Draemir returned to the small, dusty bedroom tucked behind the throne, where he collapsed onto the bed, exhausted from the day of tense waiting. He could feel the hunger gnawing at him more sharply now, an insistent ache that water alone couldn’t dull. With nothing left to do, he shut his eyes and let himself drift into a fitful sleep.
When he woke, the world outside was still dark, the storm a constant, rumbling presence. He lay there for a moment, gathering his thoughts, and then stood, his resolve hardening. He made his way back to the entrance hall, to the temple’s heavy stone doors, where he settled into his now-familiar routine: waiting, listening, feeling for any sign of the beast.
It didn’t take long.
That oppressive feeling crept over him again, a chill crawling up his spine as he sensed the creature lurking just beyond the rain, pacing around the temple like it had the day before. He couldn’t see it, couldn’t even hear it, but he knew it was there. The sheer weight of its presence made the air thick, stifling, as if the storm itself was holding its breath.
‘Still there,’ he reminded himself grimly. He had hoped, foolishly, that maybe it would have wandered off overnight, that it would’ve grown bored of this silent standoff. But no. The creature was patient. Relentless. Waiting, just as he was.
Yet, something was different this time. The presence wasn’t as heavy as it had been yesterday. Enduring the terror all day had built up some kind of resistance within him, like a muscle he hadn’t realized he was exercising. It still sent chills through his body, still made his instincts scream at him to run, to hide, to do anything but stand in the open doorway, but at least he could move now. He wasn’t paralyzed by fear anymore.
The creature was still terrifying, its aura making him feel like he was constantly under watch, as if every shadow in the temple hid something monstrous waiting to pounce. But at least he could breathe, could think. If he had a little more time, maybe he’d be able to ignore the feeling entirely. Maybe he could even manage to face it, to make his way through the storm without that fear tearing him apart.
But time was exactly what he didn’t have.
‘Hm,’ he thought, his gaze fixed on the swirling rain outside, steeling himself. ‘I might die… but at least I’ll die fighting some enormous abomination.’
In a twisted way, the thought gave him comfort. There was something almost noble about it, something that felt like it had meaning. If he had to die, better it be to a creature of myth and terror than to starvation in an empty temple or to some petty, mundane threat in the outskirts.
He imagined himself in a gladiator arena, facing down the beast, sword in hand, defying it until his last breath. In his mind, he saw himself standing tall, fighting with everything he had, eventually succumbing to his wounds but leaving a mark, a memory of courage and defiance.
But the vision faded quickly. He wasn’t in an arena. He didn’t have a sword. He wasn’t a warrior or a hero. He was just Draemir, a half-starved orphan with no plan and no real weapons, standing on the threshold of a storm that hid a monster larger than anything he’d ever seen.
The reality of it weighed down on him, but he felt his conviction harden. He didn’t have a choice anymore. Every path led to the same place. He would either starve here, waste away in a forgotten temple dedicated to a dead god, or he would die out there, in the storm, facing down the creature that had haunted him since he’d arrived.
‘Well. No time like today.’
With that, he took a breath and made his decision. He was going to face the beast. He would step into the storm and walk toward the unknown, whether that meant encountering—or running from—the creature. Either way, he knew he was walking to his death. But if he was going to die, he’d rather die fighting for his life, facing something that felt like it mattered.
There was a strange peace in that thought. He was hungry, exhausted, terrified—but he felt clearer than he had in days.
‘Better the beast,’ he thought, ‘than to wither away in silence.’
‘Maybe it knows how to kill without pain,’ Draemir thought grimly as he prepared himself for whatever was waiting out there.
He took a moment to gather his things—His mud-caked boots, now mostly dried but still battered from days of trudging through the storm and temple floors, his now dry water- and mud-stained clothes clinging to his thin frame… and that was it. He had nothing else. No weapon, no armor, no keepsake, not even a scrap of food.
With a resigned sigh, he glanced around the temple interior, hoping he’d somehow missed something useful, anything he could bring with him into the storm.
‘…’
Nothing.
‘I hate this place,’ he thought bitterly. Days of searching, of scouring every dusty, abandoned room, and he’d found absolutely nothing to help him. Not a single tool, not a weapon, not even a torch, since it would extinguish the moment he stepped foot out there. This temple had offered him nothing but water and worthless poetry.
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He took a final look around, a strange, twisted sense of closure washing over him. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting—a surge of gratitude? A sense of reverence for this ancient place? He felt none of that. Just frustration, bitterness, and a bone-deep exhaustion.
“Thank you for helping,” he muttered dryly to the empty, echoing halls. “…I won’t miss you. You’ve helped nothing.”
With that, he headed back to the storm, stopping just outside the doorway. The air was thick, heavy with the scent of rain and the raw electricity that crackled through the sky. Thunder boomed overhead, rolling across the wasteland like some cosmic drum, and the wall of rain in front of him seemed endless, a dark, impenetrable curtain hiding whatever lay beyond.
