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Jingling Posh
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tgc >>1047644 >>1047686
Kicker looked back at the creature, realizing what came next. She had nothing else she hadn't used but the dead creature.
She walked to it slowly and feeling in her gut the thing would, any time now, rise up and stomp her into a paste, crawling slowly and keeping her good claw ready to attack. When it didn't jump up, she poked at it's gut with it. Bullets had pierced the hide, after all, it just didn't bleed after. Hopefully that'd make this easier.
A second passed. Her nail was still prodding at the creature.
It did not jump up. Little miracles.
She buried her nail on its side to test the resilience. It was too hard for that. She buried her teeth instead. The flavor was bitter, disgusting sickening in the way all cold dead sun bleached meat is to a predator. But she kept digging her teeth in it, pressing until she poked a hole through…
…and had to pull her head away in disgust,retching on an empty stomach: Flatulent gas was leaking out of the hole she'd poked in the smooth, furless hide, smelling of rot and somehow bitter like the smell of grass. The gas kept escaping for several minutes, the creature slowly deflating before her eyes, until it went from plump looking to a sack of bones. Once she was sure all the rot-gas had leaked out, she poked her nails into the hole and worked on expanding it.
Most of her day went away on that, slowly tearing off the creature's gut skin. When she was done, she had a ragged patch that should work as a tunic. How long it'd last before rotting into nothingness, or if the desert heat would tan it, she had no way of knowing.
And under the skin the creature was, not, anytihng she could call natural. It was made of flesh, alright, but there were no intestines or stomach, instead green and yellow structures that almost looked made out of fiber. What she guessed was a heart was right in the center, encapsulated by a hollow bone chamber, held in place by tendon and muscle. Around it were four… lungs that against all sense still moved, slowly, making whistling and wheezing sounds as they forced rotten air to move.
And the oddest part was a chitinous skull embedded in the chest, in front of the heart chamber between two lungs, it's toothless snout elongated and with tubes running in and out of the mouth and neck, it's empty eyesockets letting her see what had to be a brain contained in a balloon made of transparent film.
She didn't want to look at this. The bug exoskeleton of a skull might at any moment turn her way and say something macabre she'd rather not hear. The legs might move and crush her. The lungs might wheeze out a voice and ask to be allowed to die like all the other flesh around them.
Night was falling and she was exhausted, but she wouldn't sleep. She wouldn't waste the cool air, and she wouldn't allow herself to lay again, vulnerable, near this pantomime of a living being.
She covered her head and barrel on the skin, held it in place by wearing Scrapooth's shell, and didn't run away from the creature.
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Next noon, she woke up half buried by sand. Had wind picked up during the day? She forced herself up through the weight of the sand and her gear and exhaustion, and looked at the horizon. The rimlights were fading as the sky turned to a pink hue, but she could still see the root perfectly and orient herself with it.
She kept scanning the sky, hopefully. No glitter, no sign of Snapper.
Had the fire…
No.
A waste of thought. She'd find out if she found out.
Kicker took a deep breath, drank the day's water ration (A single sip out the canteen, and even that was too much considering how much she had), and started running again. Her stomach growled. She ignored it.
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Another day passed. She woke up not buried this time, and looked at the last of her water miserably then up to the sky. No glitter. Back to the water. Her head felt about to burst, and her hurt claw screamed with her every motion.
Something passed above her head, quick and small and whistling. A bullet. Adrenaline filled her.
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