tasty, tasty, tasty
Hungry.
It was hungry.
Saliva dribbled from its bleach white skull, the empty black sockets of its eyes scanning the river for its next meal. The small deer from yesterday did little to satisfy its appetite, and it was hungry. It was always hungry. It watched for a flash of rainbow scales amidst the frigid water, watched for fish, waiting for the right moment to strike and gnaw and gnash and crack and tear...
Snow had fallen across the land and yet it continued to hunt, knowing of little else. Driven as it was by its insatiable hunger the cold did not bother it, its lanky body traveling unhindered through the forest like a haunted shadow, moving on crooked, gnarled legs and forelimbs that were stretched far too long. Black, matted fur clung to its body, wiry and coarse, rising up its legs, its hips, along the startling length of its whipping, curling tail. Up, up, up, the black fur stretched, from the concave torso and the bony, protruding ribs. It’s shoulders, broad and robust and hunched over, but its arms elongated almost the length of its entire body, muscled with thin senew. The black fur ended at its neck, revealing a skull with antlers; equine, perhaps? Elk? It was hard to place, but the skull was bone-white and sun-bleached with empty black eye sockets, its sharpened teeth aligned in a macabre, terrifying grin. Upon each antler tine hung its collections, its prizes. Trophies.
A vertebrae from an equine spine, tasty, tasty, tasty. A rib, long and curved. A cheekbone. Teeth that were still attached to a part of a jawbone. Various pieces taken away from various kills, trophies, proud trophies.
The creature heaved, waiting, poised hunched over the river with its claws scraping and grasping the snow at its hooves. It lunged forward at the first sign of movement beneath the waves, spotting the pink flesh of a creature coasting the current just beneath the surface. Its skull disappeared within the freezing depths, latching onto the flesh that immediately thrashed to free itself. It reeled back, pulling the struggling mammal onto the shore and immediately began to eat.
It did not get far into its meal.
Voices. It halted, its maw stained with blood. The crunch of footsteps in the snow caused it to lift its head, watching, waiting… Two shapes emerged a short distance down the river, heading its way. It recognized them. Small horse, tasty snack tasty, and forest critter too much hair but tasty, tasty. They were joined moments later, their trek halted, by the arrival of a third. Large horse big meal, tasty, tasty. The creature swallowed and heaved, head tilting, glancing down at the meal in its claws. This pink creature was not near as tasty as horse flesh.
Abandoning its prey alongside the bank of the Rapax River, the creature turned and disappeared into the trees, its tall, hunched frame scurrying through the snow and into the protection of the trees nearby. Waiting. Watching.
It seems that @
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