Max rolled onto his right side and then struggled to his feet, gasping as the wound in his stomach protested. He stood slightly hunched, his left hand hovering protectively a few inches from his stomach and his right hand extended in the direction of the monster crashing through the undergrowth in his direction. A small flame sprang up to hover at the center of his palm. He knew he didn’t look anything like the heroic, self-assured version of himself that he’d seen in the brightling’s illusions, but he didn’t care. His whole body hurt and he was dizzy from hunger, but now he could burn this murderous plant into a pile of cinders. Nothing else mattered.
As soon as the tentacle monster emerged from bushes that had been concealing it, Max pushed his palm forward slightly, as he’d seen himself do in the brightling’s illusion. The bolt of flame leapt from his hand and streaked toward the center of the monster’s tentacles. The monster must have sensed the attack because it seemed to crouch and twist in an effort to alter its course, but it wasn’t fast enough. There was a flash as a blue sphere appeared and the fire bolt exploded against it in a bright burst of light and heat. The monster screamed and Max's heart sang at the sound.
“Ha!”
Max looked down at the brightling, but it didn’t share his elation. It sat by his foot in its impassive way, watching the undergrowth.
When Max looked up again, the monster was on him, rearing up on its lower tentacles. He froze, looking up at the thing that had nearly killed him once already. But when it shaped one of its green appendages into a blade and thrust it at his face, the world seemed to slow for a moment, and as the knife slashed down at him Max realized he could intuit its path. He stepped to the left and let the appendage plunge into empty air.
The monster screamed again, and Max imagined he could hear a hint of frustration.
Later, thinking back on the encounter, Max realized he might have missed a chance to end the fight before the monster attacked again, but his hunger, his exhaustion, and his surprise at his own inexplicable agility left him momentarily dazed. The monster seized on his confusion and lashed out with another tentacle.
Time slowed again and Max took another step back, but the effect didn't last as long as it had the first time. He hadn't quite cleared the creature's range when its tentacle resumed its whip-like speed and the tip swung in an arc toward his shoulder. He tensed for the painful slash, but instead of striking his collarbone it slammed into the edge of a bright yellow sphere that flashed into existence around him. It reminded him of the brightling’s golden cocoon, but the color was wrong. It looked more like the yellow of the star that had appeared in the brightling’s diagram. Or the yellow sphere that had sprang up around the tentacle monster when the illusory version of Max hit it with a club or a stone from a slingshot.
Whatever it might have been, it cracked under the force of the monster’s strike and Max didn’t want to find out whether it would block a second attack. Raising his hand to point directly at the center of the monster’s body, he launched a second fire bolt. It struck the monster’s midsection with a crackling burst of heat and light and the monster’s tentacles immediately lost their vigor. The creature wilted lifelessly and collapsed.
Max stood over it, gasping, momentary shock giving away to a surge of triumph. He was naked, wounded, and exhausted, but he had power. He could fight back against the jungle’s bizarre denizens and he would win.
The thought had barely formed when the creature seemed to twitch and Max took a few hurried steps backward. It shuddered again and released a haunting, echoing howl, unlike any of the noises it had made before. A wave of invisible force burst up out of the monster's body, expanding outward in a sphere that rustled through the bushes and up into the leaves of the lower canopy. Almost instantly an answering call echoed from somewhere on the other side of the ravine. Then another came from the opposite direction, somewhere in the direction of the murderous orchard.
Max's elation evaporated. He knew now that he could kill one of those monsters with fair warning, but exhausted as he was he didn't want to face two at once.
Heart racing, Max turned and looked into the jungle in the direction that would allow him to move away from both approaching screams. He waited, searching for movement, but when nothing seemed to be coming toward him from that angle, he took a deep breath and resolved to set back out into the trees. There were almost certainly monsters all over the jungle, but now that he knew they were there he could try his best to avoid them.
He stopped and turned when he heard a bell ring out behind him. The brightling stood by the monster's body. Max waited for a moment, but the brightling simply looked back.
“What?”
