Morph

Chapter 5 : Death Beggar

I walked along the edge of the void, staring into the blank darkness. I was beginning to wonder why nothing was appearing. She said it would appear in the most unexpected places, so I stopped every couple minutes to check hollowed rocks and mud banks, anywhere something may be lurking, but nothing popped out.

I wished I could just go back to the surface, go back to air. Who knew, I might spend my whole life wandering the Jasmine Lake, searching for something that would never come. It was quite a sad thought. I thought about jumping into the void, I wouldn't fall too fast, since I would be in water. It wouldn't hurt if I jumped. Would it?

I decided against it. There were nymphs and sprites down here, and I figured their numbers would just grow as I grew nearer to the bottom. And nymphs would become very vicious if you neared their homes. And I figured there were quite a few down there. They liked the dark. I wondered why anyone would ever like the dark. The darkness was a weakness to all mortals. But was I still mortal? I didn't want to find out.

I continued walking along the edge of the void, only stopping to search small crevices in between rocks for anything that could help me find this so-called creature who would let me go back to land. I was going over this in my thoughts, when a sharp pain in my shoulder made me wince. I whipped around and saw a greenish blue creature with fins coming out of it's head as ears, razor sharp claws, and teeth bared to show blood stained stabbers. The skin of this beast wasn't even skin, it was scales. It's eyes were like a snakes, circled and yellow, with little slits for pupils. It's feet and hands had webbing that allowed them to swim almost as fast as a dolphin, but not quite. One of its teeth remained lodged in my shoulder, where it should have been in its mouth. But the creature showed no sign of pain, no sign of feeling, just pure hatred. It looked like a humanoid piranha. It must've been a hybrid.

Naiads had a reputation for falling in love with piranhas. Naiads are usually so kind, and piranhas so vicious. When they mated, they sometimes had hybrid children. These were called death beggars. They were called this because they tortured their victims until they begged to die. Then they would make their death as slow and painful as possible, so it was still kind of like torture, but it was restrained. Once their victims begged to just die, the Death Beggars had no choice but to kill them. It was because of the naiads mercy. If it wasn't for the naiads mercy inside them, you would probably be tortured for the rest of your life.

I felt the color drain from my face, my heart pounding in my chest, my breathing faster then usual. All through me I felt pure terror. I tried to process it.

A Death Beggar is standing right in front of me...

A Death Beggar is standing right in front of me...

A Death Beggar is standing right in front of me...

But no matter how many times I thought it, my brain refused to accept it. These things were very rare. Super rare. And one was standing right in front of me, fangs bared, eyes on me, scaly fingers reaching out to grab me. I ducked right as it's hand striked where my head was two seconds ago. I was careful not to get touched by it, because once you were touched by it, you are officially it's victim, and your souls bonded so you know where one another is. The connection is only broken when one of you dies, then you either escape, very rare by the way, or you die. The second one is most likely.

There was nowhere to run to, only behind me, into that giant void, shrouded by darkness. Maybe my fall would be faster than the death beggars swim? I didn't know. All I knew was that if this thing touched me, our souls would be bonded, and I would most likely die.

So I did the only reasonable thing at the moment. I jumped. I jumped backwards, falling into the darkness of the void. My fall was slowed by the water, but it still hurt when I bumped my head on a rock at the side of the cavern. And it still hurt when I got my foot stuck in some seaweed and had to yank it free before the death beggar could grasp it. It hurt when a scraggly underwater bush snagged my hair. To top it off, the landing wasn't at all comfortable. The cold rocks dug into my back, causing my shoulder blades to roll forward. My head hit a giant patch of scraggly bush, and my hair wouldn't come undone from it.