thing Two, then herself.


    ¡°Wrong. Thing Two, Nadeen, uh¡­¡± Oh. Oh I kind of got it now. What the fuck was my name? It wasn¡¯t all that relevant when my only conversation partners were a kid and a mute, but not having a name suddenly bothered me alot.


    ¡°Sooooo¡­¡± Nadeen said in a sing song voice I recognized in women of all ages when they¡¯d scored a point and wanted to force you to admit it.


    ¡°Howard!¡± I said, screeching the first name that came to mind in three separate voices. Nadeen winced at the noise - which was easily three times louder than her outburst for obvious reasons.


    ¡°...Howard.¡± Nadeen said, clearly unimpressed.


    ¡°Yeah! It¡¯s a normal freaking name. What¡¯s wrong with Howard!¡± other than the fact that I¡¯m pretty sure it wasn¡¯t my actual name. And the fact that I distinctly remember beating up a kid named Howard in primary school.


    ¡°It¡¯s just¡­ your smart. And clearly strong. I thought you¡¯d have a more of a ¡­ legendary sounding name?¡± she said tentatively, like she was trying to avoid hurting my feelings.


    ¡°Oh come on! I don¡¯t wanna be named Shub-Niggurath, Black Goat of the Woods. Or Stormageddon. Or Sauron.¡± I complained, listing off generic bad guy names from old video games and books just to prove my point about how stupid and lengthy they could be.


    It was sort of a lie though. I would be totally okay with Stormageddon if I A. could throw lightning and B. could tolerate how embarrassing being called that would be.


    ¡®Stormageddon, grab me the ketchup please?¡¯ I snorted, just thinking about it.


    Nadeen perked up after I said that.


    ¡°I like it.¡± she said beaming at me. I didn¡¯t like that smile. I had seen it far too many times, on far too many women too think I had come out of that exchange the winner. But before I could think to question her on it, Thing Two ambled up to me swinging a big meaty palm down so I could look at what was in it without having to push my torso upright. My head was pretty low to the ground after all.


    In his hand, was a malformed purple gemstone. Or maybe the gemstone was clear, and the glow emanating from it was merely purple. There was really no way to tell without making the glow stop.


    My entire being vibrated when I used a free hand to pluck the crystal from Thing Two¡¯s palm. It was like I was holding a tiny nuclear reactor. I¡¯ve I had anything approximating sex traits I¡¯d have probably made a mess of myself just touching it.


    I glanced suspiciously at Thing Two, who seemed completely unaffected by the thing.


    ¡®iT is The kEY TO eVen gReAter cONsumPtiOn.¡¯ the Damned Thing hissed into my mind. I had grown increasingly accustomed to its intrusions, and now I could even hear it talk without having a junior seizure. Progress!


    ¡®Shut up you. I¡¯m not going eat anymore human souls. If this place has gods, there¡¯s no way I can get away with that.¡¯ I mentally retorted, glancing around to make sure no one was watching me stare at a shiny rock while doing - seemingly - nothing else. Nadeen had wandered over to where Thing Two had set up the bedrolls, and was pointedly taking pillows from the other rolls to beef hers up. Thing Two was just kind of¡­ standing next to me.


    Realizing he was going to do absolutely nothing if I didn¡¯t tell him too, I willed him to start pulling as many crystals from the caves walls as he could without making a huge mess. I didn¡¯t plan on turning into a soul eating abomination or anything using them, but holding this fist sized chunk of one felt so good I could only imagine sleeping in a pile of them.


    And I could really use some of the finer things in life right about now.


    ¡®buT we MUsT EaT To -¡¯


    ¡®No. Hard pass.¡¯ I interrupted.


    ¡®Do yOu nOT wAnt yOUr GEnitALs BacK?¡¯ it crowed at me. And I could swear, despite the alienness of it, despite the clearly genderless, monstrous, voice - that those were the most seductive words I had ever heard the Damned Thing say.


    I stared blankly at the crystal, not willing to admit that I had a hard time deciding if my ability to get laid was worth more to me than human life. Was this fucking thing learning? So far I had dealt with it mostly by telling it to shut the fuck up. It was ¡®intelligent¡¯ in that it could talk and had its own interests, but it was so single minded that it only barely qualified as sentient.


