He struggled to keep himself upright as he sped through the forest, his body feeling light as a feather. He was never this fast before. It was almost inhumane speeds as he went through the trees. He had decided to use the cape, but not the way it was supposed to. He had ripped a hole through the sides and center, making a makeshift, extremely loose shirt. It was better than just a pair of skintight shorts. At least.

And it didn’t look half-bad for something he’d made with his sharp teeth and claws. His head started hurting as he remembered what had happened back there. …He’d come to terms that what was happening to him was real, and not some deranged delusion. Either that or this was just an extremely realistic dream. He doubted it. The things happening had just felt too real for it to be otherwise. Dream or not, he had to find his way towards some food.

He skidded to a halt as he finally came across what he was looking for. His stomach gurgled in pain as he saw the deer gently taking from the green meadow. God, fucking, dammit he was hungry. For some reason, the meat he’d eaten a while ago had done next to nothing to his stomach. That had been an hour ago, and now he was almost as hungry as before. He crouched low to the ground, dark liquid appearing over his hands and solidifying to look like sharp, jagged claws.

That had been his blood, he had soon realized. He learned about it a while ago when he bit his lip, and instead of a coppery taste, there had been something a lot sweeter. Almost sickeningly so. When he had to spit it out he had seen it. The black blood mixed with his own spit. It had been the moment he realized he was in deep shit. The pain had felt real, and so did the taste. Way too much to actually believe this was anything other than reality.

That didn’t matter right now, though. Right this moment all he could think about was how sweet that deer would taste in his stomach. He crouched low, making his way over to it as stealthily as he could. It was strange, he was noticing things he’d never seen before. The way the deer’s chest rose up and down. The way its legs seemed relaxed, meaning it hadn’t seen him yet. The way its chest seemed to rise up and down evenly, indicating it was healthy, fresh.

He frowned, not liking the thoughts in his head. He was squeamish around blood, even preferring his steaks medium-well. Why was he having thoughts about biting into the poor creature’s neck, then? His stomach had the weirdest mixture of hunger and revulsion before he suppressed them both. Right now he had to focus. He got as near as he could, taking steps into the open at some point. It wasn’t until it saw him that he struck.

It tried bolting in the opposite direction, but he’d been just a second faster. He jumped on top of it, ignoring the damage that would be done to his body. It wasn’t until he was actually on the beast that he realized its size. This deer was large. He thought it would have fallen thanks to his tackle, but the damn deer was way stronger than it looked, escaping with him on top. “Dammit.” He got to work, raking his claws across its legs and back, trying to gouge the creature in a way that would bring it down without ruining the meat. The bastard was resilient, however, and only sped up, taking sharp turns trying to throw him off.

It wasn’t until he moved his claws around its throat that he actually had any success. He could feel its pulse as the blood gushed out of its throat, running down his hands. It slowed before tripping on an even piece of terrain, turning over and hitting the ground hard. Unfortunately, Elliot had taken most of the brunt of that fall. He groaned, shoving off the giant creature as it seized on the floor. Seriously, couldn’t just one thing go right for him today?

He sat there, looking with mild disgust as the poor creature slowly had the life drain from its eyes. Poor, beautiful thing…

His stomach groaned again, ruining the moment.

Sighing, he grabbed the deer by the leg and brought it to the side of a tree, hanging it over two low branches so the blood would leak out. It was the best he could do at the moment without some rope. Damn… He looked down at himself, realizing he got way more blood on him than he realized. Jesus… He almost cleaned it off his fingers with his tongue, didn’t he? He wiped it off on his makeshift shirt, until he decided to remove the whole thing altogether, too soaked in to provide any meaningful way to provide warmth.

Deciding to get started with the fire, he went to one of the tree branches and grabbed hold. He tore off a pretty big one with plenty of strength to spare, which he couldn’t help but feel a bit proud of. The thing was about the same thickness as his wrist… which wasn’t too thick now but it was still pretty impressive-

Thunk!

