The taste and smell of salt was too strong even by Mike's modern standards. It was like licking a giant pile of salt and rolling it on your tongue. It made one feel nauseous even though the smell and feeling of water was in the air, it did little to actually dampen the feeling of salt in ones mouth.

Spitting on the ground in disgust, Mike looked around him even harder checking for where this awful stench was coming from.

"Is it some sort of salt creature or something this time?!" Mike was fuming at the thought that they had just barely managed to just get out of one fight with some sort of lightning bug now they'd have to deal with a salt monster?!

After breathing deeply for a few seconds, Mike managed to calm down slightly.

"Hey Turul could you go up and check to see if you can find where this salty smell is coming from?" Asking in a pleading voice, Mike had no choice but to do this, they obviously couldn't set camp down here anyways what with him not knowing where they were at all for some strange reason, plus the smell of salt made it unbearable to try and sleep, and Mike was pretty hungry anyways.

After some coaxing and flapping his wings, Turul was up in the air again although a little reluctantly.

Sighing and spitting out some more spit in order to alleviate this feeling of pure salt in his mouth. Mike waited patiently until Turul would come back with good answers.

Mike sat down and decided that he would make out some plans depending on where they were, and what the general scenery looked like from Turul's observation, and obviously if they should check out whatever's making that awful salty smell.

"Maybe we're next to the ocean, there's no moon, or sun for that matter, so there wouldn't be waves that could make noise all the way to here."

"But oceans don't have this much salt in them, unless this is some mystical ocean, but I don't see why having more salt in it would do that?" Trying to wrap his head around what was causing this salty smell Mike completely forgot about making more plans as he delved deeper down the rabbit hole of this predicament.

After a few minutes of Mike having a headache Turul finally returned. On his barely able to be discerned bird facial expression was a look of confusion and bewilderment.

Looking over as his thoughts flew away, Mike looked at Turul quizzically in hopes of him leading them to the area that caused this smell if it was deemed good and or safe enough to go too.

As Turul nodded at Mike, they headed to directly in front of Mike towards where it was coming from.

Walking with Turul in front of him, Mike could tell how tired he was, after all they just went through a really large skirmish and had only managed to get away through some random encounter, whether they were lucky or unlucky has been undecided yet.

This continued on for about 5 minutes of regular paced walking, so it wasn't that far away.

The closer they got to their destination, the more the wind carried that same strong salty smell, and it seemed to come around more frequently.

Through the trees into a clearing it was obvious on what exactly it was. The ground started to turn into a soft sand that made it harder to walk. This sand also had a tint of pink in it that made it look like some sort of fairy dust.

Looking further out was a large body of water that stretched beyond the horizon as Mike looked he completely forgot about the whole fiasco that got them to here in the first place. The water here wasn't blue or green, but a light and strong pink that moved with the wind ever so slightly. The dim lighting seemed to get brighter since this was a clearing, but it still seemed like night time when staring at this lake. It had that kind of atmosphere like being next to an ocean at night and wanting to make s'mores.

The large and bright stars that reflected off the pink water made it look like a swirling pink galaxy, the trees had their own reflections on the sides of the lake giving a dark spiky edge of tree lines to it. The water was slightly translucent allowing you to see the bottom of it that was also filled with pink sand except it had a stronger tint in it.

Staring in amazement at such a beautiful scene, Mike stood there looking at this place wondering what it would take to build a house here and just live here to be able to look at such a beautiful scene every single day. Turul was standing right beside him also looking at the lake, though if he was looking on in amazement or not could not be seen.

Walking forward and sighing in astonishment Mike really did love this type of scenery, one where you couldn't see this anywhere else.

Walking closer, Mike didn't even really mind the salty smell anymore. Taking off his shoes, Mike felt the sand on his feet, it was cool and soft to the touch, crumbling under his weight. It was an all new experience for Mike, although he had been to the beach before a many of times, he'd never been to any place such as this, especially one with pink water and sand that was soft to the touch.

The water softly rolled back and forth onto the shore washing over Mikes feet occasionally in a somewhat warm water. The water for some reason was warm, like bath water, and felt really good as compared to the somewhat cool sand under him.

Looking at this lake, Mike really wanted to go swimming in it.

Pulling off his completely destroyed suit that could only be called black rags now, and his equally raggy pants, Mike threw them onto the shore line away from the water and near Turul.

Only in his boxers, Mike could still feel his narcissism radiate from how good his body looked now after turning younger.

Running in, Mike really felt like he was taking a bath, a really salty bath.

