The crack of gunfire and the whizzing of bullets overhead greeted me every time someone popped their head out to take a potshot. The trench I sat in was ankle-deep in brackish water with only a few men left from our previous forces. How long have we fought this losing battle, I could no longer remember. A brother laid at my feet, his face burnt and blistered with his eyes nothing but hollow sockets, I suppose I don’t look much better though. The frequent gas attacks have left my skin a tapestry of scars and wounds, not even my face was spared. To my side, there was a sea of bodies all with various grievous wounds. Many of the men, no boys, were not even old enough to drink before they kicked the bucket. I'm sure many of the weapons that reaped their souls were also operated by such boys. The whistling of artillery woke me from my stupor, I quickly braced myself before defining explosions started to ring out all around me. Suddenly a shell hit in the trench sending me flying. BURNING LUNGS. SIZZLING SKIN. I was now on my back, my ears ringing. I felt so tired, surely a quick nap won’t harm anyone right? As I closed my eyes and prepared to dose off a sudden kick hit my side. Quickly opening my eyes I found my once thought dead eyeless brother standing above me. He bent down and started moving his face close to mine and started chanting in a raspy hoarse voice, “KAR EN TUK”
He chanted it over and over with such force I could hear him with my ruptured ears. Blood started leaking from his mouth as he continued with more voices joining him. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore so I covered my ears, closed my eyes, and screamed, then... I awoke.
My eyes opened to a setting moon, my mind was a bit foggy as I looked around, I was in a blood-soaked clearing covered in the remnants of bodies. It seems my hunger took over and I lost control. It's been a while since I had a blood hunt but I’ve had worse. I rose and studied my mess. I usually drank the blood first as I don’t want evidence of my existence but I guess I was hungrier than I first thought. There was enough coagulating blood scattered around for around five of the deer I had first come across.
Now that I think about it this isn’t the clearing I started in. I sighed and made my way over to the first of five partial corpses, its haunches were missing and its body cavity was hallowed. The only thing left was bone but even then most of them were broken. Thankfully I had enough sense at the time to save their heads and a few vertebrates, they will be useful very soon. I sat down and started quickly weaving a rope and a bag. I hade always found the art of weaving to be calming and meditative. In a couple of minutes, I had a five-foot rope and a sack large enough to carry the vertebrae, ribs, and leg bones of the deer.
After finishing I collected the bodies and put them in a pile, I had four heads, around three deer worth of vertebrae, and about three and a half deer worth of ribs and leg bones. Overall better than what I was expecting from the blood hunt. I tied the rope around the antlers on each head and made a crude necklace, two heads hung on my chest and two on the back. I proceeded to place the other stuff into my new bag and tied it up with the excess rope. Slinging the bag over my shoulder I was careful to avoid puncturing it on the antlers.
With light steps, I glided up the trail of destruction created by the stampeding deer. I have always preferred to be stealthy over guns a blazing, but sometimes I don’t get to have input on my actions. Not too far away from the clearing, I found another deer carcass that was laying on top of a felled tree, actually... I think wrapped around would be a better description. I must have slammed it into the small pine while I was still chasing the small herd. Not wanting to waste food I carefully unwrapped it and withdrew my knife to skin it. As I was separating the hide from the flesh I got a good chance to examine the animal.
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Starting from the feet and moving up the leg, it had two-pronged hooves about the same as a normal deer but one and a half times larger. Its legs have a normal digitigrade structure but the back seemed to have a lot more muscle than usual and the shoulder blades were huge, much bigger than they needed to be. The hide was also much thicker than it had any right to be, almost 7 centimeters thick, to put that into perspective the upper end of rhino hide is only around five centimeters thick. The body was well built and relatively normal compared to the rest of the animal.
Starting from the shoulders a mane of pitch-black hair concealed the neck, and the head was a bit bigger than normal prey animal. It had forward-facing eyes, a sign of a predator, and a large mouth filled with sharp dagger-like teeth. The antlers were standard but there was a large pointed black horn in the middle of its forehead. All in all, it would have stood up to five feet, measuring to the shoulder, and weighed almost five hundred pounds. It was obviously built like a predator with forward-facing eyes, strong back legs, and a mouth with two rows of sharp needle-like teeth.
After my examination of the animal, I have concluded, I am no longer on my planet. The first thing that clued me off was obviously the giant red moon, the one I was used to was a silvery grey. Not only that the pines around me were almost the size of redwoods, each would need three or four people holding hands to wrap around. The fauna is also not normal, the only hoofed predators I know look more like dogs. Even then those dogs were spirits who choose that form and not actually animals.
I could also feel a strong magic in the air, it seemed like the world itself was producing an abundance of it. To my knowledge magic rarely, if ever, stays ambient in the air naturally. I could even sense several sprites frolicking through the treetops, a true rarity. After shaking myself out of my line of thought I finished skinning the pseudo deer.
After packing away the hide I began my feast, no use in drinking the blood first considering I left a whole clearing full. I first tore into the guts and worked my way up to the heart, my favorite, then proceeded to devour the leg muscles and back straps. Next was the shoulder muscles, neck, and breast. After pondering about it I l decided to save the brain, eyes, and tongue. The eyes could be used for scrying and the brain can be ground up into a powder. That when mixed with some herbs and burnt will cause temporary psychosis and extreme paranoia.
After my feast I began up the trail again but stopped when I smelled something interesting, It seems like my night is not over just yet. I sat down my bag and necklace then began slowly walking towards my new prey, careful not to make a peep. As I slowly advanced I dropped to all fours and willed my bones to break and morph, I could feel my feet shrinking and becoming hooves. My body started growing deep brown hair and the top of my head split apart to reveal a new set of antlers. A smile slowly appeared on my new lips as I cracked a chuckle, it seems like my fun was only just beginning.