The young father joined us after mid-day, rising from his bedroom with the grogginess normally reserved to only the most torturous first rays of a rising sun, but soon replaced with a surprised mumble, and later amused chuckle as I played a game of "roll the odd cylinder back-and-forth" with the little hellion. A wooden cylinder called a "ʜɒγdɒlɘ". I have not even the faintest idea what the toy should be representing, but it was amusing enough to pat it back and forth with the kid. A well spent few hours, if the child´s still-amused whoops and giggles were any indication.
The master of the house seemed to observe us in fatherly amusement, and soon joined his other half in the kitchen where whiffs of homely dinner were starting to emanate from.
(...)
The young father grunted as he pulled the ringed chainmail over his padded shirt once more, as his wife returned with a now-lit lantern from the kitchen. A kiss on the cheek, and a loving embrace catching her in return, the husband enjoyed the lingering scent of baked pastries still clinging to her even as she playfully complained about the cold metal armor she was so helpfully warming up. With a sigh, he let her go, took the lantern on one hand, placed the mace on his belt as he tied the red sash around his his middle. Turning around and opening the front door, he suddenly heard a sound of skittering steps behind him. Their new amber-eyed rat-catcher was running over, the tips of its paw-claws clacking on the floor. Yet as he looked at the gray tom-cat, it stopped and looked straight back at him standing on the open door, as if asking for something.
The guard gave an amused chuckle, and held the door open for the feline.
"Joining me too on my walk, scratch-eyes?"
The cat reacted to the invitation, walked out of the door with him, and just as he turned around to close the door, bolted to a side-alley and disappeared out of sight. The guard grumbled, feeling a bit betrayed, but shrugged as he closed the door to his home. He will be back in the morning, and probably the cat too, if the Old-Empty doesn't take it.
(...)
I darted to a side-alley, leaving the night-guard to its dutiful patrol. I had explored the house I found myself throughout the day and came to two conclusions. While the house was well-kept and homely, there was nowhere in it for me to hide out of sight. No cellar, no unused rooms: Every space was dutifully utilized, and completely open to an unfortunate discovery were I to try and make sense of my new body in its comfortable rooms. Even behind the large chest I had commandeered as my own was just a single curious leaning over to leave me naked and bare.
The second discovery was that while my adopted... masters did feed me well, a single dried fish a day and some water to rinse it down left gaining mass a disturbingly long process. I gained approximately only a tenth of the food I ate as true heavy-mass, and it felt that even merely playing a day with the toddler my body had burned half of that gain down again.
Yet here, in the great out-doors of the nightly gray-stone city, both should be available to discovery. So exploration and lurking are my tonight's plan. And should I return before the sun rises, I would be out of sight of the cities disturbingly feline-curious lady-folk.
Skulking through the shadows was surprisingly easy, with the entire unlit world around me was almost as plain as during the day. With the only exception being that everything I saw was only in black-and-white. Only a few lantern glows, bobbing in the distance injecting a bit of dull yellow into my sight as I sighted them on wandering guards bringing a bit of color back into my sight. Convenient, if a bit eerie.
Scouting around the darkened streets, I managed to map out a small circle around the house I found myself in. Side-alleys, as unfamiliarly winding and un-uniform, were cleaner than I expected. Just cobble-stone roads, covered in a light dusting of mud and an occasional man-tall wooden shed or a firewood pile, leaning against the stone houses they belonged to. A light smell of urine in some corners I had the misfortune of passing to close to the ground along, but no trash or cigarettes loitering anywhere. And luckily, no open canals of filth flowing along the streets as I´ve read about in history. Probably no need to fear a shout from above windows and receiving an unwanted bucketful of distress.
It was in one such side-street I found my first target. Turning the corner, my eyes were instantly drawn to a roundish form, half my size skittering along the road I just entered. I was in luck, its back was turned to me, and its pace was... lax. Confident. Not to squander my good fortune, I quickly set off in pursuit. Yet the moment I started approaching the rat from behind, it whipped around and stared my oh-so-stealthy form down.
Damn... The rat was half-an-alleyway ahead of me. It will probably bolt off and esca-*SCREEEEEE*
The vermin let loose an ear grating warcry as I stared in stupefaction, charging in skitters and leaps toward me like a berserker. Luckily, it had quite a bit of ground to cover before reaching me, giving me time to gather my wits and prepare myself. Springing my limbs and flexing out my claws, I waited for an opportunity to riposte.
Just like its kin I devoured, the rat leapt the moment it was in range for my throat. And this time, I caught it mid-air with my clawed paws, before slamming it down to the floor below me as my claws dug into its sides. Pressing my weight down on the frenzied critter I had pressed on its stomach, my jaws opened and clamped down on the back of its neck.
*SCREE-crack!*
The rat twitched its last in my mouth as I bit through its spine. My surprisingly strong bite pressing through, and ripping out a chunk of its back-neck.
