The sun was setting slowly as Zambina and many like her prepared for the task ahead. Most of them had never participated in the hunt but all felt drawn to it, could feel their senses heightening as the scent of cooling air and night time slowly enveloped their world.

The world was large, insurmountable and so vastly unexplorable that it would take more generations than any of her people could fathom to explore but a minuscule fraction of it despite their ability of flight. All of her people seemed either born with the knowledge of this truth or completely blind to it; either way her people never truly embraced any sentiment other than survival because of it. At this they were masters, they had existed in relatively similar shape even before the eons of the great immortal dwellers began, off of which they fed themselves compulsively now and at great risk to themselves.

They survived in numbers to allow for this now necessary habit to continue. Before the time of immortals they lived in a world of plenty and called themselves the Mozimme. While survival has always rung true to their sense of purpose throughout the eons, once upon a time they lived off of the bounty of the land, as many of the tribes did across the generations. But then at some point in their long history, greater creatures revealed themselves to exist upon the world and destroyed their habitat simply by existing. Some fought, some fled, many died regardless, but nothing they did had any impact on the immortals at all.

Some of these creatures were bigger, some more grotesque, some slower in their inevitable destruction; but always their presence was unanimously felt and feared across the vast world.

As night was turning full, the air was filling with the scent of the hunt; a totally intoxicating miasma of heavy smells that told the present Mozimme that immortals were going dormant. Not all would be dormant at the same time, but the majority did and the stench the dormant ones emitted was so strong and foul that it attracted Mozimme attention from beyond the visual range. They were tiny and completely neglectable compared to the ones they were hunting, but this was the way now, it was all they could do to survive.

Zambina was one of the first to arrive within viewing distance of the dormant colossus at the centre of the miasma. Many more were gathering, forming a cloud around though staying firmly clear for now. This was the calm moment before the storm, where all Mozimme still sane enough to fear would get melancholic and philosophical while the ones already driven mad by the smells were simply waiting for someone else to charge first.

Zambina herself had been part of only one hunt prior and stood on a mental knife edge between dread and lust.

This compulsion is horrible, she thought to herself, so few of us will make it.

She was referring to the hunt she had been a part of and was fortunate to survive, along with only a fraction of this hunt's participants.

Dormant, as everyone knew, was but a concept, a spawn in a mind slowly losing to uncontrollable need for action. While the immortals barely seemed to register anything or anyone as they reshaped the environment to their whims, they generally reacted with deadly force towards pestering. The nature of the hunt was barely a nuisance to them, while to the surviving Mozimme this was a slaughter.

The children, she thought as the last Mozimme reached the cloud that had now assembled at a safe distance around a mountain-like silhouette, my children...

This was the last sober thought she could muster before she, like an increasing number of her peers, succumbed to a luring drum beat. She charged in becoming lost in the swarm that had become the drunken Mozimme tribe.

Zambina didn't know why this ritual that felt engraved into their existence was necessary, and neither did anyone else alive. Not even if they had more time between hazes for survival could anybody have figured it out at this point.

In the early days, when the immortal's devastation was new and fresh, all life had trouble with the new order. Resources were becoming scarce, drinkable water, food and even shelter of any kind had been so hard to find in the wake of their settlement.

In the early days the scarcity drew many creatures to their death, though some learned to live around the immortals; live off of death and corpses.

The many creatures who didn't turn to death for life, of which the Mozimme were one, got violent and aggressive and tried to turn their frustrations against their disinterested oppressors.

It was in one of these pointless and crushing defeats that the Mozimme alone found the key to their survival.

During the battle that led to their salvation one of the largest armies the Mozimme had assembled charged at what they thought would be easy prey. It was smaller than most immortals they had seen and sluggish too, seemingly harmless. Sadly, its appearance was no indication of its threat. What seemed to move like a glacier at first turned into a rushing waterfall and was equally deadly. The immortal had noticed the army charging and with a trembling howl of glee it changed the course of its entire body to inspect the army. In doing so it had crushed a large portion of the army as well as sent a great deal of Mozimme flying around, little more than a mess of fear remained where mere moments ago there had stood an army.

What the Mozimme could only vaguely call a face by stretch of logic was now moving in on the remaining army, eclipsing them entirely from any and all light.

Silence took over for only a moment and time seemed to slow down, as the remaining army collectively stopped breathing.

The moment was broken with a howl that shook the air itself and pushed the army to its knees.

In what most Mozimme felt would be their last moments they charged at the gigantic face before them in a fury only those ignorant or accepting of death could do. The surface of the immortal's face was getting completely covered in angry warriors doing their best to cause any damage they could with all their might.

While they certainly were breaching the surface of what might have anatomically been called the skin of the immortal, it remained entirely motionless during their heartfelt moment. So much dark ooze was covering them entirely as they tired themselves out attempting to hurt a mountain.

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As if by a delayed reaction the immortal seemed aware of its face covered in a swarm of creatures and that, certainly more than the damage they were inflicting it, caused the immortal to howl once more, at the ground in front of it, sending remaining patches of the army on the ground flying away. With a patch of ground cleared the immortal smashed its face into the ground several times before marching off, its face scraping the ground, stomping more Mozimme to death as it ran off; returning to a slow glacier-like crawl some distance away, slowly shedding corpses along the way.

The army was defeated and many soldiers who weren't dead could no longer will themselves to stand. The bodies of the survivors and dead alike were covered in a mixture of fluids belonging to Mozimme and the immortal both. The dead were unaffected, of course, but the injured and living, those who would and wouldn't make it alike were, according to them, being burned from the inside out by the ooze that mixed with their own fluids.