The haunting calls echoed out of the forest again. Max looked over his shoulder in the direction of the orchard, anxious to leave this place behind. But the bell tone came again, slightly louder, more insistent.
Exasperated, Max went to the brightling, kneeling to scoop it up.
“I don’t have time for guessing games, little one.”
The brightling skipped backward and away from him, but kept its gaze fixed on his face. Max glared down at it.
“What,” he said, “do you want?”
The two screams came again. They were close enough now that Max could hear snapping branches and shredding leaves as they drew near. Whatever they were, they were moving with terrifying speed.
He balled his right hand, still covered in rings, then stabbed one finger at the monster. It was the only gesture the brightling seemed to respond to.
“I don’t know what you want. Stay and do what you want with that thing,” he said–fear made him quick tempered and he gestured at the monster with a series of quick little jabs–“or come with me.”
As soon as his finger had indicated the monster’s corpse and he had said “do what you want with that thing,” the brightling’s eyes widened and began to glow. As Max watched, still half-turned to run, the glow spread to the monster’s body. Almost immediately it began to implode. In rapid succession, each tentacle collapsed in on itself and was replaced by a cloud of bright green dust that drifted up into the air. The cloud swirled together, shimmering as if lit by the sun, then flowed in a stream to disappear into the brightling's body. The process took only seconds, and when all of the dust had disappeared into the brightling, all that remained of the monster's body was a pile of thick, charred tentacles.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
These, Max found, gave off an intoxicating scent that made his mouth water.
Max's mind lurched as his hunger, an undeniable animal need, collided with the revulsion he felt at the thought of eating part of this malicious plant thing that had tried to kill him.
The screams came again. They would be on him any moment. He needed to go.
Unable to turn his back on the only thing he had encountered that might actually be edible, Max gathered up as many of the charred, steaming tentacles as he could, turned, and ran. He would decide later, when he was no longer actively afraid of being impaled or dismembered, whether to eat the things.
As he plunged into the undergrowth his unwieldy burden stung his arms and his chest, but he was relieved to see the brightling keeping pace off to his left.
Mindful that other monsters could be lurking anywhere, Max ran as quickly as caution and his bare feet would allow. Twice he dropped leaves because they were painfully hot and difficult to hold, but he didn’t stop to retrieve them. He couldn’t be sure whether the screams echoing from behind him were receding or keeping pace with his flight, and not even the prospect of his first meal in days–or perhaps longer, he couldn’t remember–could convince him to turn back to collect them.
He lost a pair of leaves while only narrowly avoiding a fall into a strange, circular depression with a tumbled down ring of stones at its center. The stones resembled the wall surrounding the orchard, but he didn’t stop to investigate. After picking himself up and gathering all the cooked tentacles within reach, Max ran on until the burning in his lungs forced him to stop. Unable to hear any sounds of pursuit over his own heaving breaths, he looked around for some place to hide. Immediately to his left stood a tree with a hollow at its base. After a quick appraisal of its lower branches didn’t reveal hanging fruit that might fall and kill him, he crouched and wedged himself into the space and tried to breath as quietly as he could. The tentacles he pulled in after himself. The brightling waited at the entrance to the hollow, watching him.
“Get in here,” he hissed.
The brightling burrowed its warm, lean body under his legs and curled into a ball.
Max waited, listening. In the distance the screams of the monsters had stopped. He gulped air and listened between gasps, but nothing seemed to have followed him. Only when his breathing returned to normal and nothing had appeared did he allow himself to relax.
The smell of the warm tentacles tucked into the hollow with him immediately demanded his attention, so he drew one onto his knees and inspected it. It didn’t look especially appetizing. It was long and thick, almost tubular, with a tough green skin and the charred remnants of squat barbs along each side. He squeezed it experimentally and a starchy substance squeezed up out of one of the charred cracks in the skin. His mouth flooded at the smell that came with it. Turning the tentacle so he could inspect the wide end that had joined it to the monster’s body, Max sniffed at the exposed interior. It had a wet, crumbling, starchy looking texture, but the greenish white pulp gave off a bright, fruity aroma.
