Encounter with Something

A circular body that possessed an eye and a mouth filled with dirty, jagged teeth. A pair of limbs beneath the body, and a pair fixed to the side, each incredibly thick. A colour that looked like it could have been plucked right off of the leaves that surrounded it. Evan didn't know what it was, but he knew that it was dangerous.

"Rodent," he muttered, not really aware of the fact that he was doing it nor why he was saying it. The word had no meaning here, being something he'd associate with a rat. And yet, he had a feeling somewhere deep down that it was an apt descriptor. Something else he felt, in spite of the weak sounding name, was that the creature in front of him was strong. Stronger than he was, at least. If he attempted to fight it, then he had a feeling that he would end up with a similar fate to that of the girl he had been told about that morning.

As the thought crossed his mind that it might work, he raised his arms above his head and shouted as loud as he could. It would work against some types of bear, doing enough to scare them off, and so he hoped that the same would apply to this thing.

He was disappointed to see that it didn't work. Instead of running away from him like he had hoped, the creature in front of him moved to mimic his actions, raising its arms and uttering an almost ear bursting screech. As it let its arms fall back to its side, Evan could have swore he saw its mouth curl into a smirk, as though the creature had done it to taunt him, to mock him, and not just to accept some challenge that he had accidentally given it, or some other thing he expected from the intellect of a beast.

The uneasy feeling that had come about as a result of the smirk was only reinforced as the… thing began to laugh, a laugh that came from the back of its throat and sounded like it came from a place that was surrounded by thick fluid. The more Evan looked at it, and the more actions that it took, the less it seemed to be some kind of animal at all.

Then, it suddenly stopped, before craning its body up in the same way an animal would when it smelled something. All of a sudden its demeanour changed, from the mocking stance and actions that it had before, becoming serious in a matter of moments.

Its expression, one that was rather difficult to discern given its unusual face, flitted between some level of confusion and blind hatred at what it saw.

A flick of its wrist spawned a stone in its hand, one complete with a series of purple flames flickering up from it. And with a swift movement, it threw the rock directly at Evan.

For a moment, he found himself rooted in place, unable to move. Thoughts flashed across his mind, some too quick to make any sense of. He thought of his family, of his friends, of people that he had known at different points during his life. Something he found himself coming back to was the dead girl. She was someone who he couldn't even remember, but he felt like she was someone who had a fate that he would likely follow very soon.

Then, as though he was just a puppet on a string being controlled by someone else, he was thrown to the side. He looked around, but when he found nobody or nothing else but the thing opposite him he guessed that he could only have done it himself.

He looked behind himself, and saw the tree where the projectile had became buried. Even though it was only a second or two, there was already significant damage done to the tree, so much so that the tree didn't even look like what it was anymore.

Seeing that it had missed, the thing abandoned the idea of using a ranged attack to fight and instead leapt at Evan, using a nearby tree branch to propel itself forward. He had very little experience in a fight, and what he did have was in a situation where technique was a distant worry. So it came as a surprise when he was not only able to dodge the initial blow that came as the thing landed, but all of the other swipes and rage filled strikes that quickly followed.

It felt like he was drawing upon some power, some experience that was not his, and that was the only thing that enabled him to survive this encounter. He knew it wasn't his, because every fiber of whatever was causing him to move was screaming at him to get a little bit of space and run, to just get away from the danger he faced. He knew that it wasn't him because he would never do that. He had little experience in a fight, but whenever he had been challenged by anyone, be it someone looking to prove something or by a drunk who had no reason to fight, he would never back down.

He grabbed a thick branch of a nearby tree, figuring he needed even the most basic of a weapon to fight, even if it was something as small as a twig, and yanked it off. When he quickly glanced at it to see if it would suffice, he was a bit surprised to see just how big it was, especially with the ease at which he tore it off.

With a weapon in his hand, Evan went on the offensive. He swung wide with the branch, lightly catching the thing with the edge of it each time, and occasionally jabbing forward and striking the large eye.

Being struck angered it further, and it threw all care and caution to the side as it charged forward with the sole purpose of striking a decisive blow. Evan stood to meet the charge, and drove the branch deep into its eye, using its momentum to more easily kill it.

He panted, his breath stolen from the effort made to defeat whatever it was. He waited for a few moments for his breathing to steady, his eyes racing over the form that lay at his feet as he did so. And the longer he looked, the more he could hear a single word racing through his head, one that came from a voice he had never heard before.

{Devour.}

{Devour.}

{Devour.}