Eventually, the wolf reached my skill’s stomach and its control over me eased some as the creature began to fill and stretch out the muscle lined organ. It wasn’t large enough to fully contain the creature either, just like my mouth had been but digestion of the creature was still triggered to begin regardless. That caused the wolf to redouble its efforts, and my insides did not care for it. A lot of me didn’t care for it and I coughed up a bunch of blood before passing out.

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When I awoke, it was in a dark place filled with the smell of entrails and blood as well as wet smacking and crunching noises as something feasted. I knew something was wrong but my intense hunger from before was sapping my strength and my muscles ached. I forced my body to roll over anyways and prop myself up so I could at least see what was going on.

It took a while before I could make my eyes focus enough to see anything identifiable, but I was eventually able to make out the giant wolf that was in this place with me. It was doing about as well as I was if not worse since there was something tearing chunks of flesh and bone from its side. Its wounds healed continuously so the damage didn’t last but it whined at the continuing abuse. That didn’t sit well with me at all, and I struggle to get up or at least crawl to the creature’s defense. The wolf might have been planning on doing the same to me, but it didn’t deserve to be treated like that.

Nothing did.

“S-stop it!” I tried to call out, but my voice was weak and hoarse, and my throat was dry and painful.

My words did the trick though and got the attention of the creature that was eating the wolf alive. What my still blurry vision had defined as oval blob the color of tan weathered skin, resolved itself to be a vaguely human being. It had all the limbs in the right spots with a recognizable head, chest, waist but everything else was terribly, horrifyingly wrong.

It was like someone had taken a human body, stretched it out, skinned it, removed all its flesh and organs before putting the skin back on the cleaned skeleton. It hugged the creature’s bones like it was shrink wrapped and I could see every one of them under the weathered skin’s wrinkly surface. Once they had done that, they added the fangs and mouths. Yes, I said ‘mouths’

They started with the eyes and replaced them with maws rimed with long sharp fangs instead of lips. Thankfully they were close, so I didn’t have to see what was inside of them. The ‘eye mouths’ bigger brother took up the creature’s lower face, covering where a person’s normal mouth should be and stretching it back to include the cheeks. More, much larger fangs interlocked with each other in lines on the monster’s chest to form an X stretching its shoulders to the bottom of its very visible rib cage. Another connected the center of the X to its waist, dividing its abdomen down the middle.

Finally, to top it all off, it had curved claws like meat hooks tipping every one of its unnaturally long digits. From its fingers to its talonlike toes, the claws were hard, black, and wickedly sharp. I could see them in my mind’s eye gliding through my own flesh like a hot knife through butter as it tore me apart before devouring me piece by piece like it had been doing with the wolf. Thought terrified me but I was resolute as I stared defiantly at it from where I lay on the floor.

“Sssooo, the human finally wakesss. I wasss wondering how long you were going to lay there. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a meal to return to.” The monster commented in a thin whispery voice as I briefly held its attention before turning back to the wolf.

“I said stop it!” I repeated and the monster flinch in response. It turned to glare at me with its eyeless face.

“No.” It told me in challenge.

“Stop. It.” I replied, just as defiant. The creature’s mouths twisted into snarls.

“Would you rather I ate you insssstead?” It asked me. When I didn’t answer, it turned back to the wolf.

“I thou–” It began before I interrupted it.

“Fine. Eat me.” I told it once I was able to get the words to come out. It jumped as my reply startled it and turned back to me to regard me with a thoughtful look.

“How… unexpected. I believe thisss requiresss a bit more civility on my part.” It told me before it started to clean itself up. Long, ropy, purple-red tongues slithered out of its mouths to lap up the gore that had accumulated on its body while it ate.

Once it was clean, it waved one of its hands, and some clothes coalesced into being on its body from the darkness around us. Long pants made out of ragged black cloth covered its lower body, clinging to it from just below its waist to its ankles like a wispy second skin. As for the top part of its outfit, the same wispy darkness clung to its arms and shoulders as it formed into a long, black tailcoat that was equally as ragged and as wispy as its pants. The coat’s split tail hung down behind it to the creature’s calves while leaving the front of its body bare. The ragged edges of the coat’s wide collar flared out around its neck and head and fluttered as it adjusted the coat with a few tugs.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“It has been a while since I had to wear something. Looks like I still got it.” It muttered before turning its attention to me. Its voice had lost its hiss but not its thinness and had acquired something of an archaic lit to it.

