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Mathew Manaborn
A False End

A False End

I looked out over the valley and felt a mixture of emotions; fear, excitement, and wonder. I saw many differences in the landscape. The ground here was covered in short green hairs, and the nearby forest had white trees in contrast to what I'm used to. Most importantly, there were beasts covering the valley, not thinking, not friendly, and not like me. The beasts were a diverse group, but all were far larger than the one I had slain.

I was far from tall, my chin only ever leveled with the wolf's forehead. "The wolf was a runt." I realized. It was stuck at the river because if it went to the lake the bigger beasts would have eaten it. With that realization came a scarier thought, "If that wolf had made such wounds and it was weak, than that means now I'm the weakest thing here.

The lake, the centerpiece of this valley. Besides for the white trees sparsely covering the land the lake was the only land feature to be found throughout this rugged landscape. I could not see the end of the lake but I could see hulking uh well I could only describe them as monsters. I made a swift mental distinction. There were both beasts and monsters, beasts are natural and intelligent, not like me but on some primal level they could at least reason. Monsters were different, stronger, and discordant.

I saw one, a grotesque being, bipedal with a wolfen face, top fangs stretched down to the knee with claws about a fourth of that size. It leapt towards a plump beast of four legs, with a fluffy drooping tail and a thick green coat of fur. The monster slashed out, claws as big as my torso slamming into the unassuming bear, fear glinted in the eye of the beast as it's coat stained crimson. The monstrous freak of nature tore into the beast, ripping it apart, chunks of bear flesh flying from the struggling animal.

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Once the monster was dead, the beachy land surrounding the faraway corner of the lake was painted red. There was no longer an animal, all that remained was scattered organs, chunks of flesh, and Intestines. A massacre, that was what this was. Not a fight, a massacre. I resolved to stick to the animals for now.

My hopes were shattered as the monster, from a distance where, if you were to lay me flat and use that as a unit of measure, you could fit 2000 of me if not more, looked straight at me. "oh damn"

It began sprinting at me and I Sprinted away. The world blurred behind me as my reflexes triggered, drawing magic from my reserve to my leg allowing me to run faster. With the boost provided by my mana I was running toward the white forest faster than the monster could chase me. I made it to the forest but didn't stop running. I ran and ran until I was out of mana and out of breath. I doubled over, entirely out of breath. I devoured the meat off the wolf leg I had carried along. I realized the the bone was harder than my fist and punching things hurt so I chose to swing it as a weapon.

As I turned around I realized running hadn't been a good choice after all. I don't know how it found me, but as I peered through the foliage of crawling purple vines and bushes with faintly glowing leaves, a pale, ghostlike shade of white, the ungodly beast caught up to me. It would seem running is no longer a valid option. I swung the bone at its head as its claws closed in on mine.

We both fell to the floor, dead.

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