The flames that enveloped the man quickly died down leaving him trapped. He wasn’t standing on top of the statue anymore but buried underground. His body was surrounded by dirt, the coarse substance threatening to lodge into his lungs and drown him.
He pushed hard, trying to shake the dirt off him. Thankfully enough, he didn’t find himself buried deep underground, and with a single jump, he was able to come out of his hole.
A warm and violent sensation assaulted him.
The man looked up to the sky to find a ball of fire, not unlike his own, really high up. That ball emitted a lot of light, far more than his flames or the tangible light of the infinite hole.
The powerful light blinded him, but instead of killing him as the light blue light did, this yellow light filled him with warmth and life. He shifted his eyes a bit to be less sensitive to light.
Whilst he was remaking his sight, he heard a scream. It was manly and tried to look at the source but with his unfinished eyeballs, he could only see blurs.
Then pain.
Something impacted and penetrated deeply into his neck. It didn’t hit any vital points, and even if it did, he would have died by such a small strike. He could feel the flames surging from his body and healing it, but also incinerating the projectile embedded in his neck.
Once his eyes had finally recovered from the makeshift transformation, he looked forward. There, two figures stood still.
Wardens? The man thought. No, they are too short and don’t have armor. And I don’t recognize the weapons they have. The small not-warden seems to have a ranged weapon, and wardens always had melee weapons.
He took a step forward, launching into the air with a powerful sprint, and decapitated the small not-warden. Certainly not a warden. He pondered as he felt the red blood on his hands. Blood’s different. Also weak. Too weak.
Then the man took a look at the bigger not-warden and thrust his claws into its chest. With a muffled cough, the other not-warden fell to the ground on top of another creature.
This creature didn’t look like any other he had seen. It had big yet feeble-looking protuberances on its back and was also small. Half of the not-wardens, but a third of his size.
The creature groaned once he looked at it. It was scared and it felt more like prey than the rodents ever did. Those critters didn’t fear death, yet this creature did.
“Please...” It spoke, “Don’t kill me...” Liquid appeared from the creature’s eyes. Was it a defense mechanism of some sort? The man didn’t know.
“Why should I do that?” The man asked the prey-creature.
Then he ripped the cage that was containing the prey, it would be a waste to leave it to die here only for opportunist scavengers to have a free meal.
“Huh?” It added after a pregnant second of confusion.
“You don’t have enough meat.” He spoke. “It would be a waste. And you are a prey, not a hunter. I prefer hunter’s biomass.”
Prey were always weaker, so it would be better to store the biomass of more powerful creatures.
Tin~
His head twisted looking at the white structure as he heard a noise. With powerful but silent steps, he walked to the front of the structure. But only found two other trapped prey.
Weird. The man thought. I sensed something else. A hunter, not a prey.
He looked at the four-legged prey and decided to kill them. With a swift cut, he separated the heads of both prey from their bodies. The brown prey’s biomass was far stronger than that of the not-wardens, it would be a waste not to use it, especially after all the biomass he had lost from the walk, the climb, and the light blue light. How could prey’s biomass be stronger than that of hunters?
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“Ah.” He heard the small prey fall to the ground with a light muted sound.
The man didn’t bother to look at it and first drained the four-legged prey out of their blood. It was also red, like his or the not-wardens. With this, he was able to more than recover the lost biomass, but it would take him some time to guess which were the parts richer in biomass of every carcass.
He stood up and looked at the small pray on the ground.
“A-a-are y-you go-going to e-e-ea-eat me?” The scared creature asked.
Was this creature too stupid to understand words? The man thought. Maybe it only repeats them, instead of actually talking. Nonetheless, he tried to establish conversation once more.
“I already told you that you don’t have enough meat. Or would you like to get eaten?” The creature swayed its head hard in negation, indicating that it could understand him. “Even then, I already have more biomass than I need, I’ll probably need to expel some, and also shift my body again. This shape results in instant aggression from other creatures, and I desire to go unnoticed for the time being.”
