Aya’s POV

I love swimming, it feels so calm, so relaxing. After waiting and chilling in the river bank for a few days I had finally set out to return to my children. Most of my wounds had healed to the point that I could move without bleeding out.

I floated down the river in my full form, my tail lazily moving side to side as I finally exited the human territory. No more politics! No more dealing with annoying children! My kids are so much better! They’re all so polite, so perfect. If the entire world was my children every problem would be solved. World peace would be achieved! Maybe taking over the world isn’t a bad idea?

I smiled as my mind raced with the thought of world domination. I could already see it, me in all my glorious richness, standing atop a throne. Ooh a throne made out of gold! I can see that happening.

I swam for the rest of the day, feeling quite uncomfortable when anything swam right below me. Thankfully I was giant, which means that any creature that isn’t astronomically big could never hope to fight me.

After the day was almost over I saw something that made me smile more than anything else. The river widened. I quickly brought myself onto the coast and began sprinting. All I need to do is run along the entire circumference of the lake, which shouldn't be too hard. Eventually I’ll run into the mud flats. After that it’ll be simple to find the camp

After almost four days I was halfway there. I had mostly scavenged for food during those days although I was still pretty hungry. But every single one of these problems could be ignored. Because I’m almost there, I’m almost home. I can’t wait to hug Linus, cuddle with Diana and wrestle around with Jack and Felix. I can’t wait!

The fifth day starred with me snacking on what might have been a bear. I hadn’t fought it. There seemed to be a corpse no matter where I went. The only consistent thing was that every carcass had its head completely smashed.

Maybe a monster was powerleveling? Not the worst idea, actually that's a really good idea. Maybe I should do that with my kids? But what if that ruins our food sources? Nah can’t risk it. Maybe I’ll go on an expedition one day. I can bring a bunch of hatchlings and get them all to level ten.

Yeah, that sounds pretty nice. I was about to continue my little fantasy when something slammed into my side. I let out a rush of air as I felt bone crack near the impact. I turned and saw a large rock next to me.

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I looked around and saw a shirtless human smiling at me. He raised his hand to throw another rock but I had already jumped into the lake. I dove as deep as I could and moved away, not even turning to look behind me.

After a few minutes I surfaced to gasp for air as I looked back at the shore. The human was still there and looked as though he had just released a throw. It took me a few seconds but I finally realized what he had done. I dove underwater and just barely avoided a rock that would have hit my forehead center mass.

I took a few deep breaths then dove even deeper, moving as fast as I could. After a few more desperate dodges I pulled myself back onto shore and sprinted alongside the coast once again. I was pretty sure he wasn’t following me but I would occasionally swim instead of sprinting to make sure he couldn’t follow my tracks.

Can’t be too careful with those humans. Ugh humans! Why are they all so aggressive? Have they not realized that they can’t just kill everything? At least I know what killed all those innocent delicious monsters.

But still! He had no reason to hit me. I think he cracked a rib! Or several ribs, damn that hurts. But it doesn't matter, all that matters is getting back to my kids. Any amount of pain will be made worth it the second I see them. I wonder how many there are now? Diana has been having kids for over a year now, that's four times however many weeks have passed.

Eh, who cares! I’ll take care of them all. No one is separating us ever again. Should we move away from the lake then? It would be a lot harder to find us, although we would lose our main food source if we did that.

I’ll plan when I get back. I just can’t wait! It only took one more day for me to reach familiar territory. I had patrolled this route when my kids and I had first entered our new home. I sprinted through the underbrush until I made it back to where the camp was.

I burst through the wall of rocks, grass and mud as I looked around the camp. Staring back at me were around eighty mud skink skeletons. I looked around in horror and after seeing one slightly larger skeleton I threw up.

I dry heaved for a few minutes before staggering towards a nearby corpse. I nudged it, trying to see if I recognized whom it had been. I made my way over to a corpse with a long thick tail, similar to how my own had been when I was younger.

Tears began streaming down my face as I stared at the desecrated corpse of Diana. Her skull had been completely smashed and all of her legs had been ripped off. Many of her ribs were also cracked and broken.

Tears freely flowed from my eyes as I collapsed next to her corpse. “My firstborn! My precious baby!” I sobbed as I stared at her corpse. After almost thirty minutes of crying my despair turned into anger.

“Who the fuck did this! Who hurt my baby? Who murdered my children!” After only half a minute of anger it once again turned into despair. Tears streamed down my face as I bowed my head and sobbed out. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

But she didn’t respond. Because all of my kids were dead. Because I had left them. Because I had been kidnapped. I had been stolen away from my kids just to protect some other guys' kids. Those fucking humans! They stole me! They’re the reason I wasn’t here to protect my kids! I’ll fucking kill them all! It’s the humans' fault! And they’re gonna pay! I’m gonna rip them apart! Bastards!

I lashed my tail and started digging a grave. My kids deserve that much. I just wanted to see my kids. I miss them so much. Tears once again fell from my eyes as I quietly muttered. “I just wanted to hug my kids.”