Blue blood streaked the entirety of Kyris’ blade and dripped to the sand beneath. Across his chest was a deep wound.
“Kyris!”
He’d cut himself. Right across his chest, he’d set his blade and sliced deep.
As if in slow motion, her hand that been holding the bedding let go, causing the wooly material to fall to her feet as she covered her mouth, her eyes wide in horror.
And she wasn’t the only one that noticed.
All around her, the sand nesters began converging at the spot where his blood fell to the sand. Their screeches went high as they clambered over each other to get to the blood soaking into the sand.
As she looked on in terror, from off to her side, one of the nesters raced in her direction. Her heart beat hard against her chest, ready to give out. Kyris had just slit himself in what looked like a suicide move and one of the things was coming to kill her.
No wonder she’d had a good night’s sleep. It had been the calm before the storm.
Entire body trembling, she gripped the small knife in her shaking hands and raised it. If it was going to attack her, she might as well try to harm it, too.
As the creature sped towards her, sand kicking up in its wake, Song readied herself. But the creature didn’t stop. It didn’t attack. Instead, it headed straight to the spot where Kyris’ blood fell.
Like a slow-rising sun, it slowly dawned on her.
Blood.
They were after his blood.
They were attracted to blood.
The slow realization made her feel sick to her stomach.
It’d been her all along.
All of this…all this hunting…it had been because of her.
The creatures had been tracking her.
And he…
He had known it. He’d known it all along. Yet, he’d remained vigilant, protecting her day in and day out, killing them whenever they got too close.
As the thoughts came to the forefront of her mind, she hardly realized all the nesters had converged in that one spot over where his blood was falling.
Over and over, they crawled atop each other, so high they made a small hill as they each tried to get to the source. Kyris.
Tails raised, they sent poisonous shots of fluid into the air, trying to bring him down but somehow he managed to evade them.
The creature-hill was so high now they could almost reach where he hovered, and as if the hunger consumed them, those that climbed to the top launched themselves at him, their barbed tails aimed and their legs spread outward to latch on to him.
And as they came, he cut them down, his blade working, the shiny metal bathed in both his blood and theirs.
She didn’t realize the tears were in her eyes till she raised her gaze to look up at him.
He was doing this for her.
He’d harmed himself, spilled his own blood, for her.
“Run, Song.” He was hovering, his face hardly reflecting what must be incredible pain. “Head that way. I will lead them away.”
Gulping, Song swallowed and willed the tears away.
He began flying in the opposite direction then and the nesters screeched and followed the blood running from his chest and falling to the sand.
It was like a pile of crawling scaly bugs rolling over in the sand as they tracked the blood and Song gulped once more.
Right.
He was doing this for her.
She needed to run.
But as she turned to move, a shrill screech hit her ears. It sounded close. Too close. And as the ground erupted behind her the blood drained from her veins.
Her legs refused to move as she turned in slow motion.
She knew.
She knew exactly what was there but if reality could just be wrong this once…just this once.
They were even more terrifying up close and she realized she’d never been this close to one before.
It was more like a scorpion, except with more legs and infinite levels of terror.
It was huge. Much bigger than what she had thought and as it lifted itself upward, gnashing its teeth, its set of back legs clawed at the sand, trying to find some kind of grip.
Defend. She needed to defend herself. There was no use running. It was much faster than her in the sand. After all, this was its territory.
Thank goodness there was only one. From what she could see, it was a straggler, one that had latched on to her smell and had not followed the others. She couldn’t turn to see how Kyris was faring, seeing as she was staring at the devil incarnate but from the sounds of the screeching behind her, he had his hands full cutting the demons down.
Beady eyes focused on her as the thing screeched.
She could do this. It was just one. And even though it seemed as big as a car, she could at least wound it so she could run away.
She would aim for between the eyes.
That should be a sure way to kill the thing.
But as the thing approached, much faster than she anticipated, for a moment, she lost her resolve. The creature seemed to notice and began flinging its body from side to side as it charged.
No time for nerves. She could do this.
Oh God...
Her blood pressure was spiked so high, it was drumming in her head.
There was no time to think.
The thing launched itself at her and as its body landed on hers, Song fell back onto the hard, sandy floor, the wind momentarily knocked out of her.
It was stronger than she thought and to her horror, she could feel its many legs lengthening and wrapping around her in a vice grip.
As she struggled against it, it latched on to her so tightly that she could hardly breathe.
She could feel its scaly body against her and all the food packets she’d eaten earlier turned over in her stomach.
She was screaming now and as she twisted and turned, trying to free herself, she realized only one of her arms was free.
The
