When she next opened her eyes, Lyrhea immediately felt herself over and discovered that while she certainly felt the same as she had before the inconvenient and involuntary cessation of her activities, she was most assuredly not the same in a physical sense. She was still the same in terms of bodily proportions, yes, but her features had been slightly altered in other, less subtle ways.

For instance, she now sported a few places on her body where skin shifted gradually into what seemed to be scales, or at least the beginnings of them. Though these patches were tougher, they were just as easy to move around and seemed to her to be more cosmetic changes than anything else.

Aside from that, she had no visible changes to her body, not that something could not have shifted beneath the skin and now some scales that covered her. She then pulled back her lips and tried to find anything different inside of her mouth, but she did not find anything that had changed radically enough for her to notice.

“Well, at least I don’t look too snake-like…” she sighed. She had just grown to be somewhat appreciative of her appearance prior to this and thus was thankful that the physical changes were so minimal.

Stopping herself for a moment, she remembered what she was doing before all of this nonsense began and fastened the lid on the pot, and began to worm her way out of the safe place that she had called home as of late. It was time to do what she had done all over again, and invariably end up doing it for a while longer.

…

“I hate the rain…” grumbled a man as he wandered over to the well in the dead of night and in the pouring rain. He had hoped that his stored reserves of water would keep him for a few days, but as of late he just felt very odd and as a result, drank much more water than normal.

Ever since the Apocalypse, the needs of humans had been diminished by what many either considered to be divine providence or by the hands of an uncaring and cruel new reality. He was of the camp that it was the will of a Higher Power that granted humanity a lessened need for the general needs of life, including food, water, sleep, and more.

It had been five years since he last felt the need to take a shit or relieve his bladder, and around a week and a half since he felt even remotely hungry, which would be a cause for alarm before the Harvest God came to them. And while the lack of need and want was to some a cause for concern, he, at least, had never been happier.

He remembered his duties back before the end of the old ways, and he enjoyed the new life, depsite its lack of modern amenities. He eventually no longer desired the internet, the mass media, and more, and that fact thrilled him.

Bu then, as one would expect, there were times when he wished that things had not changed and that civilization had not been erased. Times like these, when he was out in the pouring rain just to get a bucket of water for himself and his new family were a drag, but they were far from the norm, and that put things into perspective.

As he rounded the bend and made his way into the clearing, he felt a small pang of emotion and sensation that he knew that he had felt before, but could not place. Out of habit, he looked around, and that was when his eyes fell upon another figure near the well.

It was a lithe, slender figure, obviously a woman, but she was not someone he felt that he knew. She tipped a pot’s contents into the well, and almost made her way away, but she looked at him and once their eyes locked he realized that she was anything but human ad anything but a servant of the Harvest God.

He backed away slowly and then turned and broke into a sprint, but he did not get far before a surge of pain in his back and side sent him to the ground and his hands to his waist. He felt something in that place that was wetter than normal and warm, if not outright hot, and he quickly realized that he had been stabbed in his liver by a sharp object.

He almost cried out for help, but another strike from the weapons of the monster delivered more pain and something else besides into his body. He wanted to get up and do anything, but the repeated strikes that followed robbed him of more and more of his ability to continue living, let alone struggling.

Eventually, his eyes stopped taking in the sights around him and his ears went deaf, and from there he faded into the still blackness of death.

…

“Shit on a single!” Lyrhea cursed as she rammed her knives into the man’s body one last time. He was dead, and that was good, but now she had a body to dispose of and she would have to dispose of it inside a hostile town.

She looked around as the rain poured and realized that she could not bring herself to tear it apart and eat it, nor could she simply leave it for people to discover. The only option was to further poison the water hole, and she dragged the dead man to the well and dumped him in.

The rain was pouring hard enough that she never heard the sounds of the body impacting the stone sides of the well, nor did she hear the sound of the body slamming into the water, nor the gurgling noises as the body quickly took on water and sank deeper. She hoped that no one would notice the man’s disappearance anytime soon, but she figured that she would need to lay low for a few days anyway just for the sake of safety.

Though she was potentially compromised right now, she would need to make a second stop after this one to stock up on more reserves so that if there was a temporary increase in security she would be more able to wait it out. It was time to stop by the coops with the miniature chickens again and help herself to some of the fresh and live white meat.

She had always heard that white meat was better for you than red meat, and she would test that by snarfing at least a hundred still-living miniature chickens tonight.