Tether to the Beast

Written by Septia.

A rhythmic throb raged in my head, urging me to the surface of my senses. I came to, the hammering of my pulse clattering between my ears, accompanied by an odour curdling through the air, one of metal rusting under a carpet of mud. I took in the sight of brambles and thorn, in my immediate surrounding, and further off the creeping elevation of a hills cloaked in moss, all of it surrounding a blue lake ahead, with… with clouds? Oh, I was on my back, that lake was the sky.
“Help, s-someone, a-anyone, g-get a-away fro-fmmwf-fmpfwhgg-.”
The screams hone my senses, and through a mist of headaches I peer up, following the hills into an outcropping in the mountainous terrain, a cup of boulders clutching onto a gondola cart. In the sky above hung the metal tubes of the cable way, with a gap where our gondola had been… My vision jittered back toward the wrecked gondola, watching as a beast arched behind it, raising the flailing body of a woman towards the heavens.
-Ghrbglgpsht- -Ttddhwp- Their squirming body descending past the rounded kneel of the beast’s head, sinking into the grasp of thick, rugged lips undulating and ensnaring the tourist's body. Pleads, muffled under bulks of fat, muted to vague huffs and groans. Similarly – as their body followed suit – their frame reduced to vague domes, as their body siphoned into past the maw of the furred monstrosity on two legs.
“Mfmg, agmmprgs-… gmmryyuuthgfffpph.”
-Ghfllpbtusl- -Pfpfsmgpghssl- -Ghrgmgsp- It swallowed her, chucked and arched its body back in a thrust of rhythm to tire their catch. Their clothes matte to their skin under the bulldozing trawl of the lips, as the beast devoured them…
-Oomgpghsrlp- Their legs wound into the crescent shape of the creature, engulfed, feet sealed behinds its maw, dragging them into its depths, until their form vanished under the animal's fat.

More of the ascodermasines make their way to the gondola. With their curved body shape they were made reminiscent of seals, heaving along the hill. Though they held their front half high on the two burly legs, wide as tree trunks and with enough bodyweight to shatter branches. They shift forwards in a manner of clambering across the rock, assisted by a slithering of their broad, elongated torsos. They appear slow. A more appropriate word, would be inevitable.
The sloth of dermasines from the entire enclosure congregating on he gondola, now turned metal feeding pod. One of the bucks slams over it, paws, resting on the hardened plastic.
I hear the tension of the carriage, and the faint whimpers from the passenger huddling within... I see the hollow window, in line with the bushes I had been… ejected into… This, triggered the realization, and the world crashed into place around me – a puzzle swept from off a table to crash on the ground.
“Gnngsg.” I grunted as the ache of thorns digging into my arms reached my head, like the fangs of the dermasines sinking and toying with the gondola above. I was not observing them behind glass or from a rope way in the sky; I was trapped in the enclosure, and I lacked any protection of the others, I had no iron bars to huddle behind.
Through frantic – though brief – scramble, I make my way into the bush, biting my lip raw to silence the streaks of seer from the thorns burrowing and through and grazing into my skin. I spy out on the sloth of beasts. Some turned their attention toward my landing site, sampling the air. Though the majority are obsessed with the meat-basket fallen form the heavens.
I breathe to calm my nerves, holding myself to a steady pattern to avoid gasps and groans which would give me away in a broadcast my position. I have to remember, scrubbing through my memory for any and all information we were given on the in-line tour. Ascodermasine, large natural chimeras, primarily mammal and mollusc related strands. Predators, obviously. I bite my lip harder. This didn't help. I needed to remember something that could help me. I look up, and see them crawling over the gondola. Then, a vision of a cheery recorded voice playing in my head.
‘Our ascodermasine aren't just fed on command. To keep their wild senses honed, we have positioned metal cages in the enclosure, which we periodically filled with food. This means they have to search out their prey and dig through the bars to get their sustenance, similar to how they would dig through the rib cage of a carcass.’
This explained why there seemed to instinctively hone in on the carriage. I allow myself some breathing room, it would keep them busy for a while, perhaps, long enough for assistance to arrive.
“S-stop, aghagyrahg. Aghahgwamg-mpwfhwt-gmsgah-.”
The shriek of pleads slice through the air, cutting my senses in twain. I see another dermasine arch back, maw enclosing around a man's legs dragging itself backwards to haul him out with its own bodyweight, then scooched forwards to -Chglprhghs- cram its moist maw further up the man's frame, enveloping him in the the taut pack throat of the beast. The massive stature inhaling him with each -Gbllpfwtshwp- swallow.
I turn away, scoffing, time is not on my side here, distracted or not. Then, I see something through the brushwork, in the loam beside it, a mound of earth scooped up from the ground. The memory returns.
'…we also bury their meals in different spots throughout the enclosure, as dermasines's keen sense of smell allows them to both sniff it out, and remember where they have stored it through olfactory markings.'
My time was just sliced in half. As soon as one of them got bored, or didn't get enough meat, they’d wander back and start digging, right next to me. I had time… but only time enough, to plan my next move.

