Fragment 005

I felt so disoriented. My body felt as though it had been torn apart and stitched back together. The throbbing in my head was unbearable, like something was trying to burrow its way out of my skull.

I wanted to open my eyes, but they just wouldn’t obey me.

I heard something. Actually, it was more like, I felt something.

Footsteps?

No, not more of those monsters. Surely not. Whatever it was, it was getting closer.

Something was different, the steps didn’t feel as heavy. Maybe it was something else? But in this place, I couldn’t be sure that meant it was safe. I wished I could open my eyes.

“Come on, you damn body. Listen to me. Move!” I thought to myself.

The movement stopped and I knew it was standing next to me. I could feel it.

Was it speaking? I could hear sounds, but they were too muffled to make out anything coherent.

I… I was still too weak for this. My consciousness drifted in and out and something shifted beneath me.

Movement. What’s happening? Was I being dragged somewhere?

At first, it was a gentle glide. Then the motion became rough, a series of violent jolts. My body rattled with every impact, my head repeatedly knocking against something hard. Although I could not react, I could still feel the pain of every bump.

Then it stopped…Silence…Stillness.

I tried desperately to regain control. Was the creature gone?

No. It was still there. I could feel its breath against my face. I smelled something sour. Rotten.

My eyes, once too heavy to open, finally began to lift. I had to see what stood before me.

My eyelids slowly parted as I braced myself. Through blurred vision, I saw something looming over me. A deep red shape.

Was this a demon?

Two outgrowths protruded from its head. Horns? It was a demon. The figure lingered over me as my eyes gradually focused.

The creature had dragged me inside the cave and onto a raised stone slab set off to one side of the interior, away from the entrance. It stood over me cautiously as I regained focus.

“Huh?”

Wait, this was no demon. It was…a fluffy animal. An animal with large pointed ears and a tattered red coat. It stared down at me with an expression I couldn’t quite understand. Its mouth hung open, one side higher than the other. One eye squinted gently while the other widened in shock, both rimmed with dark bags.

What was this thing?

“H…hello…” it called out, poking me with the end of a stick. Recoiling after every prod.

I groaned and swatted the stick from his hand.

That clearly startled him. He yelped, jumping backwards before retreating behind a nearby boulder deeper inside the cave.

“Y-y-you! What are you? Where did you come from? Don’t eat me! Please! I… well, I can’t actually think of a reason why you wouldn’t, but just don’t, okay?” the red animal rambled frantically from behind the rock, spluttering nonsense faster than I could process it. “Oh no, they’re back. But why? It doesn’t look like one of them. Hey, excuse me? Are you one of them? No! Rocco! Don’t engage with it. You’ve seen it’s fine, now just leave…I think I might be too late for tha…”

“Rocco?” I called out weakly from the stone slab. I’m sure it said that was its name.

“Huh? How do you know my name?” he asked. At that point I was pretty sure he was not aware he was talking out loud.

“How did I get here?” I asked.

The last thing I remembered was being moments away from being slaughtered at the hands of those nightmare-fuelled monsters.

Rocco remained partially hidden behind the boulder, though he calmed down just enough to entertain an actual conversation.

“Well… I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but I don’t think you were there earlier. Suddenly, I just heard a sound and…you were lying at the foot of that cliff. So my guess is… you fell.” He said, measuring the distance of the drop in his head.

It all started coming back to me.

“Oh… those monsters. I must’ve managed to escape.”

“Monsters? I’m going to assume you mean the Kral? I guess that explains your…” He paused mid-sentence and stared at me.

No, it wasn’t a stare. He examined me.

His eyes slowly travelled up and down my body.

“You had…” He pointed a claw towards different parts of my body. “Your wounds…”

I looked down to where he gestured. I remembered being attacked. I was certain of it. I’m sure I took quite a serious blow.

“Where are they?” he repeated.

I could only return a blank stare.

He slowly stepped back out from behind the rock, though he kept a cautious distance from the stone slab. “Who are you?” He whispered.

I took a moment to think, my memory returned about the chase, but I still had nothing from before them. “I don’t remember anything. My name, how I got here, where ‘here’ even is… all I remember is… them.”

He began to lower his guard. His tense posture had softened. Even so, he stayed standing several steps away from me.

“Well, you’re nothing like anything I’ve ever seen on Bloodcrest before.”

Bloodcrest. The name meant nothing to me. It stirred no memory, no feeling. Completely foreign.

“Bloodcrest?” I repeated back to him.

The short, stumpy creature, Rocco, let out a short growling sigh.

“You really don’t know anything, do you? This planet. This wonderment. This luxurious place we’re currently trapped on. It’s called Bloodcrest. Home to the… very few Crestorians, like myself, and… a few mutant abominations. Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

He held out his arms dramatically as he gestured around the cave. There was definitely a tone of sarcasm in his voice. At least, I thought there was. He seemed pretty hard to read.

Rocco was an odd character. Maybe on this planet, this really was considered paradise to him.

Our conversation was abruptly interrupted when we heard the sound of rocks skittering across the ground outside the cave.

Both of us turned towards the entrance.

Rocco instinctively ducked back behind the boulder while I remained frozen atop the stone slab.

Approaching from around the outer perimeter of the cave was another figure.

Backlit by the blazing sun behind them, a dark silhouette stood threateningly at the entrance, holding what looked like some kind of weapon.