Chapter 5: Such is Fate

The girl cowers, paralyzed with fear, she stands there motionless as the Golem prepares its attack.

I shift my gears, moving my limbs into the form of an animal’s legs and spring off the cold stone floor towards the Golem. With extreme speed I make to the Golem, before it can attack, and sink my teeth into its stone body. The sound of crumbling stone emanates from its body. Thank god that this Golem is mostly made of loose sediments.

The girl, opens her eyes in surprise. The sight of my revival cause her lips to curl up in joy, or perhaps relief. The sight of her smile pricks at my heart, for a moment I even think that she may be for dying for. Damn you girl!! I curse at her but mostly at myself. I thought I these feelings of mine had died long ago.

In that moment, the words of Loom came to mind. “Running away won’t help.” Perhaps he was telling me that my emotions never died in the first place. That my hatred for humans will not stop me from being one. Hope always believed in the good within humans. Maybe I …

I extend my wooden limbs all around the Golems body and place teeth all over the sides of them to form a wooden vine covered in thorn like teeth. With that I start to constrict the Golems body, grinding the stone over and over. The mindless creature fruitlessly attempts to grab my main body.

With this practically elastic body of mine he is unable to reach me before I shift my body and move it elsewhere. The large creature struggles in vain. Haha This is what I should have done in the first place. In the end this monster doesn’t have a brain to know my next move.

*Slam*

He slams his back into a nearby wall, ramming me on the wall in the process.

Damn I wasn’t expecting that. To prevent any further damage to my body, I release my grip on the Golem; then I bring all of my limbs close together and bind them closely to the other spinning them like threads. Soon my body becomes long and extremely dense. I realized something when I was talking with loom. I am a mimic!! These creatures can mimic chests and other such things. This is all possible because their bodies are this flexible and changeable.

At first I thought I was a Treant; but now it is clear what I truly am. This wood that bends to my will and the ability to store bones inside my body. It makes sense, so, now , I with the help of my perfect memory for detail and stored rabbit bones; I now able to take the form of a snake!!

The rabbit teeth become my fangs and the tightened branches, that I call limbs, Create a creature the resembles a snake. Movement feels a bit strange, though I am sure I’ll grow accustomed to that with some practice. It makes sense. The reason I have great attention to detail!! It is for this purpose, so that I can recreate, with my body, what I see in the world.

I slither off the golem and reach the stone floor. The golem stands there for a few moment, not moving in the slightest. I can’t relax myself here, I tell myself as the golems bones clicked and clacked against each other. The huge Stone monster, without turning, uses gravity to its advantage, leaning to one side and using the momentum to fly sideways. He is going to try to hit me again.

Though I am not going to fall for something so simple twice, this time I am ready. As if I am a real snake I tilt my head just enough to brush past its leg. My new body, being incredibly smooth, uses the Golems momentum to increase my speed. From outside perspective, it would probably seem like water flowing against a large rock at the center of a river.

Using the sound of a THUD as my signal. I begin to move my limbs again and change my body once more. Contorting and shifting them in ways humans only wished they could do. I create 8 long wooden limbs from the wood that was my tail only a few moments ago. At the tips of my new legs, I put sharp bone. What was my snake head becomes my new oval shaped body, With the remainder of the bones I have stolen from the dead; I create shell for my center body, only allowing room for my eye sockets and a hole at the center of my face to resemble a mouth with sharp teeth.

With that, my spider form is complete. While a snake is quick and agile, a Spider can move more freely. Normally I would remain in snake form but, since the golem seems to be only interested in attacking me, it should fine. I move my legs as fast towards the monstrous stone, with a strange excitement coming over me. The feeling of actually being able to change something.

Before the creature has the opportunity to turn around I am already in the air, pointing my many teeth at its body. The second it hits the stone across it’s back, several shards of stone spread all around the cave, one embedding itself into the nearby wall from the sheer force.

With my talons, still deep inside the stone creature, I begin to use my front teeth to attack. It is almost freighting how emotionless this piece of rock is. As if it’s death means nothing if it can complete its mission. When I Played those fantasy games, the thought never occurred to me, the fear of fighting such an unrelenting monster. Though it is only natural to fear a monster that does not suffer from fatigue. The fight feels eternal, as you grow weaker, your opponent appears to be unfazed; because of that we begin to doubt whether we did any damage at all.

The golem pushes it’s upper body forward, in an attempt to knock me off his body. But that is a miskake on the monsters part. While I lay safely on its back, this attack will only harm the golems body. Unfazed by the impending impact, I continue my flurry of attacks.

