Discover the nature of those so-called terms I've been tied to.
You spend a few more moments in introspection. You stretch and dig at these... terms. Words. Concepts, names, things ephemeral but attached to physical. You think about your substance, your... body. It is... damaged, yes. A gap cuts across the torso, and the skull is cracked. It is lacking in many of the fluids such a body is intended to maintain, both from the damage it has sustained and the time it has spent under the sun that moves overhead. You do not know how long a time that has been. You do know that your structure, the foundation of your essence, is stronger than those you saw before. It fills the gaps, giving you control over a body that would no longer be useful to an essence with a lighter touch.
You look around, now, and take in the view. Bodies of substance abandoned, corpses, lie on the ground. Spots of light flutter about - birds, carrion feeders, crows - doing their work on the bodies, while smaller points of essence writhe within them - maggots, worms, devouring the soft flesh of the corpses.
Your own body has remained untouched by either of these scavengers, as well as the even smaller creatures you have no name for that work away at one their larger brethren left behind.
You raise your eyes, and take in the shadows of colors, the landscape. Rolling hills, topped by damaged wooden structures - a fort, you remember that there was a fort here, though it was not much of one, a wooden wall and some tents, and less still remains.
Beyond the next hill you see a larger essence moving between the corpses, stooping and rising at each one in turn. It lies beyond the shadow of the hill, the solid darkness, and you suspect it cannot detect you... yet.
What do you do?<= Previous |