He took a deep breath, gathering the last shreds of his courage, then turned his gaze back to the storm and raised his voice, addressing the creature he knew was lurking just out of sight.
“You!” he shouted, his voice raw with frustration and defiance. “You are a vile creature! If not for my desire to end this hell before I watch myself die slowly over the coming days, I would happily waste away inside that temple just to deny you the pleasure of tasting me!”
His fists clenched, anger bubbling up as he let out every bitter thought he’d been holding in. “I’m sure I taste great! But you… you are a relentless, gluttonous, despicable beast!”
As his voice faded into the storm, he felt it—the return of that crushing aura, that suffocating weight that pressed down on his skin like an iron shackle. The air grew thick, oppressive, and the rain itself seemed to still, as if holding its breath.
And then… the storm quieted. The thunder softened, the downpour eased, leaving only a low, ominous rumble. He felt the chill of its gaze settle on him, more intense than before, more aware. The creature had heard him. He could feel it—its attention like a dark, palpable force that wrapped around him, pinning him in place.
Draemir swallowed, his heart pounding in his chest as he stared into the wall of rain, his final words hanging in the air.
This was it. The storm was waiting. And so was the beast.
Without looking back, he stepped forward and down onto the first step of the temple, letting the rain wash over him, and walked entered the storm.
There were a few things Draemir had told himself he’d try as he stepped down from the last stone step of the temple and into the mud. He’d imagined strategies, thought through plans, clung to any shred of hope that he could find a way to survive this encounter.
But the second he entered the storm, those ideas vanished like smoke.
The darkness pressed in, his vision diminishing almost immediately as the rain fell harder, colder, turning everything around him into a blur. He couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him, just as it had been the first time he’d walked into this endless deluge. Still, he forced himself forward, sinking knee-deep into the thick, sucking mud. He’d hoped, absurdly, that if he just ran—just threw himself into the storm—he might somehow find an escape, a way to outrun the monstrous thing lurking just beyond the edge of his sight.
But reality crushed that hope in seconds.
The mud clung to his boots, pulling him down, slowing his progress to a painful crawl. The cold rain pelted his face, stinging his skin, seeping through his already soaked clothes. The wind howled around him, and for a few fleeting moments, all he could hear was the roar of the storm.
And then the pressure intensified, even more than what he had felt.
It was as if the air thickened, the storm itself recoiling as the creature drew near. The weight of that presence settled on him, heavier than it had ever been. His heart thundered in his chest, his breaths coming shallow and fast. He knew, instinctively, that his time was up. The storm had receded for one reason only—to give space to the thing that had come for him.
It wasn’t long before he felt it.
A low vibration pulsed through the ground, a tremor that traveled up his legs, reverberating through his whole body. He could feel it even through the mud, a steady, rhythmic shudder that grew stronger with each passing second. The vibrations started on his right, then slowly swept to his left, as if the beast was circling him, boxing him in, making it clear that he had nowhere to run.
He slowed, his legs going weak, and then came to a complete stop. Around him, the rain eased, the curtain of water pulling back just enough to grant him a small bubble of visibility—ten feet, maybe less. But it was enough.
‘Wow.’
He could barely process what he was seeing. All around him, in a circle that stretched beyond the edges of his vision, was a wall of scales. Thick, black, glistening scales, each one overlapping the next like pieces of armor. The massive body encircled him, disappearing back into the storm, but what he could see was enough to understand the scale of the creature he was dealing with. The section of the serpent he could see was already massive, towering feet above him, and this was only a small part of it. The beast had to be hundreds of feet long.
And then he looked up.
Above him, the rain parted further as the massive head of the snake emerged from the wall of storm. First came the snout, dark and glistening, then the cold, unblinking eyes, each the size of a grown man’s head. The scales on its face were darker than night, onyx black, reflecting the faint flashes of lightning from the storm. Rain bounced off the scales, dripping down in rivulets, making the beast look like it was made of liquid shadow.
The head alone was wide enough to swallow him whole.
Draemir could only stare, frozen in place, as the snake gazed down at him. The aura he had felt from within the temple had been a mere hint of its true presence. Here, standing right before it, the weight of its power was like an avalanche, pressing down on him, making it hard to breathe. It was beyond anything he’d ever experienced, beyond terror. He was like an insect under a giant’s foot, helpless, insignificant, a heartbeat away from being crushed.
In the end, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. In the face of something like this, there was no surviving. No human alive could face this creature and live to tell the tale.
The snake’s head shifted, angling slightly, and Draemir watched, almost detached from himself, as the beast’s mouth began to open. Rows of gleaming, razor-sharp teeth lined its jaws, each one long enough to skewer him in a single strike. The jaws widened, revealing a dark cavern beyond, and he knew, with a surreal calm, that this was the end.
Time seemed to slow as the creature lunged, its mouth descending toward him. The world faded, the rain, the storm, everything disappearing as his life flashed before his eyes—fragments of memories, of small, quiet moments, of dreams that now felt absurdly distant.
His mind clung to one last thought: ‘At least I fought to the end. At least I didn’t wait to wither away.’