Scorpion-panther.

Of all the hyphenated monsters she could have encountered, of course it was that one. Why couldn’t it have been a Bunny-dog? Perhaps, if she survived this encounter, she would ask Wilkes if she can expect Bear-Wasps next.

Before Emma had time to raise her stick in the beast’s direction, it was on top of her.

Its weight knocked her backwards as easily as if she’d been a blade of grass and she hit the ground by the small of her back, punching her breath out of her lungs and dizzying her. Three or four long claws, thick and sharp as steak knives, cut into her abdomen and dragged up her side. She was aware of her skin tearing wetly as she meekly tried to get up, but the beast’s heavy paw, barely visible in the darkness, pushed her down as easily as she’d pressed down on the leech. The sharpness and the depth of the claw punctures seemed to rip anew the penetration she’d felt when she’d been stabbed and left bleeding out on the bathroom floor.

“Health reduced by 80%,” came the casual voice of Wilkes. “Deep wounds and bleeding status effects applied.”

Something brushed her forehead, heavy and sharp. She guessed, though she still couldn’t see through the darkness, that that was the “scorpion-panther’s” stinger.

The world swayed. She imagined the thing’s stinger, black and heavy, would soon crush her head like a pumpkin. Did Wilkes say it was level 30? And hadn’t her own level been 1? What chance did she have? Would she just be left for dead again, twice in the past day? Could she not put up even a bit of a fight to save her life?

Did she think so little of herself?

She clenched her fist - and was surprised to find it closing around strong, sturdy wood. She’d forgotten she had a weapon, however makeshift. The outline of the scorpion-panther’s face came into view against the dark night sky and the soft glow of Wilkes as its white teeth flashed, now inches from hers. Its hot breath blasted her nose with the tart, rotting stench of a decomposing deer carcass. She was familiar with the smell by the hunting trips she’d gone on with her father each year, and all of the subsequent butcherings.

Emma gripped the branch as hard as she could and pummeled the side of the scorpion-panther’s face.

”15% now health remaining,” said Wilkes, but Emma barely heard him.

The beast’s weight eased up and it moaned, sounding more surprised than hurt, but it was enough. Emma leveraged the stick to help her dash to her feet, but as she steadied herself the world lurched again in a much more worrisome way - and in a way she recognized, having felt it once before. She touched the fingers of her free hand to her side, where the beast had slashed her open, and looked at her hand. She could hardly see the thick glimmer of the dark blood, but her body was wet. Very, very wet.

“8% health remaining.”

The scorpion-panther’s eye slits narrowed again and it dashed forward. Emma grabbed her stick on either end and, lacking any other ideas, held it out lengthwise in front of her in a probably useless attempt to impede the beast’s pounce. The scorpion-panther’s teeth met with the middle of the branch and chomped down, repeatedly and violently, the force of the bites sending shockwaves up the length of the wood and through Emma’s arms. The stick produced several loud cracks as it gave way beneath the force of the heavy, unstoppable bite.

That force was meant for my neck.

The stick, her only shield against the panther, was rapidly breaking, and would soon snap in half. She could try to force the beast backwards, maybe kneel on its neck and choke it? Wistfully, Emma wished she had a real weapon. It seemed unfair to leave one out in the wilderness, naked and defenseless, against nightmarish monsters.

Oh, yeah. This is Hell.

Emma pushed forward with all of her strength. She and the scorpion-panther, still hidden in darkness, both tumbled backwards. She pounced to her knees, hoping in desperation to at least get ahold of the panther’s neck, but it moved faster. It was no longer under her, or even in front of her. Out of the corner of her vision, it circled around her, its eyes close to the ground, as though it was going to pounce -

The teeth flashed again, and Emma’s torso opened.

The force of the bite didn’t produce pain so much as a shockwave from her midriff, so that was good. At least I’ll die laced with adrenaline to numb the pain, Emma thought dimly as she gently touched the epicenter from which the shock was emanating. Even as she moved her hands across her insides, viscous and slippery, something fell out of her. Was that her scream? It sounded so far away, but she couldn’t possibly hear anything else in the vicinity with the volume of the blood and strange ringing pushing into her ears.

