Part 8

“How hard is it for you to shut up?” A raspy voice asked as sniffling filled the silent forest. “Do you want to be eaten raw?”

The voice belonged to one of four creatures scurrying through the forest. None of its three brothers answered his question but the sniffling was squashed in response.

“Yeah, that’s better,” The human-sized creature muttered. “Huh? You like it better when she’s crying? What sort of monster are you?”

No question was asked but the talking insect answered anyway.

“Ohhh, you think the tears taste nice? Like a salty sauce? Huh… I guess that could be nice…”

The creature seemed to be talking to the others beside him, but they weren’t talking. It didn’t even look like they had a mouth to talk from, more of an ant’s maw.

Sniffle, Sniffle

It had only been a couple of seconds before the sniffling returned.

“Brat, you can keep crying but just stop the noise.”

“…”

“No, I’m not a freak like you who wants to hear your prey’s screams,” the creature opened his beak to argue with silence again. “She can cry all she wants if it’ll make her taste better but I don’t wanna hear this sniffling. Even if she muffles it.”

As silence replied, the creature turned to the human-sized ant beside him. “Fine, you hold her if you like her crying so much.”

Seemingly agreeing with the large ant’s silence, the insect-bird hybrid pushed a bundle of blue and white onto the ant’s hooked claws. The ant seemed to glow as it felt the weight of the girl in its claws.

Suddenly, the girl kicked out, forcing the ant to drop her to the floor. The small girl instantly threw herself forwards and kicked into the grass hoping to get away.

“LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE NOW! WE SHOULD HAVE JUST ATE HER RAW!”

The furious insect sprouted feathery wings and pushed into the air. He caught up to the girl in a split second, grabbing her silky blue hair.

The girl yelped as her hair tugged her into the air.

“NOOO!” She screamed, grabbing a branch protruding from the closest tree.

“Argh-Shit!” The flying insect let out, dropping his clutch on the girl’s hair to cover his ears.

Snap

The branch snapped as all of the girl’s weight was dragging it down, sending her to crashing onto the grass floor.

She couldn’t even spare a second to gasp for air as she was pinned down instantly by the flying bird.

“A-”

“Hehe, yeah no,” The bird-insect squashed her small mouth with his chitin hands. “Can you just save us the trouble and come quietly? Sister will have dealt with the beast-man and that boy never stood a chance.”

Rei’s welled up golden eyes broke their banks and tears streamed down her pale face.

“I mean I’m giving you a few more minutes to live anyway. The boys over there want to eat you right now and gauge out those…beautiful eyes. I just wanted you roasted before though…plus I’m not one to enjoy my food alive.”

The monster seemed to relax everything but his hands that pinned Rei down.

“Though…I must say…those eyes are definitely entrancing…” He muttered to himself as tears flowed onto his hand covering her lips. “Huh?”

The other insects belatedly caught up, gesturing something to the bird-insect.

“Sure…” The monster relaxed even further, slowly releasing the helpless girl.

She now had nothing pinning her down, she could scream all she wanted, she could run away if she wanted. But she did nothing. Nothing but crawling into a ball beneath the group of monsters and shedding her tears. She wanted her saviour. The thought that he might have died didn’t cross her mind. That was the only reason she was trying so hard to quell her screams. She wasn’t scared of being tortured and experimented on like she was in the past. She just wanted to see her saviour. She didn’t want him to make a pained expression because of her wounds. She wanted to see him smile because she was unharmed. But-

“Mmmm, this liquid is nice to be fair to you guys,” the talking monster mumbled as he licked his hands of Rei’s tears. “Makes me wonder how her eyes would taste.”

-she had no say in how she would be treated.