As I attack it with my teeth, I also try to pull my legs out of its body. Once one of my legs finally manages to escape the stone monsters grasp, I thrust it back into the stone over and over again, chipping the creature little my little.

*GRHSS* The sound of stone against stone reverberates throughout the small square room , causing a small jolt in my legs and in turn causing me to feel the cold hard ground Agh I try to exclaim, but I have no vocal chords to do such a thing. For a moment I fear the Golems wrath, but once I move my eyes to see the golems incoming attack, I realize that the Golem is no longer moving. In fact most of its head is gone, smashed to pieces and spread all over the floor.

It’s body, held only by the walls surface, lay frozen, as if it had always been there; as if it had always been a part of that wall. Then its own weight finally worked against it, and its large body broke apart into hundreds of small pieces against the ground.

If I was still human I would probably let a sigh of relief exit my lungs, but no such thing happens. I should probably go help the girl now.

I turn my head left and right to look for her, and find her in the far corner of the room holding her leg tightly, as a bit of red liquid begins to seep between her fingers. Her eyes are wet with tears. From where I am and the torches lighting the area it is obvious that she is holding her breath, trying not to scream. She is refusing to scream. Why?

I go up close to her and as I do words pop up, above her head.

Demon:

level: 16

So, that God was telling me the truth, unless he is the one who is controlling this new ability of mine. Doesn’t really matter to me.

I grab the girl’s hands and force her to let go of her leg. The blood started to quickly flow out of her wound. The wound has several stone shards embedded into it, they are in deep. I look at her to see her state. Her expression was that of someone who just heard they were going to be tortured. I don’t really understand, but she seems to be afraid of me.

Paying no mind to her fear of me. I firmly grab her shoulder and wounded legs, I then start to take out as much rocks out of her leg as I can. This must have happened when I attacked the Golem from behind. Some of the stones from when I attacked must have hit her.

I take 2 sharp stones out of her leg. The stones where in deep. I somehow managed to take them out by making my limbs as thin as needles allowing me to push the stones out. At first the girl was scared but after the third stone, she calmed down. Though I am not sure if that is from the blood loss or because she realized that I am trying to help her.

After I finish removing as many stones as I can; I try to wrap some dead wood ,from my body around it , to prevent further bleeding. The blood ignores the quickly made barrier and continues to spurt from her legs, the girl is bleeding like a faucet.

I look back to the girl, Her face is now as white as a ghost and her eyes start to droop from the blood loss. I am not sure if I can save her anymore.

Damn, even if I somehow manage to stop the bleeding, she will more than likely die of infection. I look to the girls face, as she struggles to keep her eyes open.

“I am sorry girl, but I can’t save you.” I say, with little emotion or care about her death. I want to care, but I just can’t. her death means little to me and my old friends voice has gone quiet. This is perhaps because I bear no guilt for what has happened, I tried to save her and I failed; that is all there is to it.

I should at the very least make her death a bit more comfortable; I think to myself as I take her head and begin to cradle with a quickly constructed wooden hammock.

“Don’t worry child, death is not as scary as you’d think” I try to tell her as I try to calm her and ease her into her to sleep. It would be more merciful to kill her, but I do not have the heart to do that. Forgive me child, that I am not more heartless.

The little girl, cradled by wooden limbs, looks up at me and gives me a gentle smile; one that have seen such few times in my life.

“Thank you..”(Girl) The girl tells me in a weak voice, It takes all her strength to say those nearly inaudible words. Yet she use that little strength to thank me.

That god has given me the ability to understand you I am not sure I wanted to hear those words. Perhaps you can understand me in turn. I must tell you this child.

“I ignored you and only fought the monster without thinking of your safety; and because of that... Please forgive me.” I try to form those sounds with the simple knacks of bumping wood. I never thought I’d ever say those words again. Such is my fate. The little girl smiles once more, bringing with it a sharp pain to where my heart is supposed to be.

Why must you make this more painful child?

Then, just as she is about to close her eyes, my leg began to burn intensely, a leg that I do not have. What is happening? The pain grew stronger and stronger, not horribly unbearable but not a feeling that one wants to have. The pain almost makes me forget that I am holding the girl. Just as I am about to let her fall, I notice a glowing blue hue emanating from her leg; her wound is disappearing at incredible speed, almost as if time is being turned back, the blood that left her body began to return and the stones that I was unable to remove dropped, one by one, out of her leg.

Once her leg returns to its previous state, my pain subsides. Though I can tell that I am heavily wounded, by my inability to hold her up properly.

I lower her head onto the ground, making sure that she isn’t hurt any further. Times like this make me want to have a child of my own.

I don’t completely understand what just happened, but I can’t help but smile.

Maybe that god is correct, maybe I am still human.