    This was the first attempt it had ever really made to bargain with me - albeit clumsily - and I wasn¡¯t sure I liked it.


    ¡°Um. Hello?¡± a feminine voice called out from the far side of the cave, and I froze.


    It hadn¡¯t been Nadeen¡¯s voice.


    I quickly flicked one of the hands that had an eye on it open and turned it towards the sound of the voice. Standing in the entrance to the cavern was a human looking woman. She had fine, lean proportions, like a professional runner, and her mane of shaggy brown hair made her look more attractive - not less. She was wearing what I can only really describe as a potato sack with holes for her arms legs and head, that was cinched at the waist with a rotting rope. She was staring hopefully towards Nadeen, completely ignoring me and Thing Two.


    ¡°Tiber!¡± Nadeen called immediately, and leapt to her feet in a show of predatory grace that completely erased my mental image of the sickly weak girl I had been forced to drag halfway across the murder forests of fuck world.


    The woman screeched, and darted back up the tunnel she had come from, clearly afraid of the sudden aggression. Nadeen was hot on her trail, darting forward and out of my sight before I could think to say or do anything. Thing Two trailed after her, albeit much more slowly. In an open area he was undoubtedly the fastest of us - using his ridiculous muscles to half run half jump between two points faster than I could travel. But in an enclosed cave system, he didn¡¯t have enough space or accuracy to maneuver without ramming into walls and probably breaking his neck.


    It didn¡¯t help that Thing Two definitely smelled the same thing I did when that woman like thing had caught our attention.


    Rotting, decayed matter. Not dead flesh - which would have sent my hunger skyrocketing - but just decaying matter. Like a compost bin. It stunk, and did absolutely nothing for the side of me that I had started to consider my inner monster. More importantly, it ¡®stunk¡¯ in that it felt like a trap. We hadn¡¯t exactly been quiet - and there was no reason for her to purposely get our attention before running off.


    Which meant it must have been on purpose.


    Swearing to myself, I clutched the gem to my chest in one hand, and began sprinting after Nadeen, pouring on speed in a way only a creature with multiple legs can reasonably manage.


    There was a bright side to all of this though. For once I felt confident I could kill the shit out of whatever was fucking with me. Which was good - cus I could really use one in the win column.

 Stranger Things - 5

    I charged down the tunnel after Nadeen, and realized that I had a problem.


    The path leading to the lobby area we¡¯d used to set up camp had been a straight shot. It twisted and turned a bit, but there was no way to get lost - there were no branching paths to check. This was not the case for the tunnel Nadeen had run down. At the first fork in the path I nearly panicked, realizing my superior speed wouldn¡¯t be enough to catch up if I couldn¡¯t figure out which path they took, and highly aware that I could get lost if I wasn¡¯t careful.


    Glancing back I saw Thing Two pounding his way towards me, using his stupid durability to shoulder check walls and punch obstacles in order to maneuver, rather than simply slowing down to turn or avoid them. Annoyed, I stared at the ground, and was rewarded with the realization that - since basically no one had traveled through these caves in recent history - I could follow the path Nadeen had taken if I slowed down enough to examine the disturbed dust on the cave floor.


    Thinking about it, I gestured towards Thing Two, having him jump onto my back. It was a bit heavy, but my thuggish brother wasn¡¯t that much heavier than a large man would be, and I had a lot of extra strength while using my magic.


    I still had to slap him into a comfortable position though. Then I reversed the sword on my ¡®stinger¡¯ and dragged it through the earth behind me, speeding back up to my previous pace. A jagged line of broken rocks showed the way back, and Thing Two even managed to be helpful, grabbing corners and lifting me slightly in order to help me corner better.


    Every once in a while I would stop to look at the ground, then continue onward.


    Not much more than fifteen minutes could have passed before we reached our first snag. It was just as we had come to another fork in the path. The tunnel had widened as I ran, providing more and more space to maneuver in, and as it did so, I began to notice large boulders covered in crystal. They weren¡¯t that strange - it was a cave and they were rocks - but more and more of them were showing up. I had put them largely out of my mind when just out the corner of my eye I could swear I saw one move.


