Because you all asked so nicely, a weaker chapter.
The Rule of the Shrykull
Act One: The Fall
Chapter
II
Best to slow down. Let’s give half a minute after the… incident careful consideration. How I moved, or failed to move, how the person beneath me also failed to move – these are elements that need to be separated out. I remember thinking to myself, rather stupidly I suppose, that there must be some miraculous feat that could have saved Abe’s life; some angels must have hardened his skin and bones, make my body weigh nothing on the poor guy. A freak physical law could have reversed my mass, could gravity at this one point in the middle of a random stone ledge be much lower? Did I fall slower than I normally would do? Was the mud under me really alright, just annoyed?
I almost laughed at myself, and at the utter absurdity of the situation I now found myself in. There were so many events that branch from this point – so many subdivisions that begin in these early moments but I’ve picked my starting position. I could have easily picked the spot I’m telling at the moment, where I lie stupidly on the corpse of another, or maybe earlier, when I was originally set my fateful challenge. I chose the beginning I did because it best makes sense of the events that follow it; there was nothing before that I feel directly leads to this story in such a way. Such is life.
I stood up, not daring to look the mudokon beneath me and I think I let a chuckle slip my mouth. How ridiculous! How stupid! This cannot really have happened; surely he’ll get up and give me a slap for interrupting him. Still, I couldn’t look. I backed away, looking at the hole I fell through until I bumped into a wall torch. I jumped, turn quickly, shaking. Then laughed again; it’s a torch. I lifted it from the holster and almost instantly dropped it to the floor. I hadn’t ever killed somebody before, what should I do? Who was this mud? Noticed I was shaking severely, sounded (to myself) almost excited as I said; ‘Check on him, he might be alive. There must be something we could do.’ The flagrant untruth reverberated so pleasantly between my ribs that I almost repeated myself. Perhaps I did. My back was rubbing against the rough, web covered wall. Some of the stuff was sticking uncomfortably and my raw face still stung from the earlier fall.
Thinking about the fall made me look around sheepishly. Stupid, I would hear if there were paramites nearby. They’re good hunters, but they haven’t discovered the art of a silent ambush. Of course, their evolution did not require it; they were exceptionally fast and most of their prey would freeze in fear at the mere sound of their spindly legs.
My eyes slowly moved over the dark wall and downwards until I caught sight of blood. I dragged them up and I saw the corpse of Abe. For some reason, he seemed illuminated; like the circles of lights to focus on an actor in a stage performance, a nearby torch appeared to cast a circle of orange light around his decrepit body.
I gasped in shock at what was before me. He had blue skin; his feathers were strangely tied in a ponytail at the back of his skull, and he was in a truly inhuman position. He was sort of half sitting and half lying down. There was a vacancy in his features, one that could be mistaken for sleeping by a loved one. Unfortunately, such fantasies couldn’t even be contemplated; his spine was irrevocably crushed, it was almost as if his entire torso skeleton had ceased to exist. The shoulders were in a funny position an the legs were barely visible.
Blood trickled from invisible wounds over the stone floor and I smelt the sickening stench of excretion.
Before I really took in what I was looking, I found a lone paramite standing on his body. I hadn’t even heard it walk up; where did it come from? I wasn’t even scared, but I could see nothing but the paramite. Perhaps I gasped, or moved; I don’t remember. What I do remember is seeing a blinding white light, and where the paramite was, stood a mudokon.
Big Face.