Two days passed, and without any incident in the slightest. It seemed like heaven to Armin, especially after all the events that had transpired, the constant danger, the constant things wanting to eat / maim / maul / claw / drain him.

He knew that even thinking about this wonderful reprieve, spending his days peacefully following a soothing stream, while eating cooked fish that he caught with his own skill; would be jinxed and endangered just by the very act of him acknowledging the tranquility of it all. But alas, he was human, and such was the cruel humor of the gods he did not believe in. Unless of course one such god happened to be named Murphy, that is.

And indeed, it would seem that Murphy had at some point ascended to divinity, as there could be no other explanation for how he could fuck Armin this hard! The sheer cosmic power that would be needed to make his life this fucking miserable was on a big bang fucking scale!

Armin panted heavily as he raced through the less than forgiving deep purple brush and dove between lethally hard and sharp purple trees, or at least things that resembled trees. His lungs were doing their utmost to try and close off any room for the offending oxygen he dared to breath to replenish his poor red blood cells. Every breath he drew at this point was a small inferno being birthed in his chest. His legs felt like the bones inside had all but dissolved and now he was simply flopping his fleshy dangling limbs forward one after the other while all sensation in them threatened to disappear altogether, as if in protest of their over working. 'Sorry, but cheers, we’ve had enough of this shit, we’re out'.

Despite all this, Armin found the will to keep running. As his entire body is about to shut down on him, as the sharp protrusions from the passing trees that he did not see in time, cut into him, weather it be due to his exhausted lack of attention or the poor lighting given off by the two moons in the sky.

Armin kept running.

The will to live was a marvelous thing. The fuel that made it possible, namely adrenaline, even more so. It was precisely these two things that kept Armin alive right now. These things that kept him from being consumed by the nightmare made real that relentlessly pursued him.

As the sound of bushes rustled below Armin and the sounds of his own heart beat thrumming in his ears, at some point merged with the constant dull thudding of his frantic footsteps. None of it could sufficiently block out the sounds of his pursuers.

The pitter-patter of their tiny feet. The occasional sound of a wing beat here and there as they support themselves and their frantic movements. Armin dared not turn back. What he had only caught a mere glimpse of, had thoroughly etched itself onto his brain. A deep chasm of a scar on his psyche that he was certain he would never forget, never heal from. There was no amount of horror video games or movies that would ever prepare him for something like this.

Armin despite his desperate flight and fading, weary mind, could still see in vivid detail of his mind’s eye, the abominations that pursued him. Pitch black creatures as big as a large breed of dog. They had six ‘legs’ similar in length and posture to that of a spider, only with beetle pincer-like feet on the ends and some kind of bat-wing like webbing between the limbs that while they didn’t allow them to fly, certainly gave them a good boost when they wanted.

It was a good thing that design was the way it was and not really meant for running speed, otherwise, Armin would likely had been caught a long time ago by them.

The nameless nightmare creatures (nameless because Armin could not; and would not focus on them long enough for ‘identify’ to kick in), each had two ‘arms’ that extended off the top of their backs and bent forwards. These arms ended in several very fine tentacles with nasty looking hairs sprouting all along them.

Their heads were rather small compared to their bodies but still housed a vicious grins worth of razor sharp teeth plastered onto a chitinous bony face complete with two shiny ferocious looking mandibles. The main body that housed all these appendages, was almost oval / tear-dropped in shape and for some inexplicable reason beyond making him soil his pants, had thousands of little ‘things’ attached to it that rattled about making an almost insect swarm like sound.

Just remembering that one part of these hellspawned abominations was enough to make Armin want to whimper and die.

As another sharp ‘tree’ protrusion grazed open a fresh cut on his right arm, he could not even be bothered to feel the pain. He was too tired, too mentally consumed to pay it any heed. All he could process was the dozens of these things already chasing him. Armin was getting slower and slower, and they were getting more numerous. He had been running at full throttle for what was likely an hour already, his pace rather slow and lethargic, due to the continuous depletion of his ‘stamina’.

Armin suddenly jerked to a stop, almost dislocating his shoulder in the process. He gasped for air as something wrapped around his throat.

Shit!

It was the same webbing like material that he had been caught in a couple of times already. Armin quickly worked to untangle his neck and the rest of his body from it. He had to hurry, the creatures were gaining on him rapidly now.

This damn web like substance littered throughout this portion of the forest. Every here and there, there would be a web of this strand-like material; like something had set traps to ensnare prey all over the place. The strands that made up the ‘traps’, were difficult to spot and once they ensnared you, difficult to break free from.