    It was only when I felt Thing Two¡¯s legs tighten around my back that I realized something was wrong, and managed to look up from my headlong forward charge. The boulder¡­ was flying at us. Not ¡®flying through the air¡¯, as in thrown. Literally flying. It had uncurled itself into some kind of giant bug. It had six insanely thick legs that all ended in three grasping fingers of purple crystal. Said legs were attached to the middle of a three sectioned stone wasp. If I looked closely I could see where its rocky exterior gave way to more traditionally fleshy parts, but I wasn¡¯t all that interested in the things biology - it¡¯s buzzing purple wings were a flurry as it zipped towards me barring a huge crystalline stinger that twitched and throbbed in a much too organic way.


    I was really tired of fucked up animals trying to kill me by this point, and unless this thing shot lasers from its ass I wasn¡¯t too worried about it. My ¡®stinger¡¯ rose from the ground in one fluid motion, jabbing into the things body and impaling it. Then I stretched the struggling thing down in front of Thing Two, who proceeded to tear it apart.


    Mission accomplished I snorted, sure that murderworld could only really have so many insanely dangerous things to throw at me before it had to go easy for a while.


    Man do I love tempting fate.


    Like a demented church choir, the buzzing of dozens of wings drew my attention.


    Right. All the boulders were probably Rock Wasps.


    ¡°Fuck.¡± was all I could manage to utter, before they set upon me. Realizing I couldn¡¯t possibly fight this many of the stupid things, it became a running battle. I beat feet, choosing the narrowest tunnel I could to prevent too many from running at me at once. Thing Two hurled the hunks of their dead brethren as they came, but it wasn¡¯t enough to kill even a single one.


    Two Rock Wasps hovered dangerously close, and when one tried to sting me I whipped my tail at it, neatly bisecting it but suffering a painful stabbing sensation on my opposite side where Thing Two was wrestling with its counterpart. I ignored the feeling, continuing to run forward even as it burned and spread.


    I swerved around another Rock Wasp as it launched toward me, allowing whatever outside force controlled my limbs take up the task of slapping away my aggressors. It would figure that the second I become confident in my ability to handle a strong enemy, a bunch of weak ones would be the death of me. I was seriously going to die if this kept up. I had a limited pool of stamina to work with - even if I never had to sleep (mostly) I still got tired.


    The clacking of dozens of stony forms bumping into each other and scraping along the walls echoed behind me and I decided to take a chance. I knew Thane¡¯s sword - which was now my stinger - could do some impressive things when it was actively being charged with magic. The problem was, at this point in time, I had no idea how to do that.


    ¡®AsK HiM.¡¯ whispered an insidious voice in my head ripped at me.


    This motherfucker. I was actually starting to get a good grasp on the Damned Thing personality wise and I had come to one conclusion. It was fucking lazy. It only ever intervened when it felt like it had to, or occasionally, for whatever it considered ¡®fun¡¯. Right now I considered its suggestion to be the former more than the latter, which meant I could probably trust it but¡­


    ¡®How the fuck do I do that?¡¯ I spat acidically at it. Thing Two had punch one of the wasps hard enough that his fist had embedded itself in his hapless victim, killing it instantly. More amazing than that was the fact that he had immediately turned to using the corpse as a shield. He swatted enemies away when they approached to closely to me, but it was still pretty touch and go. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    And of course, having already been stung, I was starting to feel pretty fucking shitty.


    ¡®AAASK Meee Creature.¡¯ the Damned Things voice howled at me, its voice warping and quieting until the end of the sentence came out in a familiar voice. It was Thane. Good ol¡¯ kill me for existing Thane.


    ¡®How the fuck - no wait nevermind. Later. Sword. Magic. How?¡¯  I demanded. The fact that their might be souls trapped in me instead of dead meant¡­ what? Which was worse, oblivion or enslavement? Man. I was just starting to feel good about being a cannibalistic nightmare creature.


    ¡®What is there to understand beast. Ignite the energy in the sword and swing it.¡¯ Thane explained like he thought it was the simplest thing in the world.


    ¡®Unless - you cannot move your spark¡­ can you?¡¯ there was the mental equivalent of a snort. It sounded distinctly satisfied.


    ¡®Oh fuck you.¡¯ I snapped, really hoping he was wrong. I was going to come back to this later. I was missing way too much common sense to ignore that I had three fully functioning adults sitting around inside of me somewhere who had to answer my questions.