Emma slammed the stick down, with as much strength as she could summon, where she thought the scorpion-panther would be. She hoped, as a matter of principle, to get off at least one blow on the creature before she died. Instead, it broke against what she assumed was a rock right in front of her, and one half of the stick broke off where the scorpion-panther had bitten it and went meekly rolling away.

Ah, well. Nevertheless.

The white teeth flashed again, close to Emma’s side. How had it moved to her other side already? She angled the remaining half-branch weakly at the creature to halt its bite. She laughed deliriously as the teeth collided with her hand, sending her tumbling to her back. She lost her breath again, as surely as if the air had been punched from her. The scorpion-panther, its full weight on top of her once again, angrier than before, clamped down on the hand that held the branch, over and over, biting her hand with enormous force. The waves of pain felt distant, as though she were above her body, sympathetically watching someone else feel the pain. She heard several of her bones snap and thought absurdly of snapping wishbones on Thanksgiving with her father. How appropriate that she had usually broken off the smaller piece.

The beast continued to bite into her hand, piercing through skin, shifting bones around, mangling it further. Emma flinched - not at the pain, which still didn’t feel real, but at the droplets of her own blood falling onto her face from her chewed hand. But something, she noticed, was stopping the scorpion-panther from swallowing her hand whole. Then she heard a crack that wasn’t a bone.

The thickness of the branch, still clutched in her hand, was halting the full force of the panther’s bite.

Emma squinted. In the light of Wilkes’ dim glow she thought she saw the branch pointed directly away from her - inside the scorpion-panther’s mouth and angled towards its throat. A desperate laugh popping out of her, Emma grabbed the stick with her other hand and, now holding parts of the stick with both hands, pushed it forward, hard, as deeply as she could into the scorpion-panther’s throat.

Please, please, please let this be the part of the stick that had the pointy end.

The startled beast stepped back, Emma’s hand still in its jaw, and Emma pushed herself upward. They tumbled again, and in a moment it was Emma on top of the beast. She pushed the stick deeper and deeper into the back of the scorpion-panther’s open mouth. Panicked, it thrashed around, but each of its paroxysms only slipped the sharp wood farther down its throat. Its eyes narrowed again, this time in fear, and it bit on Emma’s hand, which was still in its mouth and completely red with blood, covered like a glove. It bit, again and again, but this time it was Emma’s hand stopping it from completely gripping the stick instead of the other way around.

“What’s new, pussycat?” she tried to say, but blood fell from her mouth like a faucet and onto the panther’s wide-open eyes.

The beast thrashed anew underneath her, its desperation palpable. It produced a fierce, chaotic growl that turned into a moan. The moan slowly died away and, with it, like wilting grass, the scorpion-panther’s resistance.

Odd, how she felt the cold of the night chilling against the blood on her skin much more poignantly than she felt the openings in her torso. She hoped it would stay that way as she died. She could handle the cold, but she never wanted to die feeling the sharp pain of deep wounds again.

“Loot from demon panther,” Wilkes said, after what felt both like a very long time and no time at all. “Meat, scorpion-panther hyde, scorpion-panther soul, scorpion-panther teeth. Combat level +2. Your combat level is now 3.”

Despite the lack of light, Emma saw something dark rise from the scorpion-panther’s open mouth, which she was still huddled over with the stick firmly in its throat. The scorpion-panther’s soul congealed from the spreading darkness around the panther’s head and began to prowl around in front of her nose.

Was the beast’s soul coming closer to her, or was she falling forward?

Either way, its soul broke over her face and, like the leech soul, filled her with its presence. Only this time there was no slimy aspect: instead, she felt a thrill of something like fear mixed with hunger. It pushed through her veins for only a moment like a hot wire before it disappeared.

The last thing she was aware of within her rapidly disappearing surroundings was Wilkes bobbing nearby and the scorpion-panther’s teeth, sharp and dormant, in its open mouth, inches from her face. Then those disappeared, too.