|
713 POSTS
|
ʡ 45
|
|
Genderless
|
63 Cycles
|
|
Kaiju
|
bunny
|
|
Feb 13 2021, 11:36 PM
MAGICKA LEVEL 100%
RESTORED TO 100%
This thread is backdated to being within a day of on the beach at night,
and takes place in the weeks following it.
Each post describes a somewhat significant day of Alpha's self-imposed exile,
with no particular dates or span of time in between them.
The TL;DR of it is that Alpha has avoided any and all interaction,
and spirals further and further while in that self-made isolation.
Content Warning
This thread contains sensitive material:
The rasp of waves combing through the sand was what roused it; miraculously, no amount of sudden noise could've stirred it from its otherwise passed-out state. Exhaustion burned like searing lightning as it heaved itself up. Mere morsels of willpower were left to even push onto too-heavy feet with too-thin limbs.
Alpha barely noted the way its quills rattled limply against its hollow chest, or the way its breaths wheezed through its lungs—it was too fixated on scanning the treeline, the open sea just past the undergrowth. Putrescent eyes squinted into the apparently new light, cogs grinding slowly in its sleep-addled mind. This isn't where I fell asleep, it noted, staring far into the distance at the unfamiliar cave. It'd passed through here once or twice, but not recently. Not often. Certainly not for long enough to fall asleep there—
It hauled off of its haunches.
—Draco was a long ways from here, but it could clean itself up and shamble its way there.
Three minutes down the shore, the warped photos in the memory reel angled themselves just so. It halted mid-step, and choked down the denial-flavored weight crawling up its throat. Senses fixed sharply on the treeline, but the paranoid thought drifted harshly out of mind, like a train screaming off the rails. Leo's heat and humidity was oppressive—everything felt so hot, and wrong. The feverish feeling came over the orthoclase in waves. Its head felt like the vague shimmer of warmth over a distance, air warbling in place. Darkness gamboled at the fringes of its vision.
When it lowered its head to lap at lukewarm oceanwater, it blacked out.
Alpha blinked away the smear frame over its eyes, and came to at a new scene: somewhere in the jungle, a shaded reverie. There were fresh tracks in the soil and a faint bloody tang on its tongue. (It lapped at it some and found its own acidic taste.) Leaves were disturbed, and a broken branch stabbed into a weeping forearm. The monster carelessly ripped it out—the faint voice of its Master life-giver echoing in its head to just leave it in—and wavered where it stood.
It could not bring itself to lower its head a second time; so, it forged a path a little deeper into the jungle—wondered for a moment if it'd somehow wound up in Eridanus—and craned its neck upwards to stare at low-hanging boughs, heavy with fruit. They were none it'd ever seen before, but—teeth sank into them before Alpha could think about it.
The juice dribbled down its chin and jugular, sticking to every available surface. Pulp caught between teeth unsuited for such an operation. It didn't bother to spit out the pits or rinds. The whole thing was pretty pathetic to watch—once the orthoclase did manage the wherewithal to think about it—a monster screaming carnivore, in every sense of the word, choking down fruit to just avoid starving to death.
It couldn't have described the taste of them if it tried.
Waves of sickness came over it after the fact, but it struggled through it. A hot flash twisted its stomach past the point of hurt. Flanks heaved painfully. It gulped breaths of heady air, like it could manage to fit more oxygen in its lungs, like that was the issue. Limbs twitched as it walked, halfway between stumbling and locking joints ramrod-straight. Quills knocked limply against its chest, and the sound was nearly deafening.
All the hybrid could think about was how pathetic it was.
(Remember when it thought it could survive? Get itself back together? Fight Vargas and prove itself worthy of continued to existing? Sad! All it could hunt was some stupid fucking fruit stirred only by a stiff breeze.)
Neither the canopy or rocky overhang did anything dissuade the torrid weather beating its will in, but the monstrous thing plodded for it. The floor was bare stone and eventually gave way to open sea with a smooth incline. Greenery hid the shadowed reverie somewhat from sight, though the upper half of the entrance was exposed to open air. A bare minimum wind combed through it, at least.
Alpha all but collapsed halfway inside, mental presence too far gone to analyze the defensibility of it; its liability to be spotted by glowing points alone; its lack of exits if it were cornered here. A cracked forelimb sat pressed against a sticky chest, chin lying on bare rock. Its other limbs were arranged in haphazard fashion. It looked like it'd fallen and died—for all intents and purposes, it may have.
If it turned over in its dreamless slumber to toss saccharine peels up and onto the floor, that was its little secret.
|
