BLOODLETTING

Contrary to Calen’s informed, professional, and certainly not even remotely panicked opinions, he was not actually dragged to his death. 

He was neither devoured whole nor horribly maimed by the monster waiting for him at the bottom. And besides hitting his head on the floorboards when it pulled him down, he was entirely unharmed.

Which wasn’t to say he was in an excellent position. 

He was a floor below his exit, surrounded by darkness, and all alone with an incredibly dangerous monster. One which had refused to let go of him. It held tightly to his legs, securing him in place. His back was against a wall of some sort, the creature cornering him on the ground.

He was afraid. 

Of course he was afraid. 

But he was silent. Calen didn’t scream in stressful situations. It might’ve been better if he had, or did, but he was muted during intense moments of any kind. It didn’t matter if they came about from anger, fear, or even those rare moments a long time ago when it was joy that might provoke a response.

His whole life, even with years of research, he had never been this close to a living monster. This was a hell of a first contact. 

The thing was utterly terrifying. At something like twice his size, its wings fanned out behind it, making it appear even larger than it was. It towered over him, practically bending itself in half to inspect him. Its torso was sleek and taut, with powerful musculature rippling beneath the surface. The feathers thinned into hard skin along its chest and stomach.

Flesh and muscle seamlessly streamed into an odd amalgamation of avian and saurian along its lower half. He could see elongated, powerful legs, bending backwards in a distinctively reptilian shape. The feet terminated in claws like obsidian daggers. Somewhere in the shadows Calen could just make out another appendage sweeping back and forth behind it. A tail of some sort, most likely. Though with monsters he couldn’t rule out it being a tentacle… Or something worse.

Calen regarded the monster as it watched him back with its deep, glossy eyes. Their darkness drank in the ambient light, surrendering only pinpricks of light like tiny stars in its eyes. There was intelligence in those eyes, an almost probing curiosity as it examined him. He wasn’t even sure which one to focus on. They were all intently focused on his face.

Or rather - they had been. While the third eye continued to hold his gaze, the primary and secondary eyes had moved down from his face. Without a discernible pupil, the focus of the monster’s eyes was denoted by a full rotation of the entire eye, white membranes pulled as it assessed him.

Ah. So it did have eyelids. Just like a bird.

With a start, he realized that the monster was also sweeping glances over his body. It was examining all of him with an odd attentiveness, eyes moving up and down. Focusing and narrowing. He didn’t know what to make of it.

The monster released one of his legs, pawing at his shirt with a massive hand.

Calen retracted his free leg and the monster snarled. Its claw came down over his thigh with such forcefulness that he flinched.

The snarling stopped. Calen’s eyes darted from the claw to the monster’s face. Its eyes were pinched and narrowed. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that it was frowning.

It made an odd chuffing noise, studying him. The claws slowly loosened his thigh. Calen didn’t move. The monster chirped amicably and released his leg. The meaning was clear. It wanted him to stay where he was.

It was a curious thing, this creature. He had no idea what sort of game they were supposed to be playing here, but it was clearly an intelligent creature. 

Without breaking eye contact, he moved his leg a little.

The feathers on the monster’s head rose like hackles, ears flattening. It hissed, grabbing his ankle. 

He waited, and it eventually released him. As soon as it had, he moved his leg, and the monster growled, holding it down. It was a milder sound, more annoyed than angry. Something about it assuaged a little bit of his unease. It was an… Even tempered sound. He didn’t presume that tigers and lions went about getting annoyed at their prey.

Or perhaps they did, and he was entirely deluded.

Deciding to make the most of what could potentially be his last observations on Earth, Calen played with the moment a bit. He flourished his leg at the monster like some sort of toy on a string. 

The monster pursued his foot, intent on keeping it pinned down. It did so lightly, however, never gripping as tightly as it had initially. Eventually it simply swiped at his foot, batting at it like a cat until he had placed firmly back on the ground.

Calen studied every little movement with fascination. He watched by the way the monster’s feathers lifted from its head when it reacted. Truly a bird-like creature. But those ears! Not avian at all. They were flexible, swiveling to and fro as the monster tuned in to their surroundings. The shadowed appendage in the background stretched and flicked with its reactions.