    Desperately, I tried to shove my¡­ magic¡­ spark¡­ thing into the sword. Somewhere along the way Thing Two had acquired a second wasp shield and was doing a pretty good job of defending my rear. Unfortunately the tunnel only continued to widen as I ran, meaning more and more wasps could flood into my surroundings. If I couldn¡¯t get this working we were screwed.


    ¡°Go! Fly! Abrakafuckingdabra! Gah!¡± I yelled as I ran, each exclamation accompanied by a flick of my stinger and nothing of note happening.


    Okay. Reason this through. So far as you¡¯ve seen, ¡®monster¡¯ magic is largely biological in nature. Your pretty much a Fleshwarping Meatmancer. You¡¯ve never produced magic outside your body, and the most metaphysical thing you¡¯ve ever done is eat souls which - again - happened inside your body.


    An idea dawning on me, I poured on both speed and magic, the smell of something burning drowned out my every other sense, dulling the pain of my stings and reducing the strain of Thing Two jostling about on my back. Instead of willing flesh from my body, or healing, or anything of that nature, I focused inward, on the soul of Thane that I knew was somewhere in the black hole of my stomach.


    At first nothing happened, but then, with sudden clarity, I felt a presence dwelling there. I felt three of them in fact. Even though I didn¡¯t know anything about two of them, and I wasn¡¯t really ¡®looking¡¯ at them, I could easily recognize Thane¡¯s soul hovering in the sea of magical energy that fueled me. More importantly I could recognize the spark of power emanating from him. Prodding and poking at it, I dragged the entire formless presence up to the surface of my ¡®body¡¯ and shunted it into my stinger.


    ¡®There! You fucking do it!¡¯  I yelled mentally at him.


    ¡®Very well.¡¯ Thane said, and I could swear the fucker sounded defeated and unhappy. I mean, I literally ate him so I guess some resentment was reasonable but -


    Wait not. Fuck this guy, he tried to kill me for no fucking reason.


    Like my not giving a shit had become the trigger, my stinger began moving on its own. It was as though it had a mind of its own, and the blade began to glow that furious blue that had nearly been the last thing I ever saw. It twitched almost imperceptibly, and a gust of wind swept the cavern as the invisible force the blade projected tore down the tunnel behind us, neatly bisecting a frankly frightening number of my attackers.


    ¡°See thats what Im talking about!¡± I yelled in delight. I was never really the type of person to think of personal power - as in, fighting strength - was all that great. I never sought it out before waking up here, and I hadn¡¯t gone much out of my way to obtain it since arriving. But there was something truly freeing about having enough power not to have to take shit from the universe. For the first time I felt like it might not be so bad just traveling the wilderness, slaying my enemies, eating my way to -


    Hang on. That was one hundred percent not a normal thought for me.


    My gait slowed and then stopped, as my stinger continued to lash out, each flick of my jury rigged tail gouging out the sides of the tunnel and eliminating more and more wasps. Thing Two leapt from my back to enter the fray, and I quickly re-took control of my tail from Thane lest he instigate friendly fire out of pure spite.


    The cleanup was quick after that. With barely any of the annoying rock bugs left alive Thing Two and I cleaned up the much weaker enemies with little to no effort. My only concern was that the area of my shoulder blade where I had been stung was starting to turn to stone. Because of course it was.


    Angry with myself for not noticing sooner - although to my credit it hurt like hell so ignoring it had felt like a good idea at the time - I sized up the injury using one of the eyes in my palm. It wasn¡¯t too big¡­ and I did heal so¡­


    Gritting my sharklike rows of teeth, I took aim and then swung my stinger down, neatly shearing of that section of my flesh. It hurt. Oh wow did it hurt. It hurt so bad that I did nothing but flail and thrash on the ground for a few minutes afterward, while Thing Two picked across the area tearing stoney shells off of their gooey, edible undersides.


    When I had finally found the force of will to focus on my magic, I had no idea how long had passed. Not very much time could have gone by because Thing Two, prolific eater that he was, hadn¡¯t gone through much more than one or two corpses. But even as I regrew my battered flesh, I feared that too much time had passed. Hell, I had no idea where in these caves I even was. I¡¯d taken so many random turns that I was well and truly lost in this shit hole.


