Death Wish

Chapter 17

I'm certain this dragging feeling inside of me has turned literal. 

As I remain uneventful and limp, something has latched onto me. It grips with sharp claws and pulls hard, grunting in effort to rip me away from the clingy mud beneath. I'm sunken deep into the dirty pit, at least enough to make it hard to escape. The creature rips harder, claws sinking deep into my sleeve as its concentration grows.

I squeak quietly but I'm immediately silenced by it impatiently snapping at me. I fall back into my tranquility, earning a proud huff and a final harsh yank from the creature. 

Squelch.

I'm out of the squishy prison. The unidentified creature chuckles distortedly to itself in victory as its journey takes off at last. I mumble unintelligible gibberish through my sores and blisters at him in response.

"Wh're you gn'g, b'ddy?" I say numbly.

It doesn't communicate, it simply leaves a low snarl in answer to my weak effort of conversation. Maybe it isn't the type of monster that can talk...I focus and try to see through the dark to see if I'm right.

Unfortunately my eyes are almost swollen shut from the last attack. The stings are blown up into hoards of bumps all over me, making it impossible to see much further than my chest. 

I'm confined to cluelessness as the blurb gets a better grip around my wrists and tugs me up the hill I fell down.

"You . . . you w'nna fight?" I croak.

It doesn't even make a noise at me anymore. It keeps moving up the hill, dragging me by my arms as I lay on my back, dead silent in its determination to do whatever it's about to.

I can't believe I let myself fall this far. I've fought a ton of the supernatural in my life, and now I'm losing to one that's so dumb it can't even speak. I could've stayed with the guys and kicked this thing where the light doesn't shine and moved on in a minute, but noooo, I decided to be independent and jump into The Pit of Monsters and injure myself.

I can't help but groan aloud at the situation, but only for a moment. I need to get up and do something about screwing myself over so hard.

Maybe I should resist this tame kidnap first. I limply pull my wrist to start.

"oW!" My broken aching bones hurt more than I remember. I get a flash of several cold eyes from the creature hauling me for making the noise as well. I bite down on my lip and suck it up enough to not scream anymore than I really want to.

Eventually we halt at the top of the large hill. The creature's figure stands above the grass now to survey the area before looking to me.

Above the gray at last I can somewhat study it clearer. It stands on two feet and is tall and stick like, and has several eyes covering the upper region of its face. The lower is wrapped up in skin folds that could possibly unfold for only the necessary tasks; eating and making noise at me.

I've never seen it before. I have no idea if it will do what any other thing in Death will; does it want my insides in any way? It would've gutted me by now if it did. What's it doing, what's it going to do?

I lay there in worry as the creature finishes scoping its path ahead. It turns to me and puts out a single clawed foot to hit my side and kick me towards the other side of the hill.

I wince and glance back to see where I'm headed. On the other side of the hill I'm doomed to be rolled down in seconds ends in a black hole. My heart beats fast and I start to fight like I wanted to just minutes ago.

I force myself up to grab at the creature's foot. It's mouth unfolds and screeches before shaking its captured foot about to fling me off. Despite my desire to stay attached, it doesn't translate to my strength. I'm kicked off to the other side of the hill.