Calen let his foot rest where the monster wanted it. Then he placed his hand on the claw that still pinned his other leg. The claw was warm and smooth to the touch. He was tempted to examine it more closely, but the monster was regarding him suspiciously.

“Ohh-kay.” The first words were a little too breathy. He tried again. “Okay. It’s - ah - okay. Will you let go?” He spoke softly and slowly. The monster didn’t look away from his eyes, all seven watching. “I won’t run. I don’t think I’d be able to outrun you, anyway.”

It huffed at him. But, much to his surprise, it listened. Both hands moved from his legs, though they did not go far. The creature was still towering over him, resting on either side of his body.

“You… Understand what I’m saying to you.”

A white nictitating membrane drew across the monster’s primary lids. The ears flicked, feathers slightly puffed.

“Can you speak?”

It tilted its head to the left. Then to the right.

Perhaps it was reacting to his emotions rather than his words. The consensus in the scientific community was that these types of creatures were capable of low-level intelligence. They could hunt, they could hide, and at times they had been known to strategize. Some social behaviours had been observed amongst smaller, more common variations such as with the antelope-like safyia. Experts had placed these types on a scale of basic to moderately intelligent animals. At most, corvid-level.

Calen examined his beast. Corvid would fit.

The monster gingerly took one of his hands in its own. It splayed his fingers. He allowed it to do so without pulling back. There was a touch of apprehension in him, of course. He could feel the immense strength in its motions. It was like sticking your hand in a piece of factory machinery. It would continue along its course as it so chose - even if that course was at odds with how one’s bones bent.

At the same time, he felt his scientific curiosity piqued by their interactions. The creature seemed as intrigued by him as he was by it.

The monster moved all seven eyes from his face to his hand. It made a rumbling sound, coming from somewhere deep within its chest.

“Is it strange? I suppose it would be in comparison to yours. The human hand-”

The monster popped his hand into its mouth.

Calen sucked in a sharp breath. 

His heart rate instantly shot up, anxiety slicing apart any sense of calm he might have achieved in prior playfulness. There was nothing even remotely playful about what he had seen of those teeth. His instincts told him to struggle, but he didn’t dare even try pulling away.

Seemingly sensing his consternation, the monster secured him in place with one arm.

It didn’t bite down. Instead, it started moving its jaw back and forth in an odd gnawing movement. Something slippery slid beneath his rubber glove - probably its tongue. It thrashed and rippled over his hand. 

His captor gave another rumble before pushing his hand back out of its mouth.

“What-”

The tongue followed his hand out. 

Unlike the rest of the creature, the tongue was a vibrant crimson and entirely ridged in thorns. No, not thorns. More like enlarged papillae; the “thorns” ended in pliable nubs. The tongue spilled from the monster’s mouth like a river of red. It was long, extending out of the monster’s mouth to wrap around his arm. The tip was prehensile, he realized - as it searched its way across his hand. It found the edge of his glove and slipped underneath.

A disconcerted shiver ran through him when he felt the strangely textured tongue brush against the delicate skin of his inner wrist. 

He twitched, trying to push the monster away, but it held him in place. The tongue slid further up his arm, coiling and lathing at his skin. It pushed deeper into his glove, finding his fingers and twining around them. The tongue was caressing his palm, thick strokes of warmth and wetness that felt utterly strange.

Calen squirmed at the unpleasantness. “Stop!"

The monster stopped. The tongue slid out of his glove. He withdrew his hand immediately, and the monster didn’t stop him. But as he moved back, something along the underside of his palm caught his eye. 

Calen pulled off his glove.

Cat scratches.

Or, at least, they had been.

There, along his palm, was a raised mark. It ran the length of the shallow cuts he’d received earlier, but the colour was angry as opposed to faint. The furious red line was migrating down from his palm along his radial artery. 

Directly towards his heart. 

No better sign of an infection. 

Extraordinarily bad news, and something meriting immediate medical care. With the mutated flora in this place, the perpetrating thorn could have any sort of effect. He had no way of knowing what kinds of damages were being wrought on his body. There was no sense of pain from the line, no radiating heat to indicate it was there. Likely the reason why he hadn’t even noticed it up until now. But it was moving very fast. 

Even as Calen watched, the red line was creeping further up his arm.