“Now, let us take a closer look at you, hmm?” It told me and came my way.

The clicking of its claws as it walked had a certain… fatalness to it that sent a trickle of fear down my spine, but I remain resolute in my decision whatever the outcome might be. When it got to me, it bent and pressed the razor-sharp tip of one of its finger claws to the underside of my chin, forcing me to lift my head or be skewered by it. I didn’t have the strength to resist so it slid through my flesh to hook itself around my jawbone. I grunted in pain as the monster lifted me up on that one claw as it straightens its back and hefted me until I was at eye level with it. It let me hang there for a bit from its claw as it looked me over like I was a carcass to be butchered. The creature had to be 7ft tall at the very least and my feet dangled uselessly far above the floor.

“Hmm, a noble soul… and human at that… so peculiar… You’re not a demon so you couldn’t have been born with this fate…. and yet you lack the required negative karma that would warrant this as a punishment… how odd. What could the system be thinking, I wonder….?” It pondered and I felt one of its tongues lick up the blood that dribbled down my chin and neck from the wound it made. I grimaced at the touch and glared at it as much as I could with it holding me up by the chin.

“And Defiant as well! How delicious~! I might take you up on that offer later~” It exclaimed when it caught sight of the stubborn anger in my eyes before going back to being thoughtful.

“Well, enough of that. Back to the matter at hand. The wolf is Prey. Your Prey that you have Consumed I might add. Consumed prey is meant to be Food. Food is meant to be Digested and turned Fuel for your body. Fuel you most desperately need in your Starved state. And yet you want me to stop. You will die without sustenance; you do know that right? So why won’t you let me help you with this!?” It demanded of me. I knew the answer but with everything going on it felt like an ephemeral thing, slipping through my mind’s fingers like water.

“I-i just… Just stop, please.” I told it, unable to explain what I felt.

“That is not an adequate answer.” It replied and waited patiently for me to say more.

But how could I when I could barely understand it myself. There was a need to it but there was so much more to it than that and yet so simple that words could not do it justice. I didn’t even know where to begin with it and eventually the creature grew tired of waiting.

“Hmm…. it seems like your Starvation is affecting you more heavily than I thought. I can sense you have your answer in there somewhere, you can’t grasp it well enough to put it into words. Looks like I will have to go in there and get it myself.” It told me and lifted its free hand to show off the toothy maw that went diagonally across the palm.

It seemed to enjoy letting me watch as it cracked open the mouth enough for one of its long, thin tongues to snake out between the fangs. It licked my cheek with it before having it clean the blood that had dribbled from my wound down my chin since the last time it had lapped it up. It was hot, wet, and rough against my skin but surprising soft with a gentler touch than the first time. It was oddly ticklish too with its delicate movements and my body flinch in a weak reaction to it.

Once I was clean enough – or if it had finished its ‘snack/tasting of me’ I couldn’t tell which – it palmed my head with its hand mouth against my ear and had its tongue worm its way into my skull. It didn’t hurt any though and was all kinds of weird. But do you know what the worse thing was?

It tickled.

It itched.

And there was nothing I could do about it except grimace, grunt, and wiggle my limbs weakly in protest.

Something that amused the monster greatly, causing it to chuckle as its hand tongue settled into my brain cavity. I could it feel it wandering around in there as it held me by the head, and it felt like the creature was holding my mind in its hand like a book. Its other hand soon joined the first on the other side of my head, unhooking its claw from my jaw before repeating what it had with the first.

With the two tongues settled in my skull, the creature carefully opened the ‘book’ that was my mind and started to riffle through the pages that were made up of my memories and thoughts. It had the lightest touch with them like they were made out the most delicate and fragile of ancient paper that it was loath to damage. I still took offense at the intrusion even though it was practically tiptoeing through my mind, and I mentally tore what it was looking at away from it. That’s when I felt pain like a road rash on my brain and something warm and wet trickle from my eyes. It made a tsking noise in disapproval and disappointment at that and shifted its grip on my mind, so it didn’t hurt so much anymore.

“Now, now, there is no need for that. I was only trying to retrieve the answer you were trying to give me in the first place. Not one thing more or less, I assure you. No need to fight me on this.” It told me and let me take a moment to absorb that before continuing.

“Now, if you will only focus on that answer, I will have what I need and be out of your brain all that much quicker.” It explained to me.