Tales of Runeterra: ADAPT

Tales of Runeterra

Chapter 19:

ADAPT

            The grass tickled my abdomen as I crawled, tiny blades leaving mildew and dirt on my exposed skin. It itched something fierce, and a small part of my brain—abused and addled with far more stress than should be possible—told me to just scratch at it. To forget about the thing that was hunting me through the forest. To forget about the way that it slithered like a snake but didn’t look like one. Limbless creature with skin of pallid, milky white like an eye whose light has gone out. The almost-scales that covered its body was like that of a snake’s as well, but it wasn’t quite right. The longer I looked at it as it tried to imitate the way a snake would slither through the underbrush, the more I noticed that was off.

                It had scales, I could see the slightly darker bits on its carapace where the they overlapped each other, but they weren’t hard like scales should be. They bent, squishing against its body as they were skin and not something to protect itself. The lower end of its body tapered down into a spindly, prehensile thing, not unlike the tail of a rat, but it didn’t use it as one. It dragged, moving through the earth as if added on as an afterthought, before moving into the mockery of a reptile, then changing more as it morphed into a beaked head with chitin-shielded eyes. An odd clicking sound echoed from its razor-like maw, bouncing off the shredded tree barks and nestling into my ears.

An unfamiliar feeling settled in me. It resonated out from my core and shook my fingers and jittered my jaw. It formed goosebumps on my arms and sent me sinking deep into the dirt. I felt the earth spread between my fingers as I found myself clutching hard at it.

Something was wrong about this creature. Something off. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before, and yet, so much like the many things I’d hunted over the years. The scales of a snake, the tail of a rat, the beak of a bird and the fangs of a scattermouse. It should have evoked feelings of familiarity and, indeed, I found myself taking refuge in the many different, isolated parts of it. But when I took it all in at once I found myself at a loss. It was as if some… thing… plucked parts as it may from as many different creatures it could get its hands on and smashed them together.

There was a revulsion there. It didn’t slither right. It didn’t move. It didn’t even breathe right—its bulbous, hulking body expanding and contracting at irregular rates as if it were new to the experience. It moved to its left, beak pointed directly to the air as if sniffing it, and managed to get even that wrong. After flailing uselessly at the sky for a few seconds, it lowered itself back to the ground, unknowingly sneaking past my hiding spot behind a tree.

As it did I spotted my spear. It was lodged firmly into its side, poking out like the spine of a porcu-rapter and staining its white hide with a viscous purple ichor that leaked lazily down its side. It roared when I first struck it, howling this otherworldly song to the skies, but it soon turned on me, maw snapping at the open air to tear me asunder.

Even its pained warbles felt wrong. They sprang from its mouth in uneven, monotone bleats. It was like the creature was going through the motions rather than any active attempt at soothing its wounds. It ignored the brambles that pierced its surprisingly squishy hide as it continued its search for me.

At first, I was elated to find it. It was a creature I had never found before. I doubted anyone, even the others in my tribe, had ever found something like this before. Was it one of a kind? Or was it the last of its dying genus? Was it a mutation of something else that we had already hunted? If so, then that was concerning too. We would have to find whatever it was that was changing the hunt so. It might be dangerous.

I had descended from the branch I was hidden in, intending to end it in one blow. I screamed, hoping that the ears I didn’t see on it would carry my cry. Usually it shocked creatures into inaction, allowing me to land the surprise blow that would make this hunt much easier for me. Like I expecting, it flinched, its entire body going rigid for that split second most creatures needed to comprehend what was going on.

Unlike what I was expecting, it moved, twisting around like a worm in the dirt and reaching its jaws out to grab me. It only a bit smaller than myself, so it wouldn’t swallow me whole. If it did manage to get me, however, I wasn’t sure if the amount of me left would be enough to continue living.

I twisted as I fell, moving out of the way of its counterattack, but also changing the course of my attack. My spear landed in its belly, and I was turned to see its next move. It froze once more, staring at the new addition to its gelatinous body as if unable to comprehend what was happening.

And then it screamed. And my limbs froze. My mouth went dry. My hands clammed up. My vision blurred as, for a second, I felt as if I saw into the creature’s true nature. I stumbled back, tripped over a tree root as it continued its wail, and all I could see was a deep, endless nothingness past the rows and rows of mismatched teeth. It wasn’t the darkness of a creature’s gaping maw, nor was it the emptiness of an endless ravine. It was… something else. Something incomprehensible.

I had turned, running as quickly as I could. The loss of my spear was momentous, but it was nothing compared to my own life. Bereft of a way to defend myself, I could only flee. I made it pretty far, if I could admit. Far enough that the distance and trees were able to dry out most of the creature’s screams. If I could just get back to the village, I could tell them about it. We could prepare ourselves for the creature, and possibly whatever horrible things lurked just beyond our understanding.

I didn’t realize until later that I hadn’t outrun its cries. That, rather than continue to wail, it would sneak around. I am not sure how it knew to, but it snaked its way through the woods, making nary a sound as it did so. It creeped into the trees, moving through the branches without a sound. Then, as I looked back for it, it leaped. It was only the groaning of the branches at the time of its jump that allowed me to notice it. It had screeched, baring its fangs.

It took all I had to roll out of the way. It sank its maw into the earth, tearing a chunk out of the ground, before thrashing about. Razer sharp teeth tore away from bark and plant, reducing the area around it to shards and debris.

Which led me to here. I cowered behind a tree just outside of its rampage, making sure to keep an eye on the creature. How had it tracked me before? How had it managed to catch up to me? It was a land based creature as far as I saw. I had tracked it for miles, never once taking an eye off of it. It had never once taken to the trees, and yet it had learned to hunt from the branches almost the second I encountered it.

A lesser man would have believed it had somehow picked that up from me.

Regardless, there was no room for doubt. I allowed myself to rise, keeping my back to the tree and my eye on the creature still skulking about. It had its back turned to me, and it slipped through the jungle as if it had been here all its life. For some reason its movements were… fluid. Much more fluid than it had been mere moments ago. Its body was no longer awkward as it moved. Instead it was taut. Coiled. Like a creature ready to move at a moment’s notice.

This was above my pay grade.

I watched as it slinked away. It took forever to move even a meter through the woods, but that was okay. As long as the creature hadn’t caught wind