Remembered tension pinned their feet and their bodies froze at the same time. It was coming fast, she remembered Tessa’s shout.

She could scarcely breathe let alone conceive how to get everyone else away. She closed her eyes and hoped the others did the same. All she could do was trust in Jessy’s ability.

She lost sight of the rising towers and growing platform. She followed its approach with raised ears and her light. It poured around the corner a flood of pumping limbs, then froze.

Her heart stopped and focused on its shape, It inched forward on its long misaligned appendages, straight at them. Its influence weighed on her thoughts but she lifted a ginger hand to grasp her bat, for what little good it would do.

It closed and Summer’s muscles strained to still her trembling body. It didn’t see them, it was walking towards the light she preached like a litany. It walked past them its long legs striking inches away from her shaking companions. Yet none spoke or moved more than terror demanded.

Then Tessa fell with a deafening thump, into a curled heap she remembered from the apartment. Through her vague sense, Summer felt Tess’s gaze remain fixed on the still monster above her.

It raised a long limb, and Summer’s fear found a new anchor. Her hat crashed into the leg beside her, before thought jittered into motion. The creature roiled and Summer threw herself aside.

A procession of libs speared the stone where she once stood as the creature bounced away like a cat made of knives. It reared and its front rose metres high.

She had an instant and then it would plunge through her. Adrenaline brought her thoughts to race and she noticed the most peculiar things.

One of its legs rose trailed by a stream as it left Jeremy’s body. Her thoughts flitted past the likely cause of her death, and she noticed Mensha’s familiar figure as he readied to lunge toward her. Her heart played a familiar hurried beat.

The monster pounced and as its head and seeking limbs reached a mere meter she jumped towards it. She placed a foot on its smooth shell and slammed her weapon into the large eye perched upon its face.

Chitin crushed and anomalous flesh exploded in a goey shower. It lurched threw Summer as it skittered through Summer’s group. She slammed and rolled across the ground before lurching to her feet. Already feeling new layers of bruises.

The centipede ground and pounded its limbs in a cacophonous tantrum. It had so many eyes why was it so upset over the one? She chuckled under her breath and inhaled sharply as she felt a sharp twinge. The thing circled her its body lowered ready to punched.

Her companions were stuck still, “Run!” she shouted and her voice boomed far louder than she expected. They listened, the children pulled a dazed Tessa and bloody Jeremy . Yet her partner ignored her completely. ”Run, Mensha!” she commanded.

He stubbornly stood still as the others left and Jess removed them from her perception. A tremor ran through the centipede it noticed. “Run you goddamned idiot, what can you even do leave.” She barely paid the circling beast attention.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It was okay If she fought if she slipped and died, but why was her partner throwing himself into death’s open maw? For some moral support, so they could fail together. “Together always,” he said, damned fool.

The monster charged, and the thoughts slipped by, it dove low, and Summer leaped back. It reared and limb sprung forward for her head. She slid the side and braced her bat. The lid clipped her weapon’s edge and was forced to hit the air. The metal screeched and she struggled to hold the weapon in her hands.

She slid back and the creature retreated its circle tighter, putting multiple coils between her and freedom. Her attention flickered over her material senses but found no escape. Only a forest of sharp limbs. It was watching her, waiting. It lunged again and she responded the same way as it slowly tightened the nose.

At least Mensha hadn’t jumped into the fray. She focused on the creature and pushed her mind for any solution. She could try jumping onto the creature but its segments shifted between one to three metres depending on which of its misshapen legs was in use. She didn’t have the luxury to climb.

She sighed and lowered her stance, her attention idly following the creature’s head’s orbit. It wasn’t a good idea, but it was all she had. The same instant her legs threw at the creature’s legs, her partners sent him at the creature.

He flew up its spindly leg, pulling himself hand over hand he used the haphazard limbs to climb the beast. How the thought echoed but she had no time she was already in the forest.

Bat raised like a wand she used it to divert the rain of falling spears. They crashed into her some barely a twinge yet most threatened to smash her into the ground. She struggled against the press of limbs and slipped past the first coil, then a thick ponderous limb slammed into her twisted. Summer twisted past and a thin limb slid past her bat and dug deep into her shoulder.

She plowed forward teeth clenched, she couldn’t stop now. A leg caught her thigh and she stumbled, her breath hitched but she recovered her stride and the targeted strikes broke into a flailing mess. That cut but failed to gouge flesh.

She broke through the forest and shifted her focus. She found her partner running along the roiling creature, digging his fingers into its knife, into its eyes.

He was looking at it how she didn’t know, but they needed to leave. The creature twisted to dislodge the man but he danced over the creature with nary a stumble. “We need to go,” she said and ran as close to him as possible while minding the coiling pile.

He threw himself from its back from relative safety, onto its upturned kicking legs. Her eyes almost shot open in horror, yet he found footing on a curled leg and flew free as it kicked.

Summer leaped and caught him before the ground could, “On my back,!” she said too stressed to express the mix of frustration and love that filled her. He climbed on and she dashed away in the other’s vague direction. She opened her eyes, If Jess included them in her effect then they could run. An uncomfortable trail of blood made the task quite easy. Swallowing her concern she ran parallel to it.

“This is quite exciting,” her partner said in a chipper tone.

“Is that all you have to say for yourself!?,how where yo eve looking at it.” She couldn’t believe his gall.

He chuckled and tapped her shoulder, she hissed, “Apologise,” he tapped her other shoulder, “One, I don’t and two, I turned off my fear.”

“What,” she didn’t have the bandwidth for more problems.

“Anyway, what’s the plan I’m having trouble thinking right now.”

She tabled her confusion, “We’re getting to the others and getting out,” Mensha shifted on her back, and she let her senses follow his gaze.

“Shouldn’t we kill it,” he mused conversationally.

“With what,” she sighed as lovely as that sounded she wasn’t strong enough.

“With the conveniently placed cliff.” He said and she could feel his gaze bore into her though she lacked the fidelity to tell his expression.

It was a hunter, one smart enough to encircle Summer with its body, and it had seen their trick. Maybe it wasn’t that intelligent, but experience told her otherwise. “Goddamnit” she hissed and changed her path toward to edge.