I felt like tearing my hair out as I paced back and forth where Jarred fell. The skinny bastard was my friend for years and in a single second, he was gone. Dammit, dammit, dammit, why did we have to be greedy! I got on my hands and knees to look over into the dark abyss again, in some vain attempt to look for him. Why Jarred, this was supposed to be simple. The sound of soft steps behind me calmed my mind, Richard, he will know a way down.

I scrambled up and turned with a smile on my face when I was met with a thing from nightmares, it was certainly not Richard. Towering above me was some skin and bone monster, with large gangly limbs and a birdlike skull on top of a long snaking neck. In the faint light of my torch, I could see its sickly grey skin and its pitch-black eyes. Those soulless eyes seemed to burrow into my soul, they will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I stepped back unconsciously and found myself suddenly weightless. That horrid thing suddenly disappeared from sight but that did nothing to ease my sudden panic, I was falling. A scream erupted from my gullet and I flailed uncontrollably as the realization that I was about to die hit me. Abruptly my world went black.

POV shift---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, it seems like he lacked some spatial awareness, I peered up the ravine and whistled to myself, that was quite a fall. I crouched down by my two victims and inspected the damage. Hopefully, the intestines didn’t rupture, which could ruin most of the meat. I coughed a bit when I inhaled the scent of unwashed peasant, my nose is a bit sensitive from its recent unuse. What’s so hard about rinsing yourself in a river every now and then. I began to peck and tear off strips of flesh from the first idiot that I pushed off. A bit sour, the sign of an unhealthy life, the sweetness of the sin made it palatable though.

It didn’t take long for the first man to be gone; it was barely a meal, but it gave me some relief. I cracked a bone and sucked out the fatty marrow, I needed to be in tip-top shape before heading out with the Kelmot’s to the siege. The fatty marrow is one of the best ways to keep the hunger down long term. “Ugghhh.”

A soft groan rang out as my not-so-dead prey began to stir, apparently this guy was made of rubber. “Wh-what.”

He tried to move but gave a gurgled cry. Well, it seems he wasn’t completely indestructible. I slinked my beak over to his face and when I saw the sudden fear in his eyes, I snapped my beak into one of his sockets. The soft flesh of his ocular organ squelched as it traveled down my throat. The only thing better than flesh permeated in sin is flesh marinated in terror. I left the man to his screams and turned back to my pile of bones.

I made a big show of crunching through each bone, making sure my prey could hear every second of it. From my experience, it only takes a few minutes for the bone marrow to start producing magic. The reason bone marrow is so soothing is because of its ability to store magic for emergency situations, and once the stored magic runs out, it starts to pull on the body’s inner mana. This brings out the normally hard to obtain mana into something easy to eat.

I spread my wings and gave them a flap or two while listening to the pleasant song of a dying man. I usually don’t really think about it, but I sure do have a sadistic streak sometimes. I don’t think I was originally like this, the desperate screams of the dying used to fill me with dread. When did it change? Was it when I became a monster or was it even before then? I can’t remember anymore. My mood dampened with that line of thought, I have truly become a monster, both in body and of mind.

That may not be such a bad thing though, if it had been any different, I would have never made it through my long life of war and death. This is me now, and no amount of reminiscing can change it. I flexed my hand in phantom pain, whether it was the right decision or not, I may never know. I gave a long-winded sigh before bringing my beak over and clamping down on my victim’s throat, I should really take better control of some of my less than pleasant tendencies before I do something I could regret.

The sweat taste of magic-infused blood filled my mouth as two small hallow fangs pierced his cordial artery. His screams weakened and weakened as blood loss strangled his consciousness. In twenty seconds, he was dead, and in another twenty he was completely drained. I licked the blood off the edges of my beak before digging in for the main course, but as the soft ripping of flesh filled the dark cavern, I noticed a spicy scent permeating through the air.

After getting used to the smell of dirty peasant I could sense the faint smell of something dearly familiar to me. I immediately stopped eating and started to track its source, I had forgotten in the haze of my hunger that I detected signs of a large creature occupying this place. The sound of my claws clicking in hard stone as well as the soft ruffling of feathers was the only sign of my presence. With each step, the spicey scent got stronger and stronger. Finally, I found its source, a small crimson drop. A frown tugged at my nonexistent lips as I tried to pinpoint the creature that made It. Though it was still in a very much liquid state, I could tell the blood was a day or two old.