Victory, if you could call it. Still, this went better than expected. I rose up, the now dead vermin in my mouth as I looked around for a place to finish my meal. And with a small trail of blood following me, I claw-climbed on top of a woodpile stacked against the side of the street.
Reaching higher up, I was treated to a lot nicer view from up high. It was a dizzying height, tens of times my height, but in reality merely a bit taller than the height of a man. And on my vantage, with a meal I was ripping bites of warm, chewy flesh from the carcass.
I had finished half my game, before my eyes were drawn to a new form entered the unlit alley. Another rat came in, this one not as lax as the previous as it skittered along the alley in rushed leaps. Huh... It was facing me up on my woodpile, but it didn't seem to notice me, as it rushed first past the woodpile. I looked back at my half-devoured rat, and noted as memories of old teachings, half-forgotten ever since maturity, returned. The rats had its eyes on the sides of its head, noticing nearly everything around it except directly behind it. But it cant see up as well as around it. Satisfied with my discovery, I glanced around as the rat rushed through the alley. Before it suddenly turned around, looking all over as if searching for something and running the other way.
What a weird behavior. Before it came to a stop on the spot I finished my first kill. It sniffed a puddle my night-sight told me was gray but I knew was red, and turned toward my woodpile. It sniffed... and started following a small blood-trail I had left behind, climbing up it on the same path I had clawed myself up. I quickly hid my head down from the ledge just as the rats head started poking upwards... Well, who am I to refuse seconds. Training my ears, I heard the rats nails scratch against the dried tree-bark, and just as it poked its head over the edge, my paws shot out and dragged it up by its now claw-locked neck.
*SCREE-crack!*
Another catch. This was productive. As the new rat twitched its last surprised gasps, I set about finishing eating my first kill in a bit more haste. If these rats will keep these tactics more akin to horror movie characters up, I will have all the flesh I need to re-humanize. Or at least try to, to the best of my ability.
(...)
I had just finished swallowing the last remains of the first rats tail, before I was unpleasantly surprised. Three rats now, skittered into the alley. All of them were a bit bigger than the first two, nearly reaching my own height. And all of them skittered in a pack, never leaving more than a few lengths of their tail between themselves. This was... worrying. By all accounts, this was not a single wandering scavenger, but a hunting pack. And here I was, with their smaller cousin in my jaws, on top of a single pile of wood surrounded by stone houses. And for all my claws could do, I could not find purchase with them on the stones that made up the buildings. On the mortar between the stones, my claws dug in a bit, but when testing it before, it was a precarious climb, done best slowly and carefully. I looked as the rat-pack entered the alley, and all three at once found the same puddle marking my first kill. And all three turned their heads along the trail, seeing the same woodpile. Unfortunate.
Still, if they followed the same pattern the last rat did, I might... One of the big rats rose on its back feet, and angled its head. And there, it saw me, looking down at them with eyes wide in surprise.
*SCREEEEEEEE*
*scrrREEEEEE*
*SCREEEEE*
The three big rats all let out an ear-splitting screech, and darted toward the woodpile. Damnation. And as gazed down, much to my dismay, I saw two of the rats dart to opposite sides of the woodpile, while the third remained in its upward standing position, its beady black eyes focused on me like a killer. Two to flank me, and the final one to catch me if I were to jump down and run... They are way too clever for vermin...
As I saw the two rats skittering up the woodpile in uncomfortable haste, I looked down on the un-devoured carcass of my second kill... And then at the stone wall behind me... No... If I can climb it, so can the rats. With a sigh, I looked down at the woodpile, and... smiled, as an idea approached. I approached one side of the pile my adversary was climbing up from, crouched down before the edge-most log, and with my claws dug into it, lifted. And set a roundish piece of timber tumbling down one side of the woodpile.
*thock* *thock* *scREEEE-*THUD!*
I had no time to look, as I rushed to the second side to repeat the maneuver. And just as I had started to tip the second log over the side, a black form skittered and leaped over it, jumping over my head and landing on my back as I felt all its tiny, yet surprisingly sharp claws dig into my back. And a moment later, a sickening bite into the back of my spine. With a surprised growl, I shook myself to rid of of the critter, witch only resulted in its claws digging in deeper and its bite digging through my back flesh. With panic, I grabbed the rat-tail now dangling over my head, yet yanking it did nothing to dislodge the vermin wrestler. I even bit the tail in two, and the only reward for it was feeling one of its claws drag a longer gouge through the sides of my stomach.
Scattered, and feeling its teeth slowly, yet mercilessly try to crunch through my spine, I tumbled off the woodpile, falling a height of a man.
*thud!*
I landed on my back with a stunning crash, the wind knocked out of my lungs as I felt myself crushing my grappler. Finally, I felt the rat on my back go limb. Quickly extracting from the pile, I barely had time to right myself before another figure rushed me, and once more I felt my throat caught in someone else's jaws. The bite through my throat was familiar. Hard, violent incisors pressing through my flesh, and an uncomfortable feeling of something crushing and yanking through a pipe in your body you barely before considered. And in familiar way, my claws closed around the sides of my strangler, and found deadly purchase. Yet, before I could fully gore the critter, both its clawed front-paws reached out, and pressed their nails into my eyes.
