Chapter 2- Act of Mercy

I leapt back in horror as the immense, pelagic mass swung for me. The attack had been bizarrely sluggish, or perhaps I was only percieving it as such.

Scambling away from the waterfront, for I had no doubt the creature wasn't alone, my hand brushed against a two-by-four, which I almost instinctively picked up, but had little intention of using.

I heard the gargled curses of my pursuer draw close, bearing down upon me. In an instant, its tremendous weight was upon me, propelled by froglike leaps. I cried out as its slick, hooked claws dug into the flesh of my back.

Almost instinctively I tried to get up, somehow overcoming the creature's considerable bulk and striking it across its flabby maw with the plank. The creature was spun away from me as I managed to stand up once more. The strike had been a glancing one, but it had dazed it. I figured that if I tried running, the creature would only catch me again, so I would have to stand my ground. My apparent resurrection had come with an increase to strength.

I brought the plank down on the creature's finned nape, creating a sound like wet leather bag being struck.  A pained grunt escaped the creature, as it swung for me once more, this time opening parallel gashes in my chest, running up to my collarbone. I didn't feel much pain, despite the fact it had managed to shear my flesh down to the bone. In fact, little blood seemed to emerge.

Too terrified to relent my assault, I struck the creature again, and again, splintering the plank against its flabby, elastic bulk. Soon, the plank broke, leaving me defenceless.

The creature fell upon me, rows of triangular fangs sinking into my shoulder and neck muscles. I groped for purchase on its jaw, hoping to dislodge it as it began to viciously thrash and drag me toward the water. In response, and no small amount of desperation, I rammed my free hand into the creature's gills, and, with all my might, ripped back, bringing a fistful of feathery viscera with me.

The creature snarled, and disengaging and applying pressure to the wound. The scent of its blood was foul, both fishlike and rancid, but even so I felt a strange compulsion to keep fighting. I thrust my other hand into the creature's uninjured gill, and once again ripped open a deep gorge in its throat. The creature's movements became sluggish, as foul blood pumped out of it, staining the cobbles. Still unsatisfied, I thrust one hand into the twin wounds, and the other grabbed the top jaw of the creature.

I ripped the head clean off, the rain of even its abhorrent blood invigorating my senses. Once the creature fell dead, I was disgusted by my own savagery. What I had killed wasn't human, and in self-defence, yet the sheer ferocity with which it had been killed sickened me. I shoved the carcass into the water, watching a brownish cloud come billowing from it as it sank.

Heavy footfalls approached me as I collected myself. "Well well, what have we here?" said a coarse voice. I turned around, finding myself faced with a tall, heavy-set man, perhaps six feet, four inches tall. He wore a kind of padded goat, alongside what appeared to be plates of steel armour, which, although sparse, offered protection to vital arteries.

I didn't have any words, so I stood there, gasping for air, before bending double and collapsing to my knees.

The man didn't seem to pay me much notice, instead surveying the now tumultuous waters. "Shit." He grunted. "On your feet, there are more coming."

I obliged, staggering to my feet, but I was struck from behind with some form of barbed spear, no, a harpoon, thrown from the water by an emerging creature. The thick, crudely fashioned tip shattered my left shoulder blade, and it embedded deep in my flesh. It had likely hit my subclavian artery. In ordinary circumstances, I was a dead man, but, I had been there, done that already. Still, the breath was sucked from my body, and black spots appeared in my field of view.

The man drew long-barrel pistol and rapier from his side, turning to face the approaching monstrosities. "Nevermind, just try not to bleed out, yeah?"

The first of the horde pounced at him, but he deftly dodged the assault, spearing the monster's heart with his rapier, and assuming a defensive stance once again.

The initial shock and pain was fading already. Maybe, just maybe I could remove the spear by pushing it through. Its trajectory didnt meet any other vital blood vessels, and given my condition, it was possible, likely even. I staggered to my knees, then my feet, bracing myself for my next move.

The man was now a blur of flashing steel and gunsmoke. Six of the creatures lay dead at his feet. He looked back at me, surprised I had managed to stand. "Didn't I tell you to..." a crackling gunshot sounded, as he put another creature down.

I fell back on the shaft of the harpoon, rupturing my own chest as the head emerged, and the shaft followed, bloodsoaked as it was. Without thinking, I grabbed the harpoon and thrust it into the centre-mass of one of the creatures, dragging it toward me. Instinctively I clamped my jaws onto its neck, feeding on the sickly blood flowing from my bite, reinvigorating me. I could feel the pleasant heat of my wound being mended as I drank.

The creature squirmed and gurgled, clutching at its eyes and face, scoring deep marks in its own flesh. When I disengaged, it collapsed in a shiveing heap, and I finished it off.

I turned around to see the stranger standing over the corpses of the rest of the group, looking a little worse for wear, and certainly bleeding. "Come on," I ordered. "My home isn't far, I can get those wounds looked at"

I extended my hand, but he backed away, revealling he had an inflamed wound on his neck. It seemed vaguely burned at the edges, with a network of reddened blood vessels emanating from the cut itself.

"Don't be absurd, it's superficial. Infection is the main concern for that, come on." I told him, more than slightly  annoyed.

He collapsed almost immediately after that, and I felt a little bad for admonishing him. I hauled him over my shoulder, nearly choking on the smell of sweat and blood, as I took on his weight. As much of a pain as it was, I had an oath to uphold.

I reached home by what I assumed to be about four in the morning. I laid the still unconcious man out on my bed and got my doctor's bag from the cupboard.

I would chronicle the effects of this seemingly unknown poison in my doctor's notebook, as I knew a synthetic veraion could well be the next step forward in anesthetics. In addition, having been out of work for so long, it would be good to once again do what I did best, even if I was treading unknown waters.