This was owed largely to their surprising strength. The strands were not sticky or poisonous or anything like that, but they were quite strong and almost completely translucent. At least they were not so thin that they would cut into his flesh as he struggles against them. Honestly he could break only a few strands at a time and there were alot of them that went into making one of these snares, so he was left with no choice but to try and untangle himself instead.

Armin managed to get himself almost completely untangled, with the exception of his left leg, by the time the first monstrosity caught up to him.

He ripped at his foot with all his might, sheer panic and terror overwhelming his reason. He simply could not face one of these things. If he had a sword or an axe on his person in that moment, he might have even been tempted to cut his own foot off, the loss of it feeling like a negligible price to pay in order to escape these things.

As the soul rending sound of a cacophony of thousands of rattles drew up on him, their host preparing to strike him in some fashion or another; Armin desperately lunged his spear in the monsters direction, all the while screaming like a desperate mad man.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhh! Stay away from me! Fuck off!”

Armin’s screams alone would be enough to scare most creatures off, but nightmares themselves surely have little to fear. The nimble monster easily evaded successive strikes from Armin’s spear thrusts.

All the while, he had not remained idle. Between trying to keep the monstrosity at bay, he had worked desperately to free himself. His attention being divided however, it had not gone well. And his attention had not exactly been divided 50 / 50 either. How could it be in the face of such a thing.

More of the others were approaching too now, they would soon catch up to him.

The monster gingerly side stepped another spear thrust as Armin pulled more desperately to free his ankle, now feeling like he was at risk of ripping it off all together. As the monster moved to the side of the spear, it did so in an unusually unbalanced and lopsided fashion. The purpose of this strange posture soon became clear.

It allowed the monster to lean forward despite having dodged the strike, just enough for its tentacles to lash out at Armin’s spear hand. Armin jerked back mostly in time, two of the tentacles only lightly grazing him. Still those two that did touch him stung like hell. But he could not risk a moment to spare for the pain though, so he left the forefront of his mind in the dark about the condition of his arm and instead focused on his next spear strike. He could tell his ankle was almost untangled now.

If only he had is trusty knife with him still! Unfortunately it was lost in the first snare he got caught in. He of course had used it to cut himself free, but a monster had reared up on him, almost catching him and he had dropped it during his rushed escape. Something that he was regretting more and more with each passing moment.

Armin thrust his spear forward, still trying to ward the monster off, feeling his ankle finally come free. This would be his final defensive thrust. The spearhead finally intercepted the path of the monsters face. Finally! Armin was momentarily filled with the satisfying taste of victory, with the certainty of wounding the foul monstrosity, at least once before he ‘legged it’ out of there.

His adulation of his own ‘spearmanship’ quickly turned bitter when the spear bounced harmless off of the creatures right mandible. It was hard like metal! He cursed his luck as his momentum still carried him forward, closer to the gaping maw of this hellspawn. A moment of clarity struck him though. The way the creature moved, it was as though it expected this! No way! It did it on purpose!

Armin despaired as the teeth closed in on him, at his own lack of power, at the monsters adept prowess. He did his best to shift the handle of the spear, that he had been holding near the end, formerly in an attempt to get as much reach as possible when trying to keep the beast at bay.

Despite his forward momentum that he could not do much about, he had relative success shifting the spears shaft between himself and the monsters hungry mouth. Armin had already abandoned any notion of getting out the way and gone ‘all in’, forgetting any thought of stopping himself from falling forward and instead bringing his left hand up in an attempt to grab the head end of the spear’s shaft so that he could use it as a makeshift shield against the monster, similarly to how he had that one time with the Meezog.

The creature seemed somewhat offended by the shaft that was now just getting in the way of it’s dinner. It unceremoniously lashed out in the form of biting down on the shaft with a powerful crunch. Armin was left stunned as it bit right through the shaft with such ease and force that it sent literal wooden shrapnel flying.

Unfortunately Armin cried out in pain as one particularly large piece struck him and dug into his side.

“FUCK!!”

The creature, uncaring for his plight dashed at him, and barely managed to duck to the side of Armin’s desperate gambit. Despite his spear having been shredded in half and being knocked back on his arse by the sheer force of the disarming, he had managed to retain a grip with either hand on the two remaining ends of his weapon. He of course immediately lashed out with his left hand that was holding the spear end of the former weapon.

The monster, despite its charge and proximity, still successfully dodged the ‘strike’. Being his left hand, it was a rather sad strike after all. The monster changed course in one swift motion and the steel mandibles hit his left hand hard, sending a jolt of pain through his already injured arm and causing him to lose grip on the spearhead.

