Aloft

Chapter 17

"Oh! Holy shit! What are those!" Alex yelled as he abruptly changed direction from heading towards the final goat and instead towards the woods that headed deeper into the island. The choice was taken completely out of his hands as a torrent of chihuahua sized worms with rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth exploded from the turkey's corpse.

"They appear to be parasites of some kind. Continue to run, please." V.V. said, more calmly than Alex would have liked if he'd had any time to think. The worms just kept coming! Ten, Twenty! More!

"How in the holy hells are they still coming!" Alex yelled as he looked back over his shoulder at what he could only imagine as a flood of giant deadly fish food.

"They must have been very tightly packed inside the fowl. The flow isn't subsiding."

Alex had reached the other side of the road and was now entering into the densely packed woods. He took a moment to look back one more time, most of the worms were latching onto the goat carcasses but more than a few of the creatures were slithering in his direction, fast. Alex looked at the dense woods in front of him and thought that it may be better to just run alongside the woods instead of entering them until he looked into the distance. The road was being overtaken by nature again, but the path was still open and inviting to any creatures that wouldn't mind a little arm room. Alex immediately started slashing his way through the brush and tightly packed trees to make his escape. Escape from not only creepy giant worms, but also a small horde of other monsters that he could see moving in the direction of him and the corpses.

Slash, slash, slash.

"Fuck! What are all those things!?" Alex yelled again, panic deciding to visit him once more as he swung his fanged makeshift dagger through overly lush vegetation. Although he was gripped with the intense urge to flee, he took a moment to be impressed by how quickly he was hacking away at the wall of flora in front of him.

"I suppose those are predators that have detected prey now that the battle that kept them at bay has ended." V.V. said from within the packed foliage ahead of him.

V.V. and his Orbs had already started clearing the brush even faster than Alex could. He was able to start moving into the dense greenery, but he doubted he'd get far before his ankles were torn into by grotesque noodles. Alex felt like his back was exposed for the first time in a while. His Orbs had taken to constantly moving around him so that he never felt that anything could surprise him. Now, he needed all of them to focus on creating a path forward more than he needed them covering his backside, or more specifically his precious ankles.

"Go, go, go! This has got to get thinner sooner rather than later!" Alex yelled at both his companions and himself.

"I detect a small clearing about forty feet ahead of us, but the parasites will reach us before then. You should take up a defensive position while we work to clear the escape route." V.V. said, quickly but not overly urgently.

Alex hesitated but decided to heed V.V.'s advice, stopped hacking away and turned to fend off the quickly approaching wigglers. "Shit... I was supposed to get to learn all those skills and here I am, fighting... worms..."

"Once one is close enough, I'll be able to at least tell you the parasites proper name."

"...That's the least of my worries, V.V."

"Proper terminology and naming is important."

"I... Yeah... Let me know what you find out. I'll be trying to not get eaten in the meantime." Alex was tempted to dismiss V.V.'s claims but he knew that knowing as much about his enemies as possible was never a bad thing. He only had to wait a few more seconds before the first gruesome looking opponent slithered into the opening of the tunnel they'd started to form out of the brush.