Beast Conquests

Chapter 16: Decay

The forest was dense and humid. Dirty and dark and filled with all kinds of crawling creepers and slithering creatures. Mira slapped her own arms with a drop of red colouring her skin and a dead mosquito with a burst stomach.

She was vulnerable, in every sense of the word.

Her clothes had dried, the thin, silky material from the sea did nothing to protect her from the bugs that tried to crawl all over her skin. Her feet were full of blisters and wounds from the forest floor with no choice but to be barefoot.

'I can't go on like this.'

She greet her teeth and upon reaching a tree she nicked it using a sharp rock she'd found to make sure she didn't walk around in circles.

"In the first place, a human like me isn't built to thrive in this environment." Mira pulled flocks of thick leaves away to make her way through. "How did the ancient humans even survive? It's a wonder the human species made it that far."

Thoughts like that were muttered under her breath. She only stopped when her stomach growled. Mira cursed. From the moment she entered the forest her eyes had been actively looking for trees, fruit bearing trees.

Even shrubs that bite wild berries, Mira's hunger had gotten to the point where she felt faint and then had a thought that with a berry found somewhere she'd take the risk even if she wasn't sure if it could be poisonous or not.

"Ha! Ugh!" Her nails dug into a tree trunk with surprisingly soft skin. She was starving, sleep deprived and not in any state to be lost in a forest all on her own. Just as she was about to crash onto weaved tree roots, her arm stung.

Mira's head snapped to see thin, Chinese bamboo. The culprit to her wounded arm. Her eyes zeroed in on the sticks and then, with the sharp rock on her hand an idea snapped.

Her eyes sharpened and she began to work on her idea through a growling stomach and tired eyes that wanted nothing but to close.

"I'm not going to die like this."

She clenched her teeth and told herself over and over, "I'm going home."

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Stale as hunger pales
Pennies sitting cold
Hole in a pocket
Rain dripping through an absent roof

        Alexa stared at her phone, and stared and stared late into the night until 2 A.M. "France said he'd call. Why hasn't he called yet?" She talked to herself mostly, curled up like a cat on the couch she bought from a yard sale.

        'Until two years ago I didn't even know what a yard sale was.'

       It'd been far more comfortable than the scrappy bed, that groaned and creaked every time she moved. That was as hard as wood and as small as her childhood bed. While waiting for his call, four hours late from when he promised, the young woman considered selling her ratty bed.

       'I'll get more space and I can sleep on the couch.'

      The lousy one bedroom apartment she stayed at had been her home for more than two years and yet it still did not feel as warm nor welcoming. Not unlike the mansion she'd been raised in all her life.

       'Maybe Lawrence is right..'

        She looked at her phone again, a second hand, screen cracked phone. The spider web spread across the screen didn't make it any harder to read the messages she sent.