Ryven's face scrunched in shock.
"Your gonna eat me?" He asked in horror.
Shuffling his legs on the floor as if he could get away.
The old man gave him a dejected look. "No, you imbecile. Creatures will approach, curious about the light. Can you guess what they will smell?" He asks, twisting his head.
"Two humans?" Ryven responds.
The old man sighs.
"Nope. One dreamer, and one lunar creature."
Ryven gives him a weird look.
"You're a lunar creature?"
The old man just stares at him for a moment, raising his palm to his forehead.
"You are truly hopeless."
Ryven smiles as the man moves around him.
"How will you disguise your scent?" Ryven asks, his gaze following the old man's movements.
He steps toward something on the ground, a small cloak laying on the moonstone floor.
"By wearing this. It's a cloak made of a lunar creature's hide, the same material I used to tie you to that moonstone pole."
Ryven says nothing, but the gears in his mind begin to turn.
"Now then," the man says, stumbling over bits of a ruined wall. "Stay here, probably try not to make to much noise, and when this is all over, I may just spare your life and give you a piece of the meat."
Ryven nods. I mean, what else could he do?he watched as the man left, dissolving into the darkness.
He takes a deep breath.
"All right." He murmurs, flexing his fingers. He twists his fingers and wrists, rotating the against the hide. Weirdly, it felt wet, and spongy, yet still seemed extremely hard to rip apart. He tried for a while, a very long while, using all the strength his teenage body possessed, yet he was still stuck.
He tried again, gritting his teeth, tugging as hard as he could.
He failed.
Sitting on the floor, he looked around, looking for a tool, a rock, something, yet it was all to far away.
"Fuck it." He says, releasing a sigh.
he pushed himself to his feet, the hide scraping lightly against the stone as he stood.
"I can't quit now." He muttered.
He pressed the hide bindings against the pole, then began sliding his wrists up and down. Slowly at first, the friction caused the hide to squeak against the moonstone, a wet, rubbery sound that made him wince.
But he kept going.
Up. Down. Up. Down.
A slow, steady rhythm. He even rocked a little with it, like some clueless kid trying anything he could think of, but his face stayed calm, focused in a way he didn't show the old man.
Minutes bled by.
Sweat rolled down his temples. His arms ached. His shoulders felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets. He paused once, breathing hard.
"Nope… not quitting…" he whispered, locking his jaw.
He shoved his weight forward and dragged the cuffs down violently. The hide snapped taut, still resisting,
Eventually though—rrrp.
A tiny tear. Barely anything. But it was there.
Ryven froze, then grinned.
"Cmon now!"
He drove into it again, faster this time, sliding the bind up and down the pole, ignoring the sting in his wrists. Each pass widened the tear. Each jerk weakened the fibers. The wet, spongy hide began fraying, thin strands peeling apart.
Rrrrip.
One final shove, his whole body leaning into it, and the hide tore open completely. Ryven stumbled forward as his arms flew free, catching himself on his palms as the broken cuffs dangled from one wrist like shredded strips of gray leather.
"Get this shit off of me…" he muttered,
Brushing off the last strands of hide from his wrist, shaking out the ache in his arms. The silver fire had burned down to a faint glow, just enough to smear shadows across the broken dome.
He stepped toward the gap in the wall where the old man disappeared.
Carefully. Quietly.
Peering out, he found exactly what he expected to… ruins.
Crumbling walls stretched out in every direction, jagged silhouettes poking out of the moon's pale dust. Roofs had collapsed long ago. Doorways were buried under rock and debris. Everything looked ancient, deserted, dead.
Ryven swallowed.
"I better get out of here."
Stepping out, the cold
bit at his skin immediately. Each breath felt too loud. His bare feet sank into the powdery dust, leaving prints that glowed faintly in the silver light. He moved slowly between the fallen buildings, ducking under leaning beams, stepping over shattered stone, thinking about the people that once lived here.
He kept walking, weaving between ruins, searching for a way to exit the ruined city.
The settlement's edge revealed itself gradually. The ruins thinned out, the ground sloped downward, and a wide stretch of open land appeared ahead; a field covered in craters and large rocks which jut up like broken teeth.
Ryven exhaled.
Freedom.
Maybe.
He stepped forward toward the open space—
And froze.
A clicking sound echoed across the dust. Soft, rhythmic. More than one source.
He turned slowly.
Shapes emerged from between the ruins he'd just passed through. Shadows first, then limbs, then inhuman bodies, giant inhuaman bodies.
Their eyes glowed red.
Not bright. Just enough to catch the faint moonlight.
And then he realized.
They weren't even eyes at all.
They were gems, carved into the creatures stone face.
The first creature crawled fully into view, its movement a horrible, scraping symphony of hands on dust. Six of them, long, bony things shaped like hands but too wide, too jointed, too wrong. They slapped and dragged across the ground, propelling its lean, twisting body forward with sickening grace.
Its tail whipped lazily behind it, segmented like cracked pottery, scraping furrows into the lunar dust.
The creature's neck arched, swaying from side to side with slow, deliberate curiosity. The stone face remained perfectly still, even as the rest of the neck writhed like a serpent sensing heat.
Another one crawled out beside it.
Then a third.
Six hands each. Stone faces. Red glow bleeding from their hollow eyes. Their bodies lean and stretched, built for crawling, climbing, tearing. Every movement was a mixture of animal instinct and something older… something ritualistic.
Ryven's breath hitched.
The space next to him began to itch, a feeling Ryven was now getting quite used to.
"I'm so fucked…"