The burning caused so much pain that the Mozimme who were afflicted could not vocalise their pain and simply squirmed and fidgeted around the three craters which were entirely occupied by death. The few scattered survivors, who were not injured in any major way by having been blown away or simply lucky enough to be at the outer edges of their formations, made their way to try to help survivors and wounded. They hurried and scattered around the battlefield only to find there were many corpses in the sea of ooze but no wounded. Those who survived the burning were healing, their wounds slowly fading away as their silent agonising horizontal dance continued.

The small crowd of survivors that had assembled to help could only watch in horror as their previously wounded friends and family got up slowly and without a sound, in a daze, and started to uncontrollably and awkwardly move towards the corpses and throw themselves into the ooze that the creature had expelled.

In both a moment of absolute disgust and fascination the remaining sane Mozimme had begun to understand, there was a way to survive, a cruel and crude way, but a viable way nonetheless, and began reluctantly consuming the ooze along with their hypnotised comrades, giving into the madness of the new way.

The battle had been an utter defeat and massacre until this exact moment.

Zambina and the rest of the swarm charged in on the still mountain from all sides alerting it to their presence. A lot of Mozimme charged in at the foot of the silhouette trying to make a quick drain at a seemingly low risk area but the immortal appeared to be aware of this attempt and rolled around several times causing great gales. None of those who attempted the drain so early made it but the swarm as a whole was largely unaffected and continued to make jabs as best they could. Enough Mozimme managed to get those jabs and draw some ooze on their weapons but a lick could neither placate or quench their maniacal bloodlust bred over countless generations, nor would it feed them; it was but a taste.

The immortal seemed gleeful while from the darkness rose many unidentifiable appendages to swipe the swarm apart. This allowed quite a few of them to drain from below and get their fill while others were caught up above. The battle would continue to keep the immortal occupied as more hunters made their own attempts to satiate their lust for ooze.

Zambina was one of those who had the fortune of being lower when the gleeful slashing began and found a vertical patch to drain ooze from. She stabbed uncontrollably at the thick surface till fluid oozed out, dripping down, intoxicatingly diving her face without hesitation, drinking it to her heart's content. As the hunger faded she gained some clarity, considering those still enthralled by madness and bloodlust all around her. The ooze vein she had created attracted more hunters to her spot and she was quickly pushed aside. The battle up above continued furiously with heaving winds carrying a hail of corpses.

As she caught herself with her wings, mid gale, she noticed how the immortal had become occupied with the spot she had just drank from and decided to fly back a bit as the battle continued whimsically from up above. The piercing and unblinking gaze of the dark mountainous giant eclipsing them could be clearly felt, focused entirely on the vein currently driving a horde of Mozimme lustfully insane to feast. Zambina herself had started slowly moving away from the maddening mist, having quenched her lust enough to break some of the hold which the fragrance of battle and night had on her.

All the while her attention remained with the vein, the numerous fellow Mozimme that were uncontrollably drawn to it and the eyes darting them all; she could not break away completely.

As soon as no more Mozimme could fit around the source of nourishment, the eyes faded from its insurmountable body of darkness and within a singular moment the sight of the Mozimme feasting was replaced by that of the appendage that had come down upon them. The entire group were no more, vanquished as if they were nothing. Though as unlucky as that may have seemed to her in the moment, Zambina knew this is what allowed her, and a few other lucky ones, the opportunity to eventually disengage from the battle.

As she got further away from the miasma of the battle she was still mentally trying to untangle herself from, she sought a place of safety to digest, far away from that noxious aroma, letting the entire hunt become a hazy and distant foggy memory.

The hunt would continue savagely for hours longer; till the immortal lost interest, once the swarm had thinned to near non-existence, and it would stop deliberately moving with heavy intent, using all its might to devastate them all with ease.

Those who would still be alive by that point and had yet to satisfy their lust and hunger would be driven to irrationally continue seeking their fill, squirming and zipping despicably around the mountain looking for fresh enough veins gulp on, often ending poorly for those unlucky few.

Back in the day it had taken much time for all Mozimme to learn of the new way. All who heard of it were desperate enough to consider the possible rewards if they were in great enough numbers. Those who witnessed the survivors of the first great battles were at a loss for words. This was because all survivors were impressive, for better and worse. The survivors looked stronger and certainly healthier than anyone scraping for survival and all had an air of serenity to them, as if they had found a great truth or peace. At the same time they were undoubtedly haunted, and not solely by war and the carnage that they survived; there was something sinister and nuanced in their eyes.

Eventually more Mozimme caught on, finding little solace in the world and the threat unceasing and looming, until after generations they could no longer separate themselves from the immortals. Those who did not consume the ooze would weaken, die of incidence at the immortal's whims, or simply whither. Failure to produce viable offspring, too, marred those who refused the ooze. Eventually their dependency had turned the ooze into their entire identity over the eons of coexistence.

As Zambina settled in a damp but sheltered spot she had found far away from the battle, she laid her eggs in clusters out of sight. When she was done she recalled the eyes in horror.

They enjoy this?

It all seemed so cruel to her.

My children.

It was not long before this would be her direct and only concern, as it was with others who might have survived tonight. She would have many children, all of whom would go through this ordeal just like she did.

Somewhere deep inside she wanted and needed more; if only she had a real way of expressing what it was. At this point no Mozimme really had the means or tools of expressing much of anything, dancing from drunken haze to licentious fornication on repeat, either succeeding to try again or dying.

But not her, no more. With her limited tools she would teach her children. Give them the first words of a story to be crafted over eons with the immortals. It would be a battle cry, an identity, that humble unmistakable sounds of her people:

MMMZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZMMMMMM. She vibrated her wings rapidly as the thoughts warmed her heart.

*SPLAT* A fist came down out of nowhere.