I don’t know how long I was like that but I saw several imps appear and disappear looking for something. Seeing them I didn’t even have the awareness to feel fear and thankfully my body became so small that I could hide under the sand. I only felt like I was drowning in the memories of Rat’s meaningless life. It took so long to find myself but in the end, I rose above the sand larger than I was before.

I watched the imps from afar shrinking myself whenever a few got too close. I could now control my size and spread myself out even more if I mimicked Rat’s shadow form. The imps seem to be hunting any lights that appear across the land but I saw some that were even larger than the imps but the small imps far outnumbered the larger ones. The small ones seemed to listen and fear the larger ones while the large ones appeared only for a while and seemed to disappear after a while. ‘Maybe the lights taste good.’ I thought as a red light appeared near where I was. It seemed these new lights were slow to react to me and probably the imps too so I just engulfed it. The light disappeared and I was filled with rage similar to what I felt from Rat. I felt myself grow slightly bigger and it tasted so good that I started to follow wandering imps to see if I could steal some of the lights from them.

I was able to steal a few before the larger imps started to join the small ones in hunting. One large imp was followed by several small ones and ordered them around. The large ones didn’t eat any lights but always ordered the small ones to do so while they kept looking for something. One group saw me and tried to hunt me down. The large one joined the small ones that time and nearly caught me but I was able to shrink down small enough that they couldn’t grab me. I flew through one of the dunes and hid in it. The imps started to dig into the dune so I entered the shadows and snuck out under the sand. I started to hide from the imps but the large ones seemed to notice me if they got too close unless I hid under the sand.

I watched the large ones from afar where they couldn’t notice me. The small ones didn’t notice me even if I got close to them but the large ones always noticed if I got too close unless I hid under the sand. The large imp that I was watching seemed to radiate anger and frustration as it continued to fail to find whatever they were looking for. They grabbed a small imp and tossed it across the land, stomping off before disappearing. The small imp that was thrown barely moved while it lay on the ground bloodied. The large ones seemed to abuse the small ones even more now with all of them growing angry over time but this is the most injured I’ve seen one. The pain and fear it was radiating made me hungry but it was too big for me to engulf.

I pressed myself into it and tried to spread myself joining the shadows over its body. It thrashed as it finally noticed me but I slowly dragged it under the sand and into the shadows where I felt it enter me. It managed to free a leg from the shadow creating a mess of blood as I had eaten its skin and some muscle. It bled out as I dragged it slowly under. After eating its head most of its pain and fear had faded but its flesh tasted nearly as good. By the end, I had hollowed out its bone that was buried under the sand and the sand around had been dyed red.

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It felt nice hiding inside of its bones but it was too small. I felt myself slow down again as I felt emotions that did not belong to me fill my mind. It was similar to what happened before with Rat but not nearly as strong. I didn’t feel the need to get rid of any of the emotions popping up and merely ate them all. Despite just eating the imp none of these feelings felt like it belonged to it. Maybe this was from all it ate, the lights maybe. Either way, I hid in its bones as I ate the feelings until nothing was left.

As I float above the sand leaving the bones behind I see so many imps. So many meals for me to eat. I wonder what the big ones would taste like but for now, I’ll try to stick to the smallest of the small ones. Another small imp was tossed around by a big one here and there before I started to target less injured imps. They ran as I struggled to pull them under the sand so I started to hunt around dunes. In the sand, they struggled more but it didn’t matter as I wrapped them up and only left their bones. Soon the dunes grew in size and were dyed red from all the imps I had dragged into them.

Sadly the imps eventually started to move in higher numbers and the large imps restrained themselves from abusing the imps too much. I was still able to steal a few imps pulling them into dunes when they wandered too far from a group but these were less injured so it took too much strength. After a while, I simply hid in bones while I waited to feel an imp walk over me. I would quickly try to pull it into the dune and feed on its fear and pain while I took my time eating its body leaving its head for last. When I felt too much weight I hid deeper in the dune where a large amount of bones of imps started to pile. The larger ones seemed to notice me more often under the sand unless I hid in bones and even then if the bone was too close to the surface they would stick around for too long. If there was a large number of imps they would normally scatter if they saw one imp get dragged under but when a large one was near they would stop me and start to attack the dune.

The first time it happened the largest one I’ve seen grabbed me and burned me with a flame that coated its hand. It burned most of me that was exposed in the sand and I only survived by using the bones as a barrier as I fled deeper into the sand. The sand of that dune turned into a hot liquid that flowed out revealing so many bones that were in the sand. The bones seemed to help hold back the liquid from further spreading creating a wall of bone between the liquid and the sand.

It took so long for me to get rid of the pain that clung to me that I couldn’t eat. It was similar pain of being exposed to the moon but so much worse. In fear of it happening again, I pulled all the bones in the area and pilled them under the largest dune that I could find. The liquid itself didn’t hurt so I kept myself mostly in the bones as I waited for more imps. For a while, the imps escaped my grasp due to me losing most of my strength and fear of the flame coming back. I eventually did manage to grow back to my original size and I went about moving about again. For each large dune I found I piled bones repeating what I had done before until large imps started to pop up then I moved again.

When I didn’t feel imps for a long time I would float to the peak of the dune I was hiding and watch where their paths had moved. There are far fewer imps around than before and now they travel in large groups surrounding large imps and at the center the largest imp I’ve seen with fire coating several areas of their body. Regular imps are about the size of Rat while the larger imps are the size of humans but this fire imp is several skulls taller than that. That was the imp that burned me, that hurt me. An emotion so close to the one that was used to summon me by Rat flowed through me, revenge. I wanted to make that imp afraid and hurt just like I how I felt. I now have something beyond my hunger to strive for, I will make sure that each imp will die and I will use their bones to snuff out its flames. When it's alone and crippled I will take my sweet time eating it leaving its skull as a warning for anything that might bring their light here.