A black swirling mass rose from the dead birds head and entered Creeps eyes. The skill followed after.

The skill didn’t improve his sight. His range remained fixed. And the world remained elusive to him after those first five meters. The foggy constraints refused to bow. But starvation didn’t forget to show him its effect on his stamina. It sent him another notice of affection.

[You have not eaten anything for the last 3 hours.]
[Your body is starving.]
[-10 stamina][80/131]

The fight went alright, but fighting didn’t change his situation. Well, at least he now knew that fighting, killing, murder, wasn’t the solution to his starvation. Creep still had no clue about how to satisfy his hunger. If anything, after that last message, his stomach grumbled out loud, loud enough for him to hear. And then there was also the small amount of irritation he was experiencing right under his wings. It wasn’t a problem right now, but things were escalating outside his expertise by the second. Freedom, it seemed to him, was not really that great a thing.

At least in the confines of the dungeon, he wasn’t bothered by such nuisances. For now, it was just another question, another problem on his hand. For now, that is.

Anyways, while he was contemplating why the corpse might not be disappearing and what to do about it, something moved in front of his eyes. He didn’t see it in the general sense of sight, but he knew something was there. He had picked up motion about ten meters from his position to the left corner of his angular vision. He had picked up motion outside his range of sight while not paying attention. He was wise enough to understand that his newest skill had something to do with it. He would have liked to experiment with his skill -to determine the exact range, the degree of movement detectable, whether light played any factor- but the motion had been big and volatile. A second later his sound sense also started urging him to take flight and hide. Because whatever had created that grey smudge in the hazy tempest, it was slowly moving toward him.

Clicking, he took flight. Echolocation read the data from the click and created a sonic picture of the area for him. In it, he saw something long and tubular slowly sneaking toward the bird’s corpse. It dragged its body on the dried leaves creating crunching sounds. Danger! His senses blared, urging him to fly higher and away from it. Curious to the intruder’s method of movement and its reason, creep decided to observe it while hovering at a proper and safe distance. Curiosity surely leads him, but he knew to be vigilant. He wasn’t about to forfeit his life any time soon in the name of observation.

This tubular specimen, however, evolved into another enigma, when it stopped in front of the bird’s corpse and engulfed it whole. Completely different species, which used a completely different method for movement, and about whom creep knew nothing about, still managed to baffle him. For what reason would a perfectly healthy individual engulf a corpse?! What purpose does that even fulfill? Creep had no idea. Baffling as the display was, the subject even decided to hiss at him for whatever reason before slithering away into the bushes.

Crazy!

Keeping its odd behavior at bay, why had it decided to imitate the bird and show hostility toward him? Creep could see his situation taking a sharp turn. This freedom which his elder had been so adamant about wasn’t an easy thing to live through. Yes, he now had the freedom of movement and could take his revenge on the humans for putting him through a miserable childhood if he wanted, but freedom had also brought him its own share of problems. Creep even felt that life in the human’s cave was too complicated. He even thought about going back to the dungeon. He decided against it. But he didn’t eliminate the option entirely.

Anyways, following his contemplation, he heard a few more messages in his mind. One message told him of yet another decrease in his stamina, and another message indicted a temporary 10% decrease in his stamina and agility until he replenishes his energy. Whatever it meant,

For now, creep decided to take rest at a nearby branch and think about his path. He hadn’t even been out of the dungeon for a full cycle of day and night and he had already accumulated many questions. During his rest, he reached a decision that he needed to get answers to his questions before moving forward.

Because he couldn’t actually start solving his question to their actual sequence of arrival, he gave them priorities; mainly, High, medium, and low.

High priority was for questions which needed dangerously urgent answers; like, what did it mean to eat and how to stop his stamina from decreasing any further?

He gave medium priority to the questions which could change his life but were not urgent; like, why didn’t the corpses disappear in the human’s cave? Why did the bird attack him? Why didn’t humans murder each other?

He reserved low priority for questions which were important but not urgent; like, who was the mysterious entity which gave him the Skill: Devour? Why and who was he, really? Why had the red-haired human spared him? And other such questions.

The decreasing stamina slowly showed its effect on him and he slowly went to sleep, hanging upside down from the willow branch.

The night slowly deepened. The sounds around increased. Howls and chirping grew incessant. Hoots eased out from the leaves. Creep, who slept with a shallow weeping, woke up to a droning stream.

He opened his brown eyes wide and made a shattering wish. A picture perfect appeared in his mind, detaining a frozen wisp.

His sleep didn’t result in any answers, but it helped refreshed his mind. With his thoughts clear and body relaxed, he looked at the flying intruder and decided to see why his tubular enemy had engulfed the corpse.