Max almost moaned, but he resisted the impulse to squeeze the stuff directly into his mouth.
“Hey,” he said, poking the backside of the brightling still curled under his knees. When it wormed its way out from under him to stand in the entrance to the hollow, Max pointed the pulpy end of the tentacle at its face.
“Can I eat this?”
The brightling sat on its haunches and folded its front hands neatly on the ground.
Max nudged the tentacle closer until it sat just under the birghtling’s nose.
“Can you eat this?”
The brightling leaned away from the tentacle slightly and looked off into the jungle. Max sighed.
“It will be a very cruel trick if these creatures are filled with delicious smelling poison.”
Unable to fight his hunger any longer, Max dug one finger into the end of the leaf and scooped some of the mushy pulp into his mouth.
“Oh.”
He dug three fingers into the tentacle and began shoveling as quickly as he could without burning himself.
The flesh had the texture of slightly gooey baked potato, somehow wet and chalky at the same time, but it had a bitter, bright citrus taste that more resembled rhubarb. Though he couldn’t remember actually eating potatoes or rhubarb, he knew of them in the abstract and his ravening hunger convinced him that nothing he’d eaten in his former life could have been more delicious.
But he stopped after one tentacle. Remembering the painful cramps that had plagued him the last time he’d eaten something he found in the jungle, he wanted to see how his meal settled. He waited as long as he could, but when his stomach didn’t immediately rebel, he decided they were probably safe. If they weren’t, he would just have to deal with the consequences later.
Max ate all four of the tentacles he had managed to hold onto, squeezing their contents directly into his mouth. When he couldn't squeeze anything else out, he broke each of the leathery tentacles open and licked them clean. To get at the last traces of mush trapped along the inside edges of each tentacle, he tried to break them into bite-sized pieces that he could suck on. He spit them out when the taste of the leathery skins reminded him of the leaves that had made him sick.
Max reached out to scratch the brightling behind one ear.
“Thanks for taking that thing apart for me.”
The brightling blinked slowly at him and leaned into his fingers slightly.
“Think it’s a bad idea to go back for those last two tentacles I dropped?”
The creature stared silently at him, so Max put a thumb and forefinger on either side of the brightling’s petite skull, then very gently turned it from side to side.
“Great,” Max said. “I knew you’d agree. Let’s go.”
Max retraced his steps carefully, listening for predatory screams or the sounds of monsters trampling through the forest, but he didn’t encounter any sign of pursuit on his way back to the circular depression and the two leaves he’d dropped were still midway down the slope. They had come to rest near each other after sliding on leaves and other bits of loose jungle debris. Max’s mouth watered again at the sight of them.
As quietly and carefully as he could, Max inched his way down the slope in a half crouch. The carpet of leaves shifted under him with each step and as he worked his way down the slope debris got thicker, making it harder to find a safe place to put each foot. Twice he stepped on a hidden branch that could have gone right through his foot if he had put his full weight on it, but he didn’t turn back. He was hungry and he had no idea when he might find something else to eat. These leafy tentacles were hardwon and they were his. He was taking them back.
Max crouched when he reached the first tentacle and gripped it firmly between its remaining spines. The second lay nearby, just out of reach.
Max hefted the first tentacle. It had begun to droop, but when he held it out it was still long enough to extend his reach.
“If I can just…get it…over…”
Leaning as far as he dared, Max tried to drag the second tentacle toward himself. He had almost managed it when the rock he’d been using to brace his lower foot began to slide and he fell with a shout.
Max reached the bottom of the slope with surprising speed. Gliding quickly over the shifting layers of leaves, he braced himself to hit the low stone wall at the bottom of the depression, grateful he would strike the wall feet first. When he reached the stone circle he was already craning his neck to look up, trying to locate the second tentacle, hoping to catch it if it had followed him on his downward slide. But rather than the sudden stop he had expected, Max felt the stones in front of him topple inward almost without resistance. Unprepared to reach out for a hand hold, he followed the stones into the center of the circle–and down into the black pit they had opened in the earth.