Somehow this monster had sensed his injury. He was certain of it.

“You were…” Calen pointed to the mark on his hand. “Trying to help?”

The monster chuffed softly.

“Well - ah - thank you,” Calen gave the monster a curt nod, “But I require advanced medical treatment. I need to go-”

The chuff darkened. In its place came a low, warning snarl.

Calen paused. “... I-I need to go. Are you going to let me go?”

As if to answer, the monster braced both of Calen’s forearms. 

Suddenly it no longer seemed like such a friendly, intelligent creature.

“I need you to let me go. I can’t stay here. You can’t possibly understand what this means, but this-” Calen jabbed at the injury, “Could kill me. It might even be killing me already.”

The feathers on the monster’s head flared. It was growing agitated, just as he was. But instead of being reasonable - why he had expected a monster to be reasonable he didn’t know - it was pulling him closer. Its tongue curled out towards him.

“This is serious!” A note of anger filtered into his voice. He wasn’t about to die from an unknown infection because of some monster’s misguided attempts to ‘lick him better’. “I need - no! Put your tongue away! You - your saliva is an unknown variable! The last thing I need is monster spit contaminating the infection site!”

The monster argued in angry, chattering sounds punctuated by clicks and pops that rolled from somewhere deep within its throat.

“No! I said no! I am the professional here, God damn it!”

The noises grew louder and more adamant, rising over Calen’s voice as if trying to drown him out. The monster mantled its massive wings in an obvious effort to cow him into submission. Well it wasn’t going to work! 

Consternation forgotten, Calen began to openly struggle with it. He planted his feet on the creature’s hips and repelled backwards. The monster lost his arms for a moment, scrambling at his sides to pull him back.

“Release me this instant!”

He kicked furiously at the thing. 

It lashed out against his resistance with a series of rattling barks and roughly scrambled for his arms. 

Calen cursed at it as it squeezed his legs together with one arm. He smacked at its stupidly massive face, feeling his hand connect with its nose, its mouth. It didn’t react until his fist battered the honeycomb of its left primary and secondary eyes. 

There was a sharp, pained yelp, as it recoiled.

Despite his anger, he felt an immediate wash of concern. The eyes must be delicate, what if he had-

In one swift motion, the monster caught his infected hand and pinned him to the ground. The weight of its body - a paltry amount compared to its full size, no doubt - pressed him down and held him there.

He was given a full view as the monster angrily clutched his hand and jerked it closer to its face. Three of the seven eyes were closed shut where he had struck them.

The monster didn’t give Calen time to process what was happening, nor did it surrender when he pleaded with it to let go. Instead, it opened its mouth and bit a hole into the centre of his palm, right where the scratches started. Pain flared across his entire arm. The monster pointed its tongue and pierced the wound like a spear, digging deep into his flesh.

Calen fought the creature as the pain built into a wave of red-hot agony. He twisted, back arching so far he thought his spine might break. His free arm desperately clawed at the creature that was maiming him. His entire body shook with exertion as he tried to pry it off of him, beat it away, something to escape the sensation. Tears of pain rolled down his cheeks. The tongue was thrashing like a worm under his skin, destroying skin and muscle and ripping through him.

The tongue ceased moving. 

Retracted from his mutilated hand. 

But the pain endured eternal, raw and ragged and burning and throbbing and utterly searing him. Where the tongue pulled away he could see the exposed red flesh. A hole, cleaved from the centre of his palm to his elbow.

Blood shot from the wound, spurts in synchronized beat with his heart. Thick, hot blood coating the floor. Bright and oxygenated. 

He needed a tourniquet. 

His vision spotted in darkness, Calen struggled to focus. Numb, muted joints struggled to respond. He was growing woozy, growing faint. He had to control the bleeding. Elevate the injury…

There was a shuffling of feet, and then he felt the monster grasping at his body. 

He barely had space in his mind for thoughts as he watched it bring its hand to its mouth. As swiftly and intently as it had damaged him, it began to rip strips of flesh from its own hand. Wet, ripping sounds echoed throughout as it bit deep and tore into its own arm, tendons slipping from the weave of muscle in bloody fibres.

