Stargazer
7th Verse - To survive
I stood paralyzed for a second, shock fighting with tensed muscles and my brain trying to kick-start itself back.
Its golden eyes focused on me, like a thing out of a movie where dragons still walked the land. Its giant body was unlike any lizard I had the chance to see in zoos, yet I didn't have the time to dwell in morphology for long. The standstill we found ourselves in didn't last long, the few seconds it took the beast to realize its prey was now awake and to let go of my arm. Relief washed over me and tension began to bleed away, a part of me smugly claiming that perhaps once it had realized I was a now alert human it had lost its will to strike.
I should have remembered my childhood dalliances into the animal kingdom better.
It jumped, straight at my neck and I snapped out of my state to scramble backward as fast as I could, which wasn't fast enough. It bit into my shoulder and the pain and the feel of its teeth messing with my flesh woke something within me, a roaring feeling, unlike anything I had ever felt, spurned into action by my spiking fright and the wish to live no matter what.
A quick glance told me the fire was mere embers and I couldn't find any of the weapons I had collected earlier. Its jaws began to put more pressure, trying to break the bones it felt underneath and I clawed at its own scaled belly with my own useless hands. In a moment of insight, I remembered my legs, still tangled in the cloak I had slept on, raised one of them and put as much strength as my body would allow into a kick to its ribs. It growled deeply, a sound I heard sharper and louder than I had imagined, so close to my ear, but I gained nothing other than jostling it and my wound. I grunted myself and started to give it my all in order to make it let go, but it was useless.
I wasn't going to die here! I wouldn't allow myself to fall for the stupidest of deaths!
Pain surged from the inside and fire sprouted from my hands while they were hitting the lizard, and I rejoiced at the sight as I had never done at the sight of anything else in my entire life. It let them rise and heat and the beast wailed and finally let go of my neck, but I wasn't done with it. I grabbed onto the weirdly shaped crest and held as my flames spread and consumed its hyde and flesh. It howled and wailed and snapped, and had I been other person watching the scene I would have felt sorrow for the poor animal and the cruelty of the death it was being given. I was not willing to let go of it so it could go and have another chance at hurting me, his desperate pawing at my hands and stray bites were doing enough. In a haze, someone that resembled me watched the reptile finally stop whining and die, yet I couldn't stop holding onto it or the comfort of the flames until it was a charred remanent of what had once been animal.
I stood in a haze, blood dripping down the side of my neck and down my arm, staining my dirty clothing and found shiny amber eyes looking at me from the shadows. Another one of those fucking lizards looking at me from the shadows, smaller and with rounder, less aggressive shapes than the one I had killed, a youngling then.
If this was a fantasy story I would have felt regret at killing his teacher and took it in, made him my pet or my familiar and lived countless adventures together. I would like to say I was more preoccupied with it thinking of me as easy prey as a justification for what I did, but fear and anger aren't so rational so when I snarled at it and allowed flames to engulf my hands once more I wasn't really thinking through my actions - I was lucky it was only one, and that was enough to send it running for the hills.
A bone-deep exhaustion I had never known before came as adrenaline disappeared and, feeling as if I couldn't stand any longer, I sat on the ground.
I stood there, alone and still with the smoky scent of my victim invading my nose until a stray ray of sun got into my eyes and made me blink and return to reality.
The smell made me retch and I scrambled back to my camp, building a fire once again and putting dry and green leaves on it to burn so that they may cover the odor. I gathered my poor possessions and looked into the flasks. Seemed like I would get to experiment with them earlier than expected.
I got rid of my shirt, stiff with drying blood and put it to dry on a branch above the fire, the temptation to burn it was there but there was no way I would wander the wilderness without something to cover myself. I looked at the liquids, most of them were red and seemed like wine, others were a dull gold and one was a bright blue that kind of whispered to me. I took one of the red ones and popped it open. It didn't smell like wine, more like crushed herbs but unless those herbs were poison ivy I would have to try and clean my wounds.
Even with the decision taken I procrastinated as much as I could, cutting a scrap of cloth from one of my pant legs to drip in the liquid, stroking the fire and making sure it was all right, eating one of my apples even though my stomach was knotted and I could barely make the bits pass my dry throat. Finally, seeing as I couldn't really asses the damage with blood everywhere, I put some of the red liquid into the cloth and began to clean my arm injury with it.
The punctures were clean and not as deep as the ones in my shoulder, I was lucky that it hadn't gotten to my neck first or I would have never been able to wake. Despite it not smelling like alcohol the liquid made the injuries burn unpleasantly at first, before numbing it. I was about to use some in my shoulder, seeing as it didn't cause any immediate ill effects and a clean injury was better than no treatment at all, but then I caught sight of the most amazing thing I had ever seen, besides fire sprouting from my bare hand of course: the punctures were closing themselves at a visible pace. The smaller of them had almost finished when it caressed it and felt no pain.
Entranced, I took more and applied it to my shoulder, felt the burn and the numbness that followed, and I couldn't honestly tell if it was because of the tonic or because something was actually going my way this time that I felt giddy and laughed out loud.
I decided that I would stay until the injuries on my neck were closed and began to pack my thing up. The cloak was intact thank god and I put everything in a bundle inside it, taking care with the flasks that held the healing potion. I only had two apples remaining and I would need to find food soon. My mind instantly went to the lizard I had already cooked and while a part of me reveled at the thought of claiming it as my kill, of the irony of eating what had tried to eat me, it wouldn't be so different from cleaning a burned fish, I rationalized.
I went back to the body after putting the belt with the dagger on my waist and hanging bow and quiver from my bare shoulders. A part of me was still feeling revulsion at the sight of the carcass, another felt numb yet grimly satisfied at the same time. I could survive and for now, that was enough.
Kneeling beside it I took the knife from my pocket and began the ugly task of figuring out what to do. I opened its belly, needing more and at the same time less strength behind the knife to actually do it than what I had expected and saw that its insides were still smoking. Before proceeding I took the greater dagger at my waist and used it to cut the lizard's head being careful with the blade and the vertebrae.
It was surprising that it wasn't burned while the rest of it was, its great amber eyes empty and accusing, its ivory fangs still stained with my blood... I threw it as far from me as I could before proceeding to let my bearings and continue. I didn't have anything with which I could take the meat with me and still keep it clean while doing so too with the rest of my supplies, so I decided that using its charred hide would be the next best option. Skinning something sounded far easier than what it was actually was, and my almost immaculate pants were as dirty as the top when I finished. Deciding which meat to take was even worse, even if most of it was already half-cooked, mostly because I had never had the foresight to even investigate which part of an animal I was eating while I did it.
I ended up bundling the muscles of the sides and one leg, alongside the liver in the hide and leaving the rest for scavengers next to a trunk. If I was lucky they would take the remaining meat and leave me well alone.
I put out the fire with dirt, put my shirt back on, heaved the cloak in my arms next to the meat and pressed forward to the south.
Late, I know, but between my birthday and two assignments, I lost motivation to write or even edit and update - you've got to thank Moana's soundtrack for my sudden return to the world of the living (though as much as it helps with motivating me, it really makes hard to write fear and despair, and I think the more heavily edited part show that).
I hope you enjoyed this one, that suffered drastic modifications between its conception - and first draft - and this.
