The legend of Zaphratos

What the hell?

Many many hours later Henry awakens groggily

As he opens his eyes his mind fuzzy, he begins to look around and quickly notices he's looking down at the ground from up above. His heart pounds as he feels strange talon-like claws holding his body and his fear of heights kicking in at the same time, his heart rate increases rapidly and he grabs the legs holding him and begins to thrash around in a panic looking up at the creature holding him, he sees a giant wasp-like creature with a black body, long thick antennas and long white legs with talon like claws. He continues thrashing around in its grasp and the creature notices this but doesn't shed more than a glance at him seeing him as nothing more than a weak maggot, Henry finally slows his erratic movements calming down a bit as he looks at this creature that has taken him in his sleep. The creature continues ignoring Henry looking straight ahead, Henry looks ahead as well hoping to see where they are going. His eyes light up and his jaw drops when he notices what appears to be a massive anthill the size of a pyramid, he sees many other wasp creatures buzzing around and a few walking around on top and in the higher areas in the pyramid-like nest. The top is open appearing to be the only entrance he can see, Henry narrows his eyes looking around the hill and he is surprised to see huge worm-like creatures covered in a greyish-brown shell. They move like caterpillars and are everywhere around the hill going in and out, "what the hell is this?" Henry asks himself watching the worms closely. The wasp-like creature finally flies into the hill slowly landing on a low floor, Henry notices many of the higher floors have wasp-like creatures, and the lower ones have food and worms. As they land on the lower floor Henry's heart starts to race again very afraid that he's now way too close to these creatures, the wasp-like creature releases him and Henry stays still in fear looking around as much as possible. The worms don't seem to notice him and continue going in and out and eating from large piles of decaying plants and even some feces, Henry covers his nose with one hand and makes a face of disgust as the smell hits him. "What the hell are these things?" He asks himself in disgust, the wasp-like creature flies away out of view and Henry lets out a sigh of relief "Finally alone" Henry says starting to crawl away from the centralized hole going down the many floors of the nest. He crawls over to one of the food piles before quickly stopping as one of the worms comes into the room and begins feeding on the pile of decaying plants and feces, his heart rate increases once again and he holds his breath as the worm gets close to him hungrily eating from the food pile. Henry looks closely at the worm-like creature seeing how heavily armored it seems to be "These must be one of the most dangerous creatures here" he thinks seeing how big and powerful these creatures are, the worm finishes eating and then proceeds to inch away leaving the room. Henry lets out a big breath and looks around the room once again looking for a way out, "hmm" he thinks looking up and to both sides "I can't really climb out, so I guess I got to go through the worm hole" he says with a annoyed tone. He slowly crawls into the tunnel noticing it's made of dirt and clay instead of the strange hardened mud-like material the hill is made of, "I wonder how far these worm tunnels go" he thinks to himself curiously. He keeps himself as close to the right side of the tunnel as he can hoping to avoid the worms, as he slowly crawls he hears another worm coming his way and immediately freezes letting it pass. The worm quickly inches past him intent on getting its meal, Henry watches and thinks "They must have an ant-like hierarchy with the worms being like worker ants, does that mean there's a queen?". He is very interested in these creatures, but he's far more interested in finally getting as far away from them as he possibly can. He goes back to crawling further into the tunnel seeing a few roots and pebbles as well as noticing certain parts of the tunnel floor seem to be a bit wetter and mushier, he shivers realizing there's a good chance these worms squish their poop into the ground as they go back and forth through the tunnels. He tries not to think about it and keeps crawling but lifts his arms scoffing at the wet mushy "mud" on his arms and legs "Just keep moving Henry" he says to himself trying not to slow down, after a couple of minutes and a few stops to let the worms pass he comes across two parting pathways in the tunnels. One path is shorter and seems to go up into a hopefully safe area and the other extends further than what he can see, he shakes his head "I