CHAPTER 4: PART 1 OF 2

Lucas stared into the fire, chin on his knees. The Badger carcass rested on two thick branches over the flames, slowly roasting. It had been hard to gut it without a proper tool, but he had done his best. He turned it over and picked off a morsel as his thoughts drifted over everything that had happened that day. His eyelids were sheets of lead, and the dancing orange lights slowly pulled him into a cotton-woolly brained semi sleep. A strange anxiety was building, keeping him from drifting off. He assumed it was simply the fear of being alone in an alien world. But as his heart rate began to rise he realised it wasn't coming from him, there was a distinct ‘otherness’ to it. Something was here with him, watching him from the darkness. He could somehow sense its sadistic intent, though he couldn't explain how. It was malice and hatred he felt, not the pragmatic necessity of a predator… It wasn't here to hunt him, but to hurt him. His skin crawled and he tensed as the sensation continued to build.

Lucas slowly stood, stepping back to survey. There, just outside the outer ring of the fire’s light was a human-like shape. Its outline was only a silhouette against the moonlit night, except for eyes that glistened with reflected firelight. It was standing perfectly still, looking directly at him. It knew that Lucas had seen it, overpowering murderous intent poured off it in waves. How long had it been watching him? Had it been waiting for him to fall asleep? Lucas suppressed a sudden urge to run. Instead, he shifted his concentration to look at its Aura. That was a mistake, it was so much worse. Its Aura was a writhing tangled mass of hatred and malice. It was so dense and twisted that Lucas found himself getting pulled into the morass of its psyche.

The palpable and murderous intent was making Lucas weak at the knees. He averted his eyes, looking at it directly was making it hard to think clearly. There was no way to run, he would trip in the dark or stumble into other monsters. His only option was to fight.

Lucas used Analyse

[https://i.imgur.com/16I8Gwx.jpg]

It was strong. Lucas had 3 strength and it had 5. He didn't know for sure, but that probably meant he would be dead if it got hold of him.

Its Aura flared with aggression and it broke into sudden motion. The firelight revealed leathery skin and dense black body-hair. Thick feet pounded the earth as it bolted at him. A howl tore from its throat, projecting and magnifying the horrible intensity of its Aura. Anticipation of the brutal violence it promised scrubbed his thoughts away with blind terror, overwhelming his defenceless psyche and leaving him utterly helpless as it reached him.

The primate knocked him to the ground effortlessly with an overhead slap, then stood over him. Lucas drowned in the horror of his death unfolding, staring at the creature's hate contorted face as it bellowed its vile psyche over him. Arms descended like great hammers of bone and flesh. The collisions were crushing. One fist caved in ribs and smashed his collar bone, another landed a grazing hit on his face, fracturing his jaw sending his vision spinning madly. The howling died down as great meaty hands wrapped around his neck. With the howling gone, Lucas’ survival instincts snapped to life. He reached and grasped the creature's thumbs before the grip was complete, but its strength was immense and his futile pushing couldn't stop the grip tightening around his throat.

Blood filled his head like a balloon and his eyes bulged like they would burst. His lungs burned, pulling for air with futile desperation. He bent the creature's thumbs at an awkward angle that its superior Strength couldn't resist, but the creature leaned forward and pressed its weight through its wrists into his neck. He screamed internally as his windpipe caved in, crushing against his spine. Pulling with all his might, and writhing with desperate, futile, panic only cemented the realisation. Too strong. It was hopeless. HIs consciousness was fading fast. He thrashed with the wild and reckless desperation found only at the brink of death, every ounce of strength found in the last flickering light of his life was brought to bear.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

[https://i.imgur.com/2MZzPmc.jpg]

Strength surged into wracked muscles, erupting with newfound power. His Aura flared with defiance, expelling every trace of the nightmarish fear that was strangling his soul. Every ounce of this new strength he leveraged against the creature's thumbs. At the last possible moment, before its ligaments snapped, the hominid yanked out of Lucas grip. His lungs pulled fiercely to drag through a crushed windpipe. He rolled over and grabbed a flaming branch. It swung out of the fire, spraying an arc of bright embers into the night. The Primate backed away, slowly and reluctantly, its eyes fixated on him with killing intent.

With madly spinning vision, ringing ears, lungs straining in futile desperation, and the darkness closing in, Lucas stood. He willed a healing potion into his hand and jammed it into his mouth. His throat reformed immediately as his ribs and collarbone snapped and cracked back into place, piercing him with fresh pain that healed immediately. A deep breath cleared his head, and he turned to face the Primate. It had backed out of the firelight, watching him. Its eyes reflecting shifting orange light was the only colour in the black silhouette of its form. Deadly malice burned in its Aura, hotter than ever.

Lucas stared unflinchingly into the swirling maelstrom of hatred. The pattern that its nature emerged from began to unravel. Powerful emotions surged within a loop that had swallowed everything inside. It was not capable of even remembering what it hated in the first place. It was incapable of surrender or relenting. If he escaped it would hunt him till its last breath, driven mad by its own malice. A notification popped up then, but he dismissed it instantly. Killing this thing was his only option, but how? Lucas brought up his inventory. He needed something, anything to give him an edge. All he had was the Rat Fat, which might be flammable even unrefined. He pulled out the Rat Fat and took a deep breath, shook his muscles a little to loosen them, then dropped the burning branch back in the fire.

The resolute fearlessness in his Aura was a challenge the Primate could not ignore, it charged silently back into the light. It was still stronger than him but it wasn't any more agile. The angle of attack was obvious, a big overhead swing like last time. He waited until it was only a few feet away then shot forward inside its reach. The creature's swing went over his shoulder as he slammed a palm full of Rat Fat into its face. It was startled for a split second but quickly wrapped its massive arm around him. He put his leg behind the thing's knee, tilted his body weight, and tumbled with it into the fire as great muscular arms tightened around his chest and arms. The Primate screamed as its thick, greasy body hair ignited, but didn't let go. It tried to get up but without its arms Lucas tripped it over again easily, keeping them both in the fire.

Pain seared into his skin as he was pressed into the coals but the Primates' hairy body blazed. Its twisted psyche was incapable even of fear, and it refused to let go to save itself. It crushed Lucas with all its might as they both lay burning in the fire. Lucas' arms were inside the grip. He fought against the pressure with all his might. The Rat Fat ignited suddenly and the Primate's entire face was engulfed in blazing flame. It wailed and screamed, squeezing even harder. Despite using all his strength to resist, his ribs cracked under the pressure, all the air driven out of him. With nightmarish clarity Lucas felt his own jagged rib bone being forced through his lungs. Blood immediately bubbled up his throat, foaming out of his mouth. He could do nothing but endure as the Primate's face melted away, barely more than an inch from his. Its eyes deflated, their liquid boiling out over its face as the Rat Fat burned hot and long. The massive arms went limp and Lucas rolled out of the fire.

The Primates’ dissipating Aura washed over Lucas as he pulled out the last of his healing potions, chugging it as fast as he could. Bits of still smouldering coal fell out of Lucas’s cracked and weeping skin as a new dermal layer formed underneath. The night lost its nightmarish quality and became calm and quiet, the fire crackling peacefully. Lucas laid on his back next to it and stared up at the stars thoughtlessly, his heart pounding a deafening rhythm in his ears. New popups appeared, but he began to black out.

[https://i.imgur.com/8SNlDHa.jpg]

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