It turned to him, mouth dripping with his bright red and it's deep black blood. For a moment he was looking into the face of a wild animal. A wolf freshly stained from the kill. Then it was pressing its dead, mangled flesh into the hole in his hand.

Battered nerve endings screamed at the foreign invasion. 

Calen’s cries were ignored, just as they had been before, as it shoved the tissue into his wound. The monster forced the mangled bundle of flesh deep into the cavity that it had created with its own tongue and teeth. It was pain, more pain, and then -

Relief.

A euphoric wash of pure reprieve, cascading over him so quickly it made him lightheaded. Every muscle in him relaxed. He had gone limp, unable to keep himself afloat against the delirious tides of the pain and its reprieve. His head was still spinning. His entire body felt worn and battered. It wasn’t like he had lost his mind completely. The thoughts were still there, grounded consciousness seeping slowly back into him, they were just jumbled and confused.

He became aware of the monster as the last of the pain slowly ebbed away. It was holding him in its arms. His head was nestled against its chest, body curled towards its torso, and a large hand was wrapped over him. Its body was warm under him. 

Calen was simultaneously reassured and disturbed. Reassured, because he felt safe and secure. Disturbed, because he felt those things with this creature.

Shivers wracked his body. 

He brought his breathing down to a controlled in and out, waiting for his shaking to subside. But even as he registered the shock that was running its course through his body, he realized that the shaking was not coming from him, alone. 

The monster was trembling. 

Even more than he was. It was trembling so hard that it was shaking him.

He looked up at it. Its distress was… Palpable. It was slumped and folding into itself. Its face contorted, manifold eyes radiated sadness. The dark creature met his eyes and began to croon at him. Gentle, apologetic sounds. It just looked and sounded so miserable that he felt the urge to comfort it, somehow.

“It’s-” His voice was clogged and raspy. The words hurt his throat as they tumbled from his lips. “Alright.”

It wasn’t. Not really. This creature had just inflicted intense pain on him. Why offer it comfort of any kind?

In response to his words, the monster held him tightly. Not enough to hurt, but enough to keep him close. It continued to rumble softly at him, a constant string of apparently attempted reassurances. It filled the quiet of the darkened space with its gentle intonations. 

Calen was starting to feel incredibly tired. Falling asleep in a situation like this, however, was probably the worst possible idea.

Shifting in the monster’s arms, without looking into its all-too vulnerable eyes, he tried to speak again. “... Why did you do that? Why did you hurt me?”

The rumble stilted, strangled into a low, sad lament. Not quite a whimper, not quite a wail. An alien sound, yet familiar in sorrow. It tugged at his heartstrings against his will.

“You destroyed my hand.”

It had the audacity to give him a small growl. Calen felt a flicker of anger, even amidst the exhaustion threatening to overtake him. “Yes! You did!”

There was a flurry of movement as the monster shifted him in its arms. 

It grasped his wounded hand, even as he tried to flinch away. It pulled, grasping his hand with unyielding strength and certainty. His hand was drawn away from his chest until it was held out in front of him. 

Calen braced himself. He was a doctor. He could handle injuries. He had prepared himself for how bad it could be. What he had not prepared himself for was how non-existent it was.

His first visual was his own bright red blood, stark against his pale skin. But as he looked more closely, he realized that there were no discernible wounds. No gaping holes or mangled flesh. The skin was seamless, lacking even the cat scratches that had marred it. With cautious fingers he probed at the affected area with his other hand, gently pushing on his skin. Nothing.

No - wait - that wasn’t entirely true. Faintly discernible beneath the bloodstains, and prominently discernible where the bloodstains ended, was a line of pure black. It ran from the centre of his palm, all the way up his arm, like a vein. 

Calen pulled his shirt away from his chest. The black “vein” traveled all the way to his heart, where a pinprick of black stood out like a blotch of ink.

Calen cursed.

The monster seemed pleased. It was making soft noises at him again, as if Calen were admiring its handiwork and not trying to figure out how much longer he had to live. It had acted with intent to heal, that much was clear. It did not appear to have any desire to harm him. Tracing its actions back logically, it had detected the poison - or whatever it was - in his veins. 

It had captured him to help. 

And it tried to help him by… Something. Some sort of horrible monster medicine, he supposed. The monster had grafted its own flesh into him.

“What the hell did you do to me?”