At the end of the trail, on the beach, the gembound would approach and notice that it was a gathering of lesser gembound, the scent of blood heavy on the air. A red caroller and a catsquirrel stood before the prone body of a tunnel runner, leaning over it as if...mourning it. It was an odd sight. Lessers usually didn't behave like this, right?
But then they would realize that they weren't mourning it, as the catsquirrel jerked its head back, tearing a chunk of the deer's skin with it, splattering blood on its companion. The gembound might come to a grizly realization then that the caroller was not red, but was simply covered in blood.
For the two lessers were tearing the flesh off of this deer. It was, most likely, long dead by now, judging from the state of its corpse. Yet the two otherwise harmless lessers continued to meticulously remove its skin, using careful claws, teeth, and beaks to expose its insides.
A voice suddenly sears inside the minds of all the gembound - it is no longer echoing whispers, but something speaking directly to each of them, in a thousands voices, nearly incomprehensible. But it is the same voice, the same words.
Ｏᵈ Ỗᖻᑘ ҽටƐ? ᕲ丂Ň'ᖶ ⓞᔕⓤ ⓨᘿέ?
ẸŤh҉ᖇ乇 ﾉᔕ ｎσ ϻσⒺŕ ﾑｐᓰη Ｏᶰฬ!
ⓨɾØ ａυe҉ ℱᔕᗩᗴ! ʸⓞմΔ ℝe҉ Ŝᕲѵεᵃ!!
a҉ｅ ₩卄v҉€ ʳᗴᓍｖᖶ爪Ｄ Ｅʰᵉ ΔᓰᕵŇ!
The caroller and the catsquirrel pause their work at once and turn to look. Now it is easier to see - half the caroller's face has blown out into black and green crystals. The flesh is decaying around its crystal skeleton. The catsquirrel's remaining fluff have slicked down, hiding its own infection, but there is no hiding the epidote veins crawling out from where its eyes once were. nor the entirely crystal tail that sweeps up as it grows alert.
They stare at the gembound, unmoving.