don't care what's up there I'm out of here" he says as he crawls down that path. He doesn't see any more worms so he slowly and carefully stands up trying not to slip on the "mud" and climbs out of the tunnel gripping the grass above and pulling himself up with a groan, once he's up he lies on the grass with a sigh closing his eyes "finally" he says with a smile. He lays there happily for a couple of minutes before slowly sitting up with a small groan opening his eyes, he feels the warm sun on his skin and tries to brush off some of the "mud" getting some clumps off. After a minute or two he stands up and starts walking happy to be out of that hell hole, he notices he's at the end of the forest right beside an open field with short grass that goes most of the way up to his knees. He runs his hand through the long blades of grass and slowly crouches down to touch a red flower growing from the ground, "this area seems nice" he says with a smile before moving into the shade beside a tree and sitting against it with his back to it. He suddenly narrows his eyes as he notices a much bigger closed yellow flower with a long thick dark green stalk, "huh, that's quite the flower" he says to himself narrowing his eyes with interest. He stands up and slowly walks towards it moving through the long grass, as he does he suddenly stops as he notices a big goat-looking creature as big as a cow but thinner with long black horns and a thick coat of brown wool. Henry crouches down trying not to alert the goat to his presence while keeping his eyes on it, the big goat lets out a pleased behhh and happily eats the long grass surrounding it. "Ooh, maybe I should call that one a coat, it's like a cow-goat hybrid," he says to himself with a smile, the coat slowly eats making its way towards the large stalky flower then eats more grass beside it, and after a few moments of it eating Henry narrows his eyes noticing the stalk of the flower seems to gently sway which confuses him because the grass around it is fairly still. Suddenly the flower gets sucked into the ground in a quick movement causing Henry and the coat to jerk back in surprise both of them eyeing where the flower was, big snakehead snakes out of the grass looking right at the coat causing the goat to behhh and start running away from the big snake. The snake shakes its tail beside it and slithers after the coat at a very fast speed catching up to the poor coat in a mere moment before sinking its fangs into the coat and stabbing it with its tail stinger, the coat collapses onto the ground letting out a loud panicked sound as it falls to the ground with a thud its eyes closing while Henry watching with fear slightly backing up even at the decent distance away that he is. The snake sinks its fangs into the coat once again before noticing the coat lays there motionless ready to be consumed by the large predator above, the snake opens its mouth extending its jaw, and slowly slides the coat into its mouth swallowing it whole. Henry gulps his heart beating fast as he watches in horror and panic, he hopes and prays the snake will rush away as soon as possible. The snake finishes swallowing the goat with a gulp before slithering away out of sight, Henry breathes a sigh of relief hoping it's gone for good. He attempts to catch his breath his mind flooded with fear as he calms down, "OK OK it's ok it's gone you're alright" he says to himself in quick loud breaths. He lays there for a few moments calming down as much as he can. After a few minutes he relaxes and looks around "Well I think that's the worst of it for now" he says finally getting a moment of peace, he starts to think back to all the crazy events that happened today. "Oh yeah I should do some naming," he says with a slight smile "Hmm, let's start with that crazy ass snake," he says raising his voice slightly. "Let's call it..." he says thinking deeply "The Slithering Death," he says with a smile excitedly, "yeah that's a great name, that thing is insanely deadly," he says with a bit of respect and a hint of fear. "I still can't believe I made it out of there to be honest," he says to himself shaking his head, he lets out a breath and thinks back to that huge nest hill thing. "Oh yeah the wasp and worm things," he says with heavy interest, "I'm not really sure what to call them yet I guess il just have to think of it when I think of it," he says to himself shrugging. He stretches and goes to lie back against the tree once again, he looks up noticing the sun is going down. "I better get some rest for tomorrow, hopefully I don't wake up in the sky again," he says lightly laughing to himself. He lies down on the ground on his back taking one last look around before closing his eyes hoping for a peaceful sleep this time.