He didn’t know why, but he told the small prey his plan. It felt appropriate to do, even if there was no reason to do so.
The next best set of action would be to get more information, and after having confirmed that the creature was truly sapient, he crouched and got close to it.
“Tell me, creature. Where are we now?” He asked, not recognizing anything in his surroundings.
“T-th-the b-ba-b-bar-re-ren la-a-ands.” It spoke. The scared mussitation was almost unintelligible.
“Prey, talk slower, or I won’t be able to understand what you are saying.” The man explained calmly. But oddly enough, that only made the creature fret more for its life. “Are we clear?” He looked at it severely.
That did the trick as it now remained still, without spasming like before. Though fear still lingered in the prey’s eyes.
“We...” The small creature began talking, “Are on the Barren Lands.”
“And what does that mean?” The man asked.
“Eep!” The prey suddenly got scared. “I’m sorry!”
“Sorry for what?” He tilted his head in confusion. “I asked you a question, why should you be sorry about that?”
The creature looked at him with its dark blue eyes.
“Oh,” it blinked several times, “so you aren’t mad?”
“I will be if you continue to refuse to answer me.” The man added with the same calm voice, unbothered by the smell and sight of the carnage.
“Yes, sorry!” He scowled at the creature. “Em, we are on the Barren Lands. A place where no one lives and mostly no one goes to because it’s touched by Death.”
Now that he thought about it, it was true that there was no life around them. The ground was coarse and dry, but unlike the prison, it seemed this place once had hosted life and it had been deprived of it.
“If no one comes here, why were you and the not-wardens here?” The creature’s explanation wasn’t really solid, it could be trying to fool him.
“Not-wardens?” Prey asked in confusion.
“Not-wardens, the ones who attacked me.” He explained.
“Do you mean the humans?” It looked at the dead bodies as it said that; its face contorted in a gruesome manner and its breath became rugged.
“Those creatures are called humans then?”
It looked back at him with moist eyes and partial repulsion. “Yes?”
“And those?” He pointed at the two four-legged dead prey.
“Horses.” The small prey explained.
“I see.” The man nodded.
He hadn’t had any education, sometimes knowledge just appeared in his brain. That’s how he had known about the rodents or the ‘bird’, even the fact that he was ‘he’.
Then he remembered the statue’s inscription, how it said ‘her’ name was Alta. The statement about his gender confused him, but the name suited him.
“And you?” Alta asked.
“I’m a Moonlight fairy.” The ‘fairy’ responded as it fluttered the colorful protuberances on its back and slightly flew up.
“How?” Alta tilted his head in confusion.
“How what?” The fairy repeated his motion.
“How are you flying?” He inquired. “Your body is too big for those feeble protuberances to be able to lift you from the ground.”
“Magic?” It added. “And they aren’t called ‘protuberances’. Those are my wings!”
“Wings?” Alta inspected the weird appendages. They were composed of biomass, but they had something more he couldn’t identify.
“Don’t you know what wings are?” The fairy asked.
“I do not.” He replied. “I’ve never seen these ‘wings’ you speak of until now.”
The fairy looked at him with confusion and excitement. A hint of curiosity sparkled in the small creature’s blue eyes.
“Can I ask you something?” The fairy toyed with its fingers, unsure if it should have asked to begin with. Alta simply nodded. “What are you?”
“What do you mean?” Alta asked. “I am me.”
“No, that’s what I meant.” The fairy closed her eyes, thinking of a better choice of words. “I’m a fairy, and those two were humans, so you are of a race. And I don’t think you are a demon.”
“Demon?” Alta’s visage distorted in cold anger. “Do you mean wardens?”
The fairy flew a step backward in fear. “N-no, I don’t know what those are.”
He inspected the creature’s terrorized eyes; it was telling the truth. Then pondered about the fairy’s question. What was he? What was his race?
Once more, his mind went to the strange inscription. My chimera, my Alta. It had written on it. The latter was his name, but the former...
“I’m a chimera.” Alta said.