《Behemoth - HIATUS》Chapter 2 - Adjustment

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He was tall....no...he was big.

It took him an hour to come to terms with his physical reality. He dared not stand again for fear of the same dizzying vertigo bringing him down once more. But as he stretched his legs and took in the sight of his arms and midriff, it struck him that he was a big creature...much bigger than his mind was accustomed to.

His mind...his memories. He felt the shock like a physical blow. He struggled to recall anything about himself, about his situation, about how he had come to be stuck in a pile of bodies, about anything. The panic he had felt while stuck in the pyramid of bodies resurfaced and threatened to overwhelm him. His heart started racing and he shook uncontrollably.

Unlike the physical sensation of being trapped, there was no pushing away from the emptiness of his own mind. Eventually, when his panic threatened to send him into paroxysms he managed to bring himself under control by focusing away from his amnesia and towards his surroundings.

He gingerly pushed himself off the ground, arms outstretched to aid his balance, and came to his feet. After many moments of testing his balance tepidly, he felt confident enough to walk towards the copse of trees he had seen earlier.

He stopped at one particular tree and was once again struck by how bizarre it was that the lowest level of branches of the tree reached only as far as his waist while the second level was in line with his throat.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a quick movement on the second level branch in front of him. A tiny creature...a squirrel...had clambered onto the branch, seen the giant looming in front of it and rapidly scampered away to the safety of the trunk.

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He stood deathly still and kept watching the squirrel. It was the first animal life he had seen since emerging from his macabre resting place. He watched as the squirrel tentatively moved closer to him as its initial fear seemed to subside. Very slowly, he lifted his hand and laid it palm upwards in front of the squirrel. The creature flinched and took a few leaps back towards the trunk but then returned and sniffed his hand with its moist nose. Tentatively, it clambered onto his massive hand and sat back on its haunches.

Suddenly a rumbling growl disturbed the relative peace and the squirrel took flight. He looked down and realised that the rumbling had come from his stomach. Now that the adrenaline generated during his escape from the pyramid of bodies was wearing off, he could sense how hungry he was.

What could he eat? His initial instinct was to forage for fruits in the forest but he didn't trust that he had any memories about what was edible or not. It would be a wasted effort to traipse further away from the clearing only for his hunt for fruits to turn up naught.

Could he hunt an animal? With what? He had no idea how to fashion a spear or a trap. And even if he did manage to capture an animal the thought of skinning it after what he had just climbed out of made his bile rise. The only option he could think of was to find habitation and hope that the people there would spare him some food.

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