Through some miracle Dante managed to stay standing as the beast threw its weight on top of him. But its claws dug into his breastplate as the giant maw of tentacles wrapped around his helmet, obscuring his face completely. Kahi sprang into action. Scooping up the dead soldier’s sword and smoothly thrusting it deep into the beast’s gut. Rancid remains of its last meal cascaded from the new opening as Dante threw it to the ground, his face now bore a new scar. A deep wound that spanned his whole visage. A giant tear from his left bright blue eye diagonally down in a jagged line, across his nose, and down to the corner of his mouth. Blood poured freely from it.
As the two men stood there, out of breath, adrenaline running high, a gut-wrenching scream of terror erupted from behind them. Kahi’s heart skipped a beat. It was a human. It was Kenu. And she needed his help.
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Kenu’s roar was one of rage. Pure anger, as she stabbed into the beast’s rotting hide. The sear of pain sent it into a frenzy as it flung itself at her, only the soldier’s corpse keeping her from being ripped apart. But it had started to give way underneath the constant onslaught, and the abomination was getting closer. Ever closer. Bit by bit its maw grew bigger in her eyes.
Until finally, it made a lunge for her head.
Kenu reflexively threw her arm up in front of her face.
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A crucial mistake.
The beast’s jaws wrapped around her forearm and began to consume it.
Kenu’s body erupted in pain as she screamed.
A frenzy grew behind her eyes as she helplessly watched her arm disappear inside the beast. Her knife flew with rampant rage into its rotting hide, ripping and tearing holes that revealed its decaying innards.
The beast felt heavier than ever as its legs gave out.
She kept stabbing long after it stopped moving.
Kenu fell back as tears of rage and fear gathered in her eyes. She lay there, arm stuck inside its mouth, fighting for the courage to pull her arm out.
“Come on Kenu, do it now.” Trying her best to ready herself for the grotesque sight.
“Do it now!” She screamed to herself.
Launching into action she pried the beast’s jaws open with her free hand. Picking up the knife and using it to slice off any tentacles that got in her way, she quickly got her arm back.
As she looked at the sorry sight of her chewed up arm something tickled along it. A tiny green worm. Something so small, so obscure, Kenu barely caught sight of it as it wriggled along her arm. She noticed it though. She noticed it because of the excruciating pain that flooded her body as it slowly disappeared inside a cut along her forearm.
She screamed.
Clawing her arm ferociously, she tried desperately to stop its wriggling.
Her vision grew dark as the pain sent her body into overdrive, working to reject the foreign parasite.
And then suddenly.
It stopped.
And it felt right. It felt good, even comfortable. It felt like it was meant to be a part of her. Through the layers of dirt, she saw her wounds closing, sewing themselves back together in the most unnatural way. It was wrong. But it felt so right. She ran her finger along her forearm, not a scar in sight. She should have been panicking. She should be fighting to get that thing out of her. But it already felt like a part of her, and she would not let it come to harm.