Jellyfish - Chapter 8 Leftovers

They were all dead.

Hunters and monsters alike lay strewn everywhere in varying states of decay. A few limbs stuck out here and there, and other bodies had disappeared below the sands. With every step, the new glass that had formed from lightning strikes cracked and were crushed. Some pronounced stench had mixed with the dust in the air. It was a burning, rotting, disgusting odor that came from the bodies.

Rei and Moss adjusted the damp cloths over their noses.

Moss kneeled down and picked up a single bloodied shard. The scorch marks spotted over the surface prevented her from seeing a reflection.

The girl dropped the piece and watched it fall. She frowned and brushed the debris off her scales.

“I don’t think any of your friends here managed to survive.” Said Rei. “Sucks.”

“Yes. It is a shame…” Replied Moss.

A cockatrice’s head stuck out from the ground, still as stone.

A quiver with a single arrow rested in the jaws of a Viper.

The sands contained the blood of many, which swirled in the dunes and vanished below the desert.

There was nothing more to do here other than dig up what they could.

The two stood by each other as the rest of the gatherers started to arrive. They came in waves, riding on big birds and in large wagons. In the distance, the lightning raged but continued to crawl away.

For a while, they were oddly quiet. Rei watched the sky as it turned darker than dark. She spotted the stars above as they peeked on the gruesome sight below, and the moon as it continued to look down with its blank face.

“I take it you don’t care much because you hated these people?” said Rei.

The Nomad looked up to the moon, and her mouth opened a little to drink from the night.

“Can’t say huh?”

“I hate having to tell the kids,” replied Moss. “They cry.”

If you watched Rei, as she looked at Moss the same way one would with a statue, her eyes narrowed, and a smile was beginning to cross ad crossed her lips.

“Telling the kids that their family’s gone. Sounds familiar…” said Rei.

“Shut up.”

“It would have been better if you just didn’t send anyone at all, right?”

“No,” replied Moss. “It was their duty.”

The Immortal revealed, a disgusting, snake-like grin, and Moss felt her hand twitch. The air around her head began to feel hot.

“Who are you to even question our ways? You’re an outsider who sees only through their own eyes.”

Moss stomped towards Rei. The girl put her foot down and laid her arms to her sides. She stood her ground as she faced the Outsider.

“You don’t even die. We’ve seen you get eaten and come out alive. If anything, you’re a monster in disguise.” Moss said.

Rei finally felt the skin on her cheeks stretch a little too far. The hairs on her arm tingled as Moss got closer with every second.

Nearby, the scavengers felt it would be better to not interrupt in this argument. Some were afraid of Rei and others did not care much for Moss. Rei stood as still as ever while Moss raised her fist and tried to swing it.

But a sudden tremor in the earth would interrupt.

The sands trembled. The glass sang.

A bladed tail passed over their heads.

There were brief shouts and a very sudden silence followed. Sand went everywhere, bits of sharp glass as well. Moss closed her eyes and rolled into a ball. Rei in the meanwhile embraced the chaos with open arms. Her neck had a rather large piece of glass sticking out from it.

A Viper revealed itself from beneath the desert. Its head dripped blood, and it was missing an eye. The scales on its body were mismatched, and they stuck out at odd angles. Something like tumors spread across its body, pulsating, beating with every second. The inside of the monster’s mouth revealed sores and more tumors as it was letting out an ear-piercing hiss. Pieces of rock had embedded most of the gums, and the fangs crumbled continuously and reformed. The tongue had fallen off since it was mostly ash at this point, but it did not grow back.

Before they could run, the creature was on top of them. Moss screamed, the Viper’s blood splattered all over her, and then nothing.

She opened her eyes to find the creature chewing away on something. Two pairs of soft feet, with five little toes, wiggled as the body they belonged to disappeared.

Rei was gone.

The Nomad took this as her chance to run. She felt no need to help the Outsider.

Her feet became tangled over each other as she ran. Moss spotted a Cockatrice that had survived the initial swipe just a few feet away from her. Moss was halfway to reaching a means of escape, the Viper finished swallowing Rei and began digesting her.

The inside seemed lined in armor that contained all sorts of sharp glass pieces. Rei laughed in hysteria as she was practically flayed and ground to bits. The Viper would move, and each time the Immortal tumbled around, her body had quickly become deformed and shrunk as it lost massive amounts of flesh.

Then she was dead.

Moss reached the Cockatrice, her hands were on the reins, but the bird would not move. It trembled just as Moss was quivering. She was unable to calm the beast, but she kept trying as the Viper would no grant her mercy.

The monster was right next to her. Its tail moved towards Moss. Glass flew past her face with some bouncing off her scales. She closed her eyes again.

The creature stopped, its tail froze just in front of Moss. She fell off the cockatrice as it ran away without her. The Viper was letting out a low groan and seemed to be watching; waiting for Moss to do anything.

The beast’s stomach burst suddenly, and out spilled a few dozen identical corpses.

“Fuck!” shouted Moss.

“Fuck!” screamed Rei. Her current self-popped back into existence a second after the bodies hit the floor.

“All that work and still no death.”

The Immortal kicked the snake and threw herself on its glass covered body in frustration. She killed herself a few more times but gave up when her efforts proved futile.

Moss, in the meanwhile, was quite busy.

She vomited, and vowed to herself she’d never see something like that again.