“Ga-AAH!?” He crumpled backward, forcing the tiny spear lodged into his thigh deeper inside. He turned to the side, grabbing the spear near the tip and snapping it with a crunch. He’d been told to keep the thing lodged until he could get it healed, so he kept the tip in, no matter how much he disliked the idea. He looked everywhere, but he couldn’t see who had done that. What bastard would even do that!? Did they see him kill the old man? Shit… He’d been trained in self-defense, but not against a goddamn spear-throwing maniac.

Thwip.

He swung to the right as his new ears picked up the sound of air splitting, catching the flying, crude spear in his hands. Not taking a moment to stare in awe at what he’d done, he turned the spear right around and threw it back at the bushes it came from. He heard a satisfying scream, and he almost went in to see if they were alright before the scream was replaced with multiple angry war shouts. What happened next would stay with him for the rest of his days. Out of nowhere, more than a dozen armored midgets painted in green with the ugliest faces he’d ever seen burst out of everywhere.

Everywhere

One of them jumped out of the very tree he’d been trying to get firewood from, trying to jam a spear inside him. Elliot managed to turn the spear aside and jam his knuckle into his throat, grabbing their arm and smashing them into the ground. That didn’t stop the others from charging at him, though. Another jumped out from out of nowhere, trying to jam the spear into his non-wounded leg before Elliot stomped down on the spear and shoved the spear he’d taken from the previous one into their stomach, twisting and pulling it out through their side.

He had wanted to keep them alive, not being one to kill and all, but this was no time to play the hero. He counted the rest, around 13 left. None were trying to lunge at him anymore, finally aware of what he’d done to their comrades. Elliot took a stance, cursing as the spear’s short length made it hard to use it properly. The thing was horribly balanced as well, barely any heavier than a random branch and just as evenly weighted.

It was better than nothing, though. Deciding to bring the fight to them, he lunged forward, ignoring the pain in his thigh as he shoved the spear into their chest. Luckily, the others seemed to back off in fear rather than retaliate. It was simple enough to dodge one or two spears, but any more and he’d be skewered to death. One tried attacking him, giving him the perfect chance to get another spear, using the pointy tip to slash through their neck. He jammed the spear into the ground, using the other to throw as hard as he could into the head of another shorty.

It whistled through the air, going straight through one of their heads and smacking sideways into another, who seemed absolutely horrified.

…This was actually going way better than he expected. He chuckled, looking at the rest of the green bastards who were trying to kill him. They were cowering at this point, focusing a bit too much at the spear in his hand. “Come on, you fucking shorties.” He muttered, ripping the spear out of the ground and taking a stance. This new body was great, his breath was still even. And even though he could feel the exhaustion, it was nowhere near what he’d seen before.

He could ‘see’ everything around him, even when he wasn’t looking. It was a bit taxing on his mind, though. He moved to attack another until he realized that the spear tip in his leg fell off. He panicked for a moment before he noticed the wound was much less gruesome than he had first seen it. At first, he thought his movement had pulled out the spear, but he knew now just what had happened. His leg had pushed the spear out as it healed, leaving barely more than an inch deep hole.

The shorties noticed it too, apparently, and even though they outnumbered him ten to one, they all ran. He really couldn’t blame them. Even he was wondering what the hell kind of body he had going on. He chucked one last spear at them, grabbing one of them through the side of their stomach. It wasn’t enough to drop them, though, and a few others propped him up to help him run. He laughed, before catching himself. Maybe he shouldn’t be having fun goring someone else… Even if they had tried to attack him.

He turned to the mess around him, and then at the deer he’d spent so much effort on. His mind told him he was too grossed out to eat, but his stomach… He sighed, deciding to spend a bit of time looking around to see if these guys had anything good on them. They probably didn’t have any types of phones. Their clothes looked medieval, thick, sturdy cloth with bits of iron armor on them. None of them were too protected though… it made sense, considering they were dead on the floor. Well…

All except one, actually. The one that had jumped him when he was getting wood. He saw it limp on the floor, its clothes nice and nonbloody.

Clothes.

He grinned, walking over to the poor thing. They’d tried taking his life, so it was fine for him to take their clothes, right?