    And that meant I had no idea how to get back to Nadeens trail, or if it would still be there when I got back. How the hell had she managed to get past the Rock Wasps when they attacked me pretty much on sight?


    The answer, of course, was obvious if I thought about it. Whatever that thing was that had been impersonating a human had to be smart. Smart enough to set a trap, and smart enough to separate a ¡®Binder¡¯ from its supposed ¡®Summons¡¯. I had no idea how the mechanics of this place worked, but if I assumed other monsters were about as in the know as I was then it seemed like a pretty solid plan.


    And I really didn¡¯t like the idea of a monster who was as smart as me, but had fewer scruples. Because I was pretty well aware of my own capacity for death at this point, and anything without my self control was probably a holy terror indeed.


    Pissed, I stood, motioning for Thing Two to follow after me. He whined for a bit about all the meat we were leaving behind, which was when I remembered that I was getting a bit peckish myself. We compromised and tore off enough wasp flesh to snack on, and proceeded in a direction I thought looked familiar. We didn¡¯t sprint ahead this time. No, I was well and truly on guard for fuckery, and make a special point of stabbing anything that looked abnormal before walking past it.


    We made our way through the caves without much more of note happening, until we made it to a tunnel that was oddly bright at one end. Like it was an exit to the surface. Only it was pointed downward at an angle - not up.


    Cautious, I angled my stinger forward and nosed my way forward, sticking an eye laden palm around the corner of the tunnel.


    What I saw wasn¡¯t nearly what I was expecting. A part of me had sort of figured I was about to walk into the den of a massive, terrible, volcanoe creature or something but low and behold, the cavern I saw was massive.


    And it was populated.


    A veritable sea of slapdash shanties flooded the area, which was at the bottom of a steep incline. It was festooned with railroads and mining carts at rest. I could vaguely make out the tiny forms of people moving about below. Tiny people wearing shitty potato sack clothing.


    Out the corner of my eye I caught movement, and when I turned I saw two more insignificant figures racing across the ground towards the makeshift city.


    I really hoped these people were open to negotiations. I doubted I could make myself kill a city for that dumb kid.


    Assuming I even could.


    ¡®we CoULd EAT thEm alL!¡¯ exclaimed the Damned Thing joyously.


    I thought about that for second before choosing to take it as reassurance that we¡¯d be okay. Anything else would be exhausting.


    I perked up at that thought.


    Maybe they¡¯d have beds.

 Stranger Things - 6

    ''Stop it.'' I thought flatly. The Damned Thing didn''t bother to answer me, but I could sense the psychic equivalent of a grunt. Definitely getting smarter. Noooot good.


    possibility of freedom had been enough for my inadvertent prisoners to give me their temporary aid. I''ll probably never know, since I''d had a pretty shitty time trying to communicate with my first two victims.


    Thane''s body - lay motionless on the ground, and I could feel the hunk of mindless flesh drawing its oxygen from me through the physical link between us. It was like the worst asthma ever, and I quickly moved to remedy the situation. Just like in the caves prior to this, I shunted the vague presence I had come to think of Thane''s soul into the immobile body. All at once it began spasming on the ground, grasping futilely at the air and kicking its legs as though having a seizure, before subsiding into a sort of twitchy resting state and heaving a giant breath of air into its lungs.


    slapped the shit out of him. I know it makes me a bad person, and that he really probably wasn''t a bad man - but he''d tried to fucking kill me, and I felt that was more than enough justification for some idle revenge.


    "Stop." I called after him, sending the impulse to freeze up the tether between us. At the end of the day, even if it seemed like a whole human body, what was before me was just a giant vestigial organ that looked like the dead guy. It was still part of me, part of my power - and that made it mine. It made Thane mine.


    "Talk to me buddy. Whats the plan here?" I asked him, genuinely curious what his end goal was - besides killing me of course. He stared at me with a mixture of rage and disbelief on his face. Under more calm circumstances I would have considered it priceless.


    "Honestly I don''t really know. On the one hand - it''d be really cool if I could do that. On the other it''s - "


    "Well... fuck you too I guess. Look I''m not a bad person I just - " I tried again, ignoring the interruption the first time because contrary to popular opinion I''m not a totally emotionless killing machine.