The feeling of vision breaking as claws trashed through my eye sockets as I felt my broken eyes was indescribable. Near-darkness, with the last after-visions of dying photo-receptor cells as they lost cohesion, with my hearing filled with nothing but murderous gnawing and trashing. With nothing but darkness and instinct to guide me, my claws dug through my foe instead of tossing it off, and I felt as the creatures flesh rent, cutting though the tough skin like knives. With panic, I kept clawing at the warm form before me, and in response, I felt the claws trash fiercer through my eye-sockets, pressing and trying to pierce through the skull behind it... And to it I responded in kind, lifting one of my claws out and finding purchase anew.
The struggle felt like an eternity. I felt my throat being ripped out finally, and the creature leaned in for another, sickening bite as I felt more of my neck-muscle being torn. Enough to make my head dangle listlessly to the side as it lost all its support. Yet I continued goring the creature... And finally... Its fight eased... And its jaws stopped ripping into me.
I tried to gasp, yet my dangling head did not respond... I felt the foundations of my jaw muscles gone. I tried to rise up to all fours, yet my blindness and limped head disorienting me enough to tumble over again. I tried to breathe in, and all I felt was a piece of my own meat, moving into the lower part of my remaining wind-pipe in an uncomfortable swallow...
Stop... Calm... calm... *gurgle* calm....
With my panic forced to subside, I finally found enough mind to... call for this body of mine to heal. And once more, I felt the heavy mass in my stomach lurch upwards. Pushing past the lungs and wind-pipe like they were just decorations, it bubbled up from my throat like bile, and stuck to the jaws of my dangling head. And I felt it... The muscles torn knitted back in place once more, before I felt part of the mass move upwards... Into my skull.
The feeling of something, slithering around a place that you before had only ever felt a few migraines in was... disconcerting. Yet the mass seemed to regard my brain matter with the same indifference it did my lungs, as I felt... squishing. And through the back of my eyes, the mass pressed through a small hole I never knew was there before, it flowed into my eye sockets, filling them.
And... Like rising from a black-out, my vision returned. From the center of my sight first, expanding outwards. And revealed to me a mess I had made. Before me was a big rat, thoroughly gored and butchered, with its entrails ripped out and more than a few ribs cracked out of place like grim wings. Behind me, a rat with a caved-in chest and half a tail, lying on its back with its paws toward the sky and its yaws dangling open. And a bit ahead, a heavy fallen log, with a tail and a few crushed limbs sticking out of it.
...
To hell with this, I have had enough adventuring this night. As I coughed up a bit of my own throat still half-way down my windpipe and ate it, I took the gored rats remains between my teeth, and quickly left the alleyway, heading toward home. An alley cat I am not in this world.
(...)
A bit later, another pack of three emerged into the alley. And another, and another. Skittering around, sniffing the grizzly remains and squeaking with anxious barks at each other, as a swarm of big brown rats skittered over the alley, the woodpile, and the remains of the crushed and gored. The skittering ceased, as a bigger figure suddenly emerged into the alley. A huge, black rat the size of a capybara, its tail the length of three. And on its over-sized head with jaws big enough to swallow even these overlarged vermin whole, a white sat. All the rats turned toward the duo, all silent.
The vermin parted as the black rat approached the rat crushed under a log, and with a single flick of its paw, the heavy log flew off, showing a gruesome remains of a flattened rat. The white rat jumped off its head, sniffed the remain, and satisfied, tapped its tail twice on the ground. The black abomination opened its mouth and devoured the remains in gusto.
The white rat looked around, smaller than the brown ones around it, and squeaked once quietly.
The rats on top of the woodpile reacted, and tossed the smaller corpse from its top over the side, as it tumbled down the woodpile right before the paws of the white one. As the body came to a stop, the white observed curiously at the ripped hole in its neck. It sniffed it once, before turning around, and tapped its tail twice once more.
The giant devoured this one as well.
The white rat turned toward the last one. Before it reached it, a pile of ripped entrails laid in a puddle of blood, with a dragging mark leading away from it for a short while till blood ran out. The white squeaked once... And no rat responded.
The white took in the silence for a moment, and moved on.
As it reached the last of the pack as the giant behind it devoured the remains, the white rat stopped, as its whiskers twitched. Before it was a rat with its chest crushed and its paws turned upwards. Its tail was half-gone, and bleeding. But... The white one sniffed it once, and gave an enraged squeak to the gathered horde, causing them to skitter away from him. Focusing its beady, crimson red eyes on the nearest one, it gave a quick skitter. At once, the horde responded, and with surprising care, five of the rats picked the last one up with their bites, and dragged it away.
And with a last glance over its horde, the white one climbed back on top of its cannibalistic giant, and left.
