Howlers

They are checkpoints! Joji said. "if I make it to one of them when I die, at least I'll respawn with a bit of an advantage."

A gloomy, unfeeling wood hung over him like an evil cradle, ready to consume him whole. Joji was breathing heavily and covered in sweat. He felt so uncomfortable from the heat. He looked around gripping his spear tightly.

The pain had subsided enough for him to barely walk; as he took his first few steps, he heard a piercing scream.

Amy! He thought.

He looked around for the source noise that sounded like a woman's scream.

He ran forward towards the direction of the noise. Far in the distance in the deep, dense jungle, he saw a red-headed woman running; she ran from left to right.

She looked distressed, and right behind her were brown skin men with bones around their necks and white face paint. Joji took off running at them; the pain in his leg had all but gone now, and adrenaline surged through his body.

I don't even know what she looked like here, how would I know who is and isn't Amy?

The girl ran as fast as she could and seemed quite the decent runner. She was quick enough to dodge protruding roots and vines that could trip her; her reaction and awareness were good, but her speed was lacking.

The men after her ran like mad men, their tongues hanging out; they howled and growled at her, teasing and taunting her. Their eyes were sunken, and they were so lean their heads seemed like black skulls, their teeth were sharpened, and they held what looked like a human femur in their hand.

They were gaining on her and she was running out of breath too. They were growling like hyenas, and they swung the bone at her; it moved through her red hair, and she felt it brush through the strands, and a coldness filled every part of her body.

The growlings were getting too much, they were beginning to affect her. She was experiencing the psychological effect of their taunting, a strategy they were known to exploit to weaken their prey's defenses.

They swung the bone again, and a bit of it nicked the back of her head; she couldn't believe it. I'm gonna die, she thought, tears began rushing to her eyes. She tried her best to move faster but she only got slower and slower.

One of the howlers, seeing she was close, leaped off after her. They jumped very far, being great dwellers of the jungle. The howler pounced on her, and before she fell, he managed to wrap his leg around her own; he grabbed her by her plump chest, wrapping his arms around her body and inhibiting her arms.

She fell on the ground hard and began to cry even harder with her face buried in the dirt. The howler began licking her neck; she felt the saliva drip down to her chin as she shivered in fear.

The Howler's body clung onto hers like a bear trap. She couldn't move an inch. She tried her best to fight back, to break free, but that only made them jeer in jubilation.

The howlers were salivating just looking at her skin and she felt it too, like she was being scanned by hungry eyes. She wore animal skin, a little loincloth, panties, and a little too to cover her breast.

Enough if she was exposed to the eyes, but the howler felt no lust; they only felt hunger, she could hear their stomachs growl, and from the human skulls on their waist, it was evident they were man-eaters, cannibals.

The other howler, not able to control his appetite any longer got down beside her while his partner kept her bound. He touched her thigh, and she twitched; then, he touched the side of her belly and smiled a twisted smile.

He pressed her head down and raised his other arm up. He held the femur with that hand and she could feel it coming down. She could already feel her skull shatter, her blood spill, and grey matter splash all over the place as they ate her brain raw.

This wasn't the first time, but death like this was so painful and so traumatizing that no matter how many lives you had left, you wouldn't want to die again.

The howler dropped his hand and she could hear the bone cut through the air like a blade or was it. She heard a sudden crash sound and thought her skull had been smashed. Then Howler cried, and she felt what she thought was rain landing on her back, but it was too much and too sudden to be rain.

The howler that bounded her cried with a screech, and she felt his grip around her lessen till she was completely free again. She heard him run off. She was still shivering with fear after he left. Unable to tell what was going on, she opened her eyes to see the corpse of the howler that had touched her thigh.

She gasped, he was lying by her side, lifeless and she'd never even heard him fall, she looked down and saw a green emerald sticking out of his chest, on taking a closer look she realized it was a spear.

Then she heard what sounded like struggling; it sounded like a fight, and she carefully raised her head to look. She saw a strange sunburned man wrestling the howler.

Joji and the howler had their arms interlocked. Joji had done this to stop him from reaching for his bone daggers. They pushed each other from side to side in an attempt to toss one another but they both kept their balance.

The poison wound made Joji feel dizzy any moment now and he'd lose his balance. Joji's grip tightened on the cannibal's arms, ruining his every attempt to break free.

Joji was gathering his strength, waiting till he had enough, and threw him against a tree.

He snapped his jaw at Joji like a wild dog, and Joji jolted back, but he leaned his head in, its teeth like a collection of sharpened fangs; the howler snapped his jaw at him again, and Joji dodged but felt his breath brush on his face.

It was a foul odor, and Joji twisted his face in disgust; seeing this, the howler smiled with a grotesque grin; he leaned into Joji's face and let out a deep breath so powerfully foul it forced Joji to break his grip to escape it.

The howler immediately grabbed his bone dagger and Joji, just recovering from the stink bomb, realized he was in a whole lot more trouble now.