"Seriously why is this lake so salty!?" Getting some water in his mouth by splashing around in the water, Mike didn't taste any of the water part, only the pure salt levels that entered his mouth. His mouth burning, Mike spat as much as he could until his mouth was dry in order to get rid of all of the salt.

Since the water had such a high salt level it allowed for Mike to float on the top easily without having to do anything to try.

✵

After relaxing in the pink water for who knows how long, Mike was finally satisfied and decided to get out.

Walking/Swimming out of the water was harder than it looked since it was such a hassle to move fast in it with the footing being to soft and slippery and your body always being pushed back up to the surface of the water if you were trying to walk since you're so buoyant in the water, not to mention that Mike was in chest deep water.

As Mike trekked or swam back to the shore line, the feeling of sleepiness started to get more and more prevalent in him from moving so much, especially since Turul was already nodding off over near his clothes and had been since he first got in. Mike didn't have to fight at all so he wasn't as tired as Turul was. He went through two major fights almost back to back with no rest at all so it's pretty surprising that he hadn't already passed out yet.

Finally back on the shore in a wet mess of pink water, Mike decided to put his still new powers to use. Pulling out a towel and a bottle of regular water, Mike washed all of the salt off of his skin and hair and dried himself off harshly. Although Mike couldn't drink or eat anything he created obviously because if he lost focus all of it would turn into gray gas so ultimately it didn't do anything for him, however using it to clean off salt water from his skin was good enough.

Finally after repeating the process for over 30 minutes and getting even more exhausted, he felt brand new, like he had just gotten out of the shower after being unable to bathe for a week. Mike fell flat onto the rolled up Broad Bearskin, and passed out in a pile of exhaustion, not even bothering to make a fire as it was warm enough beside the lake that had the occasional warm breeze blow by with its lingering salty smell.

✵

Deep below the great pink lake as Mike and Turul slept away their accumulated stress, there lay a large creature. This creature had a hard carapace with colors like that of a male peacocks feathers and large stony eyes. This creature looked eerily similar to a shrimp. It had an unfurled tail that could reach to its abdomen if curled and small walking legs, claws, and swimmerets. Among its various features were two very large ball shaped punchers that hung low to the floor before its body. The shrimp was long and ridgy leaving a sandstorm behind it as it walker ever closer towards its destination.

As it walked the joints in its legs creaked loudly and sounded like rusty machine parts about to break off or buildings that were on the verge of collapse as they creaked loudly. In the vast empty echo of its surroundings, like a void, it continued unabated by anything.

As this large shrimp esqe creature walked on the deep surface of the lake, it carried with it eggs the size of houses on it in between its two large punchers. Moving forward slowly, it released a light blue-green liquid behind it with the sandstorm, making it hardly noticeable in the swirling chaos.

Every single step the shrimp took shook the surrounding ocean slightly startling any inhabitants, if any, that were nearby. Looking forward in the haze of pink water that, so deep down, blocked any sort of way of seeing clearly making it difficult for one to see what was up ahead besides more pinkness, luckily the antennas if this creature made sure it was unabated.

✵

After sleeping for hours and hours 'morning' settled in for both companions, the breeze still carried with it the smell of the ocean, though with more salt though Mike was finally getting used to the smell of it.

Stretching and scratching his back, Mike looked upon the still and beautiful scenery of the pink lake once again, not growing old of it even after looking at it for a really long time yesterday.

Turul was looking around for anything to eat in the surrounding area so that Mike could cook them both up hopefully something good to eat.

✵

As the large creature finally arrived at its destination, its creaking joints stopped, bringing about a plum of sand as it put all of its feet on the soft ground. The sandstorm that tailed the creature all the way here slowly settled down again into a calm and peaceful atmosphere.

The still horribly loud creaking joints of the creature slowly echoed out into the vast emptiness of the pink lake. Once stopped, the creature no longer moved staying exactly how it was. As the creature stood erect, a pool of greenish-blue liquid slowly seeped out of the creature rising up for the water was too dense in order for it to fall.

Finally after a period of an hour of this monstrosity not moving an inch, the large ball shaped punchers fell to the lake floor causing a massive rumble to settle in the surrounding area and kicking up another huge storm around it, masking whatever was happening to it from the surrounding area. The antennas that once moved about like two large and long poles making sure that nothing was in its way slowly fell to the deep lakes floor and somewhat coiled around itself.

As the creature died, the large house sized objects in between its two punchers that were pooled together in one huge sac and attached to its body ever so slowly started to shake and move about seemingly ready to hatch.

These eggs were pooled together in the hundreds, showing just how truly massive this creature was in order to be able to hold all of them together by itself, though what was able to inflict that much damage on it in order to kill it remains unknown.