~ 1 ~

“Five… four… three, two…” I dash from the bushes, my feet hover a few scents above the ground in my spurt. Duck. Back plastering into the rock cropping behind me, shrouding me from prying eyes. I glance back. There is no change in their behaviour… They hadn't caught my trace… My shirt remains in the impact brush, swabbed crimson from the blood I dried off. Could dermasines's smell blood? Was I leaving a trace by discarding it? But, I don't think reeking like a wounded deer would help me much be too much benefit. I tuck my arms and legs tight, take a break, and roll… down the hill, roots kneading into my side grunts stifled as I tumble with neary a noise further out of their vision. I come to an outcropping, a dune of mud and dirt above, a burrow. Squeezing into, I gasp out another breath before closing off my sense… everything but my ears…
Growls. Distant. Unengaged…
Another sigh. Good. I wasn't followed. I crawl along the burrow, hiding behind bushes at the foot of the mountain. What was the point? The safe house. In each enclosure, there was a phone booth. Well, not a phone, some kind of short distance radio communication, used by workers and cleaners of the park. It was close to the fence, and a spot they'd know to reach… I wish I knew where it was… I'd seen them as they rose over other enclosures, a wooden shed with a gate. Couldn't be much better than the gondola, but the key is that its far away from the rest of them as long as I could reach It, I would be baled to communicate, and take a breather. Maybe collapse for a while, seeing how much adrenaline is pumping through…
-Ghbrraaawwoorg-.
My pulse, ceased. All the energy, pumping through my muscles, punctured and leaking out as a disturbing shudder through my body. I looked up, from crawling on all fours to the next hiding place… further up he hill. Stretching all on its front legs, stood a dermasine.
I gulp down a breath, which sets my body a shudder.
It remains, still.
It might… not see me. The tinge of hope blossom into warmth through my legs and back. I shuffle another step.
-Chfhfg- Foliage scrunched beneath its paw as it turns with my motion. Gaze d.
It sees me. My courage disperse into dust. I feel a presence of tears building in the corners of my eyes. They trickle free as I grasp in shudders. It is over. It sees me. Its aware of me. I is just biding its time, mulling over how to make chase. If it needs to crush my head underpaw, or if it can just swallow me down like the others.
'I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead'. I repeat in my head, all my planning and careful plotting melting into dread…
I stare.
My gaze speared into the ground. I wait.. and wait. Seconds pass. I stop repeating the macabre mantra. I turn my head to the dermasine.
is gaze drills through me, harpoons sunk through my flesh and anchored to the ground beneath me. It. Speed, and strength was was irrelevant. It knew that it hows that I 'm helpless.
Teadrops of brine trickle down my cheek, dropping into the dust blow and during dirt into mud. Yet, it only stares. Despite its frame nearing two meters when stood tall, despite the paws hiding hooks that would sink into flesh with the ease of a knife gourging a pillow, despite the muzzle buzzing clouds of humid air … it stares, and only stares.
It doesn't make sense. Why is it doing his? I am… right here. In the backyard of this buck, a fish in a barrel. Behind the yellow eyes, what did the beast harbour? I delve d into his look, in the shimmer of light a geist over the orb… delving into his vision…
The dermasine raised a paw, and turns it away from me.
I gasp.
It returns the paw. Gaze locked.
I curse myself. If I'd remained still.. T-this was my chance. But, breaking contact with his eyes, had been, such a shock… second, by second. The staredown, prolonged. I counted the moments, each one another breath of my life, to cherish, or dread.. Knowing, what loomed above…

-Gmmhhhurrrgff- It growled. And turned. Hazing off, back up the hill, clambering its paws along a path, dragging is body behind. Sloughing along like a slug, without a care.
I remain, anchored to my spot. I wait. Yet. Anticipate. And yet… the dermasine, seems to, really not have a care for me, anymore.
I can't just… lose interest… it was not blind. We saw each other, locked by one another's motion…
Distracted or not, if it was further away now. I scramble to the next hiding spot. There’s a growl in the distance but I keep shimmying behind rocks, foliage, and terrain. The distance to the beasts only growing larger. I will no stop, until I’ve left its sight behind me.

~ 2 ~

The news comes on. There is a short segment about the incident. The hold up a replica of the hook – the cause behind the malfunction – one hook in the machinery worn away by age, a replacement neglected. Where the blame falls remains in the air. They keep my face blurred... Which settles as a calm in my chest.
Towards the segment's end, they show pictures of the ascodermasine enclosure, of the sloth of beasts within, of the bucks now apprehended for gorging on visitor's bodies. One of them, turns towards the camera. Our gaze meet. I feel nothing, nothing that was not already nested in my chest… I had yet to escape.