With two quick steps I’m already beside Bennett and, in a single smooth motion, I fish him out of the water, these thin limbs proving to still have my hidden strength in them.

And that is even clearer once I pull him fully out,  bringing to light what was trying to drag him down as well, a figure embedded in mud, with disheveled hair and algae sticking out, only a pair of red eyes shining behind the obscuring veil and a smile showing the rolls full of shark-like teeth and the black tongue dripping, beyond the long arms and even longer nails digging deep into his legs and carving into the flesh, securing a strong grip of his prey.

Only that the ghoul was wrong, because it wasn’t his prey, it is ‘mine’, mine alone.

And I’m definitely not the sharing type.

The ghouls snarls at me, still confident that it will have this meal, the dark orbits shinning stronger as the eyes cave in into two circles of hollow shadow, increasing the sickening ashen color of its already pale skin with the constrat, the purple veins visible to the naked eye, and the already open mouth stretching even further to a humanly impossible ledge, as if the bones of the jaw weren’t attached to the skull, like the mouth of a snake.

But two can play that game.

I look at the creature with a creepy smile of my own, my not as small teeth growing sharp and my three pupils looking down at the creature, watching as realization hits and appears on the ghoul’s face when it sees my eyes shine and my pupils shrink like a cat’s.

It tries to dive back in into the water immediately but my long scaled tail comes from behind and quickly as a whip slashes out and pierces the ghoul, poking a hole right in the creature’s chest, bringing its body up and totally out of the water.

It tries to wiggle away but is already too late, every move it makes only widens the wound on its chest, making so that it tries to stabilize by grabbing my tail with both hands, tick blood oozing out of its mouth.

But pushing, pulling, wiggling does nothing to free him from my grasp as my long scaled tail only tightens the hold, slippering about from the back and embracing the ghoul’s waist, securing it firmly in a deadly grip.

When the creature starts hissing and howling, unable to do much but too stubborn to give up, the tip of my long tail leaves its waist and goes up to put an end to the excruciating sounds it was making, simply moving towards its neck and head, giving it a fierce twist, the ghoul’s face turning to the opposite side as the creature finally settles and stays limp in my hold, growing silent as the only sounds remaining were a few chewing and splashes coming from the side.

Got a crunchy for snack, oh joy!

What a waste of fat meat though… I think as I look at the now stiff face of Harper, his mouth wide open and only the white of the eyes visible, the face of someone who did not have a smooth death stuck on that expression of horror as his body slowly sinks in into the darkest part of the swap where not even a trace of his existence will be left behind, not even a body to be grieved over.

The water was still very much alive as they feasted on his body, the mass slowly sinking in as they munched the legs away, some toes floating here and there and parts of the clothes joining the plants that obscured those waters.

That annoyed me, because far from simply stealing my meal and almost getting rid of my free pass to a feast they still had the courage; or stupidity; to eat it right in front of me!

How dare they! The audacity! And they completely ignored the death of their companion over here, too entranced by the meal to look to the sides, no awareness of my presence at all!

Let just say that I’m not the most lenient monster around… and my patience only served me as long as it helped me get what I wanted.

Far from that I was pure… instinct.

So when annoyed I simply react and, not wanting to risk my meal and free pass to a feast by jumping after them I attack from where I am, taking a deep breath as my chest inflates only to breathe a fan of fire out the next second, the red bright flames scaring these creatures of the dark stiff and making them panic.

I laugh, enjoying their terror, playing with them for a while as they always tried to get back to the meal, but even that grows dull after a while so I decide to continue on with my plan, even more after I have secured a snack along the way.

And that’s how I end up carrying the soldier, Bennett, over my shoulder, and my snack with my tail until we reach a safe place, a cave not too far from there.

This one was not one of the best caves around, but it will do for a short stay, especially since the weather was quickly changing as the clouds start closing in on us. Seems like it will rain later today, and if for long enough it may even allow the ghouls to take a stroll in broad day.

Is not like they were set ablaze on contact with daylight anyway, only that it stings a lot as if truly burning them… though they would have to hide their eyes from it to avoid the excruciating pain that bright light brings.

Overall it was best to avoid the day and light if able to, but they would not pass a free meal just like in the swamp for that, especially since the trees around there protected them a little, enough for them to be able to hunt inside their territory.

I reach the cave at the first drops of water, looking over the place, firstly at the stone stairs that were narrowing making their way up and in between the trees, uneasy and usually too small for me to make any use of them.

But now I did, cutting a strange figure, walking among these forgotten lands, a small ‘human’ carrying a grown man over the shoulder, with a long scaled tail sprouting from my back with a limp body crunched in its deadly embrace, eyes open for any threats and sometimes reflecting red, the glint disappearing too quickly, as if made by a trick of the light.

The clouds could help obscure the sun and make the forest even darker, but the rain masquerades the smells and made it harder to hunt or track any creatures; fortunately it was still bright enough, so I had ample time to make sure the place is safe before securing the human inside.

We reach the top as the wind and the upcoming storm start to weigh the leaves out of their branches and out in the air in a flustering dance until they reach the floor to form a green-brownish carpet.

There was a small bridge over a dry little river, probably side-effects of the made-up swamp, leading to the entrance of the place, two feline-like statues made using exaggerated proportions and expression standing at the front, with shining stones on their foreheads, guarding the place from outsiders… or were at some point in the past, because now they were cover in moss and plants, some parts even broken with the lack of maintenance, forgotten in the wilderness.

But the entrance itself took the eyes away of any other construction, with its crooked almost caving in entrance as a tree with red buds grew right on top of it, the roots keeping the entrance open and steady and at the same time weighting it down, their root-like limbs twisting and stretching, hanging like fingers where the soil ended.

I had never used this one in particular, only hunted inside from time to time because the entrance was very narrow and the ceiling low, making it very uncomfortable to move around with my big body.

And yet this strange place holds some significance… that made me want to avoid it at all costs. I never understood why, but dwelling on it has never helped so I simply gave up on trying to understand it.

But I can ignore the sensation for the night… especially without bumping my head on the ceiling all the time.

I take a breather of the damp stale air from inside the cave and satisfied for the lack of predatory smells finally start to settle in, laying the human to the side and the snack on the other, retreating my tail… somehow.

Weird body this is… I quite like it.

I look at the unconscious human beside me and suddenly I’m out of things to do, for the first time having a living one stay the night beside me, and without the intention of eating him in the morning… well, at least this next morning that is.

And without having him screaming and shouting at me.

Strange indeed…

Curiosity finally hits me as I get close and poke him. Why do they wear these strange tasteless things over them? Is always a pain to find the meat with those clothes on the way… especially since they stick to the teeth like fur, annoying.

I look at the thing he made me wear and how strange it felt against my skin… or rather, how strange this skin itself felt, how many sensations it let me feel, how much more I could sense with it instead of my hard scales and carapace in between.

These thoughts were running wild in my mind at the sound of the increasing rain on the outside, the drip and drop moistening the land and bringing the smells of the forest to life.

With an almost childish curiosity I reach out and take out the mask covering his face, only to reveal a white fair skin and a blond lock of hair.

Weird thing, why do they have fur only on the head like that? And their mouth, so many useless teeth, only two pointy, they even dare to hunt my deer and call themselves meat-eaters with these thin nails?

How the hell did they survive this long?!