    "I - "


    "Jesus shut up would you?" I finally said, more exasperated than mad. Just for added effect I paralyzed him again, precluding his ability to interrupt me anymore.


    "Look man. I don''t wanna kill those people. So far, I''ve only actually killed and or eaten people who tried to kill me first." I explained, giving him a pointed look that had far less effect when I allowed myself to remember that I actually had tried to eat him within seconds of meeting him. I just failed.


    "...Mostly. Look I''ve got urges okay? I''m like an alcoholic but only for you know... human flesh." Geeze. Now I felt bad again.


    "Anyway, right now I just need a cover so I can go over yonder - " I pointed at the shanty town " - and find Nadeen. All you have to do is pretend your my Binder or Owner or whatever you people call it while we traipse about. Cool?" I released his paralysis when I finished, hoping we could get this moving. This had taken longer that I was expecting, so there was no telling where Nadeen had gotten off to while I explained the birds and the bees to Thane.


    care?" Thane finally asked after taking a few moments to master himself and wipe away a manly tear.


    "Because she''s a freaking kid in a world full of psycho cannibal monsters and kid touching rapists like Erwin?" I shot back, confused by how stupid that question was. I understood on a base level that I was a ''monster'' and therefore not expected to behave following socially acceptable norms but still.


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "Define innocent. If someone attacks me I''m not going to cry myself to sleep after I kill them." I explained, with much more casual bravado than I actually felt on the topic. Obviously if I wasn''t feeling particularly hungry I wouldn''t go out of my way to kill anyone if I didn''t have to. But that seemed like kind of a hard sell to a guy who''s camp I''d liberally killed my way across when last he had a body - so I didn''t bother try and convince him.


    naked."


    "It''ll have to do. Unless you wanna stab yourself a few times and pretend you lost your rags in battle." I added, not thinking he would actually take me up on the offer - because it was fucking insane. To my great chagrin, Thane immediately began slashing and stabbing at himself. All in non lethal areas, but definitely enough that he quickly started to look like the victim of a really bad mugging.


    "What the fuck!?" I yelped, momentarily too stunned to stop him with our link.


    "What are you, some kind of Paladin?" I asked. I wasn''t really that bothered by the bleeding because really this body was replaceable, and being made of my own flesh and blood, insanely unappetizing.


    that later. For now, Nadeen.


    "Come on. We need to get you some pants and a patch job. I don''t want to have to regrow a body for you." I said, dismissing the mouth I was using to speak to him and turning around, only to be yanked backwards when Thane didn''t move from his position.


    die here! Thats not the future I want for my children! And neither should you!" howled the aspiring politician.


    complacent, here, surrounded by more Magic Stones than anyone could possibly know what to do with! Well no more!" A hand and a pale bald head peaked up above the crowd where I could actually see it, and Thane watched in mute curiosity. I had already used my power to close up the worst of his wounds so he wasn''t in any immediate danger.


    spy in the caves! No doubt here to thwart the uprising!"

 Brighter Days - 1

    "It''s never worked before-"


    "Well be punished if we-"


    his magic.


    , thing that had reaped my soul before I could go to my ancestors. That had denied me sweet repose among the heavens.


    thing that seemed greedy enough to defy death itself.


    spy in the caves! No doubt here to thwart the uprising!" the man cackled, and a pair of facsimile dragged a small girl I, and no doubt the creature recognize kicking and bucking into view. I found it odd that it cared so much for her, but it wasn''t completely without precedent. Sometimes monsters just... took a liking to certain people. Of course, usually people were a part of that monsters reproductive process - as in the case of Arachne or Harpies - but it wasn''t completely unheard of at least.


    "- theN wE wILL." the sudden change in the voice, from a strangely unsettling womans to the blatantly unearthly rasp as it completed its sentence caused me more than just discomfort. It caused me physical pain. It was so foreign a sound that for a few moments, blood beginning to drip from my ear, I could only stand stock still trying to puzzle the words out, trying to associate that voice with language instead of simply noise.


    Sort of Thing I guess. And Thane was pale because his current body had literally never encountered sunlight. They were an eerie, ghost like, matching pair.


    flounced - towards the Angler fish head before both they, and it, disappeared in another flash of purple light.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    I was a terrible parental figure.