He watched helplessly as the spear head went flying. He knew it instinctively of course, but it was still soul crushing to see how poorly matched he was fighting such a thing at close range without the support the range of a spear offered him.

Apparently disarmed, the creature stepped forward, now looming over him, clearly intent on finishing the job. In it’s haste it had forgotten about the other end of the former weapon Armin still possessed, or perhaps it sensed no real threat from what amounted to little more than a left over stick. This would of course be it’s mistake as said stick had been brutalised by the initial decapitation it had suffered and left it with a rather jagged edge. One that Armin plunged deep into the underside of the beast as it loomed over him.

The monstrosity let out a soul shuddering screech of pain, as it reared up and away from him a bit. It was clearly injured and clearly really pissed off. But it was not enough. Even as Armin tried to scramble back, away from the thing, the assault had not inflicted enough damage to buy him the time he needed.

Armin cursed inwardly as the annoyed creature reared up on him once more. The monstrosity leaned over him, as it bared shark like teeth seemingly intent on biting his head clean off in a single moment.

As the teeth were about to close in on his face, he dared one last gamit. If he was going to die and be eaten, he may as well go down swinging. There was this strange sense of calm certainty he was experiencing in the face of his immediate and certain death. Which was strange, as he was quite sure that he should have instead been pissing his pants.

Regardless, his mind was clear and focused and as the teeth bore down on him, he ripped the large splinter out of his side, with a shocking amount of pain, and brought it around right into the path of the monsters face. Between his own sudden movement, the creatures bloodlust for vengeance and its own momentum, it could do little to avoid the pointy piece of bloodied wood from penetrating right into its eye socket.

The creature abandoned all notion of lunch and lurched backwards, thrashing madly and screeching in pain. This was too much for it.

Armin wasted no time. He quickly got up and made a run for it, the rest of that things pack almost on top of him now. Although he could almost swear they were chasing him a little less eagerly now.

It was of course hard for him to tell through the haze of exhaustion, spent adrenaline and blood loss. He knew he was getting close to collapsing. Armin closed in on the river once more, that he had been more or less running along all this time. He truly never let it out of his sight, lest he get hopelessly lost. Drawing up on it, he hoped he would be able to quickly swim across this time, if his luck held, these things would not be able to swim well, if at all. He registered of course, somewhere in his overtaxed brain, that this was probably wishful thinking, but nevertheless he had to try, especially at the end of his rope now as he was.

Alas it was not meant to be. He could not simply dive in now, just as he could not dive in back when he first encountered his current predicament. There was a large shadow following along from below the water’s surface and it instilled him with a deep sense of fear. Whatever was in there it was keeping an eye on him all this time and powerful enough to make him instead choose to face these landborn nightmares thus far.

Armin immediately gave up the notion and simply kept running.

The creatures continued to pursue him for another ten agonizing minutes, the one he injured, nowhere in sight as far as he could tell. Not that he could really tell in his completely addled state. He was truly lucky so far. He had not run into another snare, for with his energy as spent as it was, completely unarmed and the proximity of his pursuers it would certainly have been the end of him.

Not just that, but had the monsters been chasing him as fiercely as they did at first, they would have caught him by now. They were never fast to begin with, but it seemed that injuring one of their own like that, had done a number on them. They were being far more cautious.

Armin was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth and finally scrambled out of what he was now calling the jagged forrest. He ran into a clearing and continued running. The forrest had ended rather abruptly and much to Armin’s surprise, with it, the sound of his pursuers footsteps.

Armin continued to run, but dared to look back over his shoulder and was shocked to find a full complement of monstrosities simply standing within the edge of the forest like it was some kind of invisible sacred boundary, all watching him leave with undisguised bloodlust and seething rage.

Talk about fiercely territorial!

Armin was already starting to black out, constantly fumbling over his own feet. He willed himself on, he could not afford to pass out here, no matter how tired and anemic he was. If those things saw him collapse they may just change their mind about going after him.

Armin kept fumbling forward like a clown until he was well out of sight. His limbs finally gave out, crumpling like a wet towel and he slid across the ground, quickly skidding to a stop. He tried to move any one of his four limbs but found he was completely unable to do so. 100% spent!

As his blurry vision began to recede to darkness, he made one last great effort of will and charged his mana up just enough to sear and cauterise the wound on his side, lest he bleed out. The smell of burnt flesh was the only indication he had that it had worked, as he was cold now and could not even feel the pain that that should have caused.

Finally he succumbed to his fatigue and everything went dark.