Never have I heard an ascalaphus screech before, but damn are they loud.

In my very few encounters, they’ve always been perfectly silent. I’d always thought it was an unnecessary effort, what with the twisting space making sound unreliable. But now that I know of the sciacylch and their incredible hearing, it makes much more sense that their direct predators remain silent.

Also explains why the bats barely reacted before the owl was already within their home.

But the ascalaphus scampers away from me. Wings beating with desperation, it has given up on its silence. Screeches pound through my head with ever-growing intensity. The owl doesn’t stop its yowling, and somehow, the echoes never seem to dim. The volume continues to climb and drown out all else.

After being nearly bisected by my fangs, the owl has grown far more weary. I let out a little hiss that doesn’t reach my ears; not so arrogant anymore, are you? It knows I can catch it, and now shifts its path choice to take it as far away as it can.

But I won’t let it escape.

It has already tempted me too much. I will feast on this bird.

Whether by coincidence, or it has detected my hunger, the ascalaphus’ pained screeches become panicked. For a moment, there is a break in the mounting echoes as the bird chokes on its breath. But only for a moment. Its high-pitched howling quickly claws through the air, stronger than ever.

Only when Scia yelps and holds her ears flat to her head to I realise the endlessly rising sound will be a problem. As I look back, the fleeing sciacylch drop to the ground one after the other. Each pressing their wings hard against their ears in a likely ineffective attempt to deafen the sound.

The effect on the sciacylch is concerning; each is now vulnerable to any other creature that may happen upon them in the thick underbrush. But all I care about is the one riding my head; Scia.

My eyes burn into the back of the ascalaphus. The bird is obviously watching me as it jolts in fear. Even without my presence, I can smell its horror. Only a few moments ago, it treated this like a game. As if it never imagined it possible it could be caught. Now, it has given up on any attempt at the bats. It only flees.

As I look down on Scia in pain, an unfamiliar rage floods my veins.

An unbridled hiss tears through my scaly lips, slicing through the ever-mounting shriek of the owl like a fang through soft skin. My presence enhanced hiss blasts through the air with a visible wave, crushing all other sound.

The ascalaphus pops in a burst of air, appearing only to explode again. The bird reforms over and over, but it cannot escape my pressure flooding every cavern in sight. After a dozen shattered echoes, the owl collapses. Unable to fight the instinctual terror gripping it, the bird’s wings lock and it flies head first into a crystalline wall before slumping to the ground.

My hiss cuts off, but I don’t let up on my pressure over the bird. Its screeches have stopped. Not only that; every sound is gone. My presence-laced hiss has frozen all life in sight. Not even the constant chirps of bugs or the rush of flowing water reach my ears.

Despite the oddness of my surroundings, I never tear my eyes from my prey. In its desperate escape attempt, it made it quite far. Unfortunately for the owl, it can no longer move. With casual slithers through the air, I slowly close the distance.

Everything remains silent. The world around me remains unmoving as I approach my prey, but not everything is frozen. Prey’s eyes, while stiff, stare through a bend directly into mine. There is comprehension there. Hidden beneath a layer of overwhelming terror, the ascalaphus understands its folly. It knows it made a mistake facing me. But it is too late for regrets.

I slide to a stop before it. The ascalaphus landed amongst a number of large, semi-transparent crystals. In fact, they fill every crevice within the cavern. The owl lays, without even a twitch, prostrated between two hard crystals. Condensed mist continues to flow from the wounds along its back and tail, but it no longer shows any sort of awareness of the pain.

All it can focus on… is me.

My jaw widens, and I swallow the elemental whole.

The taste is… non-existent. I can feel it go down with the solidity of any other creature, but with a consistency of mostly air, it has barely any weight to it. Surprisingly enough, despite having no meat, the meal is still filling.

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The sound of water trickling in the distance returns, soon followed by all other constant noises as the world remembers to move.

A belch retches its way up my throat just as Scia moves again. Maybe a bit too much air in my stomach. Scia just squeaks and covers her nose. I’m sure she’s exaggerating. My breath isn’t that bad. But it is good to see no lingering effects from my presence or the ascalaphus’ ever-increasing sound. Scia brushes it off as if it didn’t happen.

I shake my head, but another bubble of air rumbles out of my mouth in a loud burp. Scia chirps, giggling at my unrestrained expulsion. She climbs over my head, still clutching her snout, and settles in along my back. Out of direct proximity to the gas from my stomach, she breathes deep.

The elemental finally begins to struggle, having snapped out of the petrifying fear. For a moment, I worry that it will return to another of its echoes and escape. But it doesn’t. The ascalaphus continues to struggle in vain against my stomach acids that work away and digest its living body.

As alive as the owl is, I know I’ll be in for a rough few sleeps. The last time I ate an elemental was horrid. Back then, eating the being whole was the only way I could kill it. Constriction barely worked and my teeth slid through the being like water. But this ascalaphus is not as bound to its element as that creature had been. Hopefully, it succumbs soon.

I slump over the hard crystals that once supported my prey. The post-feast lethargy hits me, but it isn’t nearly as strong as usual. I wonder why? Is the Ōmukade still fuelling my veins, or do ascalaphi simply not fill me up enough to need much rest? Whatever the reason, I’m grateful; I’ve still got to check on Scia’s kin.

Well, I will do that… but right now, I just want to slouch here. I won’t sleep, but I’ll take a few moments to relax after that effort.

The cavern I find myself in is filled with crystalline formations. Not a rock to be seen. The hard, sharp crystals grow from each wall and slice through many bends in the limited space. They are slightly transparent, but not so much that I can see through to their base.

What I find particularly interesting, is that the same spatial ripple emanates from these crystals as I saw given off by the countless flying bugs beyond the Labyrinthine Passages and what filtered down through the massive rock-voided column. Interesting, because I’ve been to plenty of crystal outcroppings like this in the past, but never have I seen this effect.

Is this crystal cave different? Or is it like with the sciacylchs’ folded space and I only recognise it because I know what to look for?

Most of Scia’s kin are up and about again. I watch as they congregate near another secluded cavern corner and begin to fold space to their colony’s preference. I don’t miss the glances Scia sends their way.

Oh… right. She probably got separated from her kind before I found her in the clutches of that centipede. Now that she’s found them — whether they are the same colony or a different one — Scia will want to join her kin, won’t she?

I tear my focus from her longing gaze and stare into the crystal beneath me. The effort blocks out most of my sight of the distorted world around me, except for some small bends within the crystal that alter the direction of growth within the solid.

Things have been changing so quickly around me recently. My mind is a constant flux of conflicting emotions and alien thoughts that I have no idea how to deal with. Ever since I gained sapience… no, things didn’t change immediately once my mind grew to what it is. Ever since the Titan destroyed my home and I met Scia, my thoughts have been yanked every which way.

At first, I thought sapience was a gift. It was something I earned over countless hunts, evolving and adapting until clarity reached me. Then, when the emotions that came with that intelligence hit me all at once, I couldn’t handle it. I still can’t. They all seemed horrible; more of a curse than a gift.

But now, after travelling with Scia, I’m starting to understand that there is more to the package of emotions than what I’d originally assumed. Sure, there are horrid feelings woven into my mind along with sapience, but there are also emotions that feel… good.

How could I have ever known that having someone that wants to save me would incite warmth and gratitude? Me, a powerful apex predator being rescued by one of the smallest and weakest critters. It simply doesn’t make sense. But I cannot deny that I’ve come to enjoy Scia’s company, and having her with me makes me… happy.

Which makes the current situation all the more painful.

With her family here to return to, Scia will leave me. By all means, this is a good thing; she’ll get to live in safety with the other sciacylch, while I won’t need to worry about the danger she’ll be in travelling with me. It should be for the best… but I hate it. I don’t want her to leave my side.

Is this how Scia always felt when I would try to abandon her? I hope not; this is horrible.

Try as I might, the thoughts keep swirling in my mind. This gut retching fear of being left alone is what I put her through? I shouldn’t even feel this in the first place; I’ve been alone for so long, why do I fear to return to those times? Why do I care that I’ve inflicted this fear upon another?

A thought occurs to me: I can just stop her from leaving me. I’ll wrap her in my tail and slither away until she has no chance to find her family again. If she cannot find them again, then she’ll never leave my side.

The plan is solid… but I could never do so. Every scale of my being screams in refusal. The idea that Scia would hate me for doing so is not a thought I can avoid. Between Scia leaving to rejoin her kin, and leaving because of resentment, there is no debate.

As much as I want to continue laying here forever to put off the inevitable, Scia’s curious gazes to her family grow ever more desperate. I rise from the crystal and slowly slither toward the colony. If I don’t, Scia might very well leave on her own. The least I can do is watch her off.