Ballad of the Brothers: The Lion

Chapter Two

Caiaphas rose with the dawn and quickly packed up camp. He ate one of the sand baked bats, fastened his bandages, and began his walk westward. He had a contact in one of the caravans at the Hill of Swords. He was going to need gear in order to handle the Anomalies as he called the shadow creatures that warped reality. Information would also be useful, and if he was lucky, he would be able to put together a party. He was too broke to hire mercenaries, but still wanted to look for leads.
His train of thought was interrupted by a metallic scraping in the sands a few feet in front of him. He quickly hopped back as the creature from the day before had burst out of the sand. This time he was able to get a good look at it.
It emitted a sort of heat mirage around it's body, and body parts phased in and out of existence, often appearing in strange places or being twisted and deformed. There was one constant though. A solid looking core sparked and crackled behind it's sludgelike chest muscles. It had a tall humanoid structure, around nine feet in height. It's teeth,claws, bones, were made of some glassy translucent material. They seemed sharp. It let out a gurgling cry as it lashed out towards him.
Caiaphas held his knife in his left hand as he performed warding hand techniques with his right. He parried the creature's attack with the weak force and quickly changed the dagger over to his right hand, rushing in for a few frantic slashes at it's chest. As it lurched to the side in an attempt at dodging it the knife connected with it's shoulder, slipping through like butter. The grinding of iron on quartz grated on his ears, and he pulled back, gnashing his teeth. As soon as the knife left it's body the flesh stitched itself back together, a gruesome thing to witness. He rushed at it again, this time attempting to punch it in the head, intending to combo with a jab at the core, but its skull parted and subsequently trapped his hand. He did not feel a brain in there. It dug it's teeth into his right shoulder as he struggled to free his left hand. It turned into a grapple in the sand. He was screaming as he stabbed at it repeatedly, and it was refusing to let go despite the pain it felt. They were rolling around in the hot sand until eventually they fell down a dune. The wind was picking up. The creature screamed as the coarse sand scrubbed it's skin clean off. He took the opportunity to crack it's skull open with his free hand and free his other hand. He tackled it to the sand as it clawed viciously at his haunch, the claws sinking in and the blood staining the desert sand. They were both screaming, fighting for survival. This was the last grapple. He went berserk and shoved his hand around its core, ripping it out of the socket and slamming it repeatedly on a piece of sandstone.
They both collapsed into the burning sand, one letting out a sigh of relief, and the other a sigh of death. He turned his head to look at the corpse. The sun glared into his eyes but he was too out of breath to shade them. After catching his breath, he stumbled over for a closer inspection. It did not regenerate. He picked up the core. He was not able to break it. The nerves on his arm went into overdrive, so he quickly packed it with his stuff. It was the most uncomfortable feeling he had felt in his life...but it was strangely addicting, even after that short amount of exposure. He did not bother treating his wounds. He had wasted too much time. The sun was directly overhead.
His mantle flapped in the coarse wind. He continued westward from where he was. Hopefully he would still end up at the Hill, though he could not say the same for the oasis he was en route for.
After hours of trudging on, he decided to do an inventory check. The sun was setting soon, so he had to make sure he was prepared for the days to come. He had been snacking on the scorpions the entire time, so nutrition was not much of a concern for him at the moment. He was more worried about his water supply. He had run out of blood to drink, and even resorted to squeezing the urine out of any frogs or toads he found. It was taking a toll on his stomach, and if he did not find actual water soon he would end up shriveled up in a pool of his own vomit. The Fool's Rukhs were already stalking him, flapping carefully behind him, literally following in his footsteps. He was also running low on healing herbs, though he had plenty of moss. His logbook was right where he left it, though the monotony of the desert made him forget to write in it after two weeks of just "Day one. Found sand. Day Two. Found more sand. Day...Three? I found the sandman. Oh wait, that was just me having an out of body experience and looking at myself. The progress report for today:Sandy."
This time, though, he had something interesting to write about. He wrote about his encounters with the Anomaly.

"Day...I forgot.

I was admiring the sand as usual when I was suddenly dragged under. My reaction to that was to firstly think, 'Wow, that definitely is not sand.' and secondly, to then promptly urinate in my wrappings. I was angry because I could have drank that. I did not know at the time what it was that I was fighting, but I managed to cause it's den to collapse in on itself. I was hopefully optimistic that would have killed it, but I knew better. Sure enough the next day as I was looking for frogs to drink out of it had the nerve to jump out at me again. I know it was the same one because it was missing the exact same arm that had been broken in the collapse. This time I was ready though. I had urinated not in my wrappings, but in my canteen...have I truly been driven mad? To resort to coarse humor such as this in order to mask my misery...? Make it stop... Oh right, the fight. We had a roll around in the sand and I found a shiny thing inside of it's chest. It made my arm freak out so I just put it away. Got to go now, those accursed Rocs are looking in my book again."
After this rant, he secured his bags on the inside of his robes with some gauze, covered himself in his sheet, and partially buried himself in the warm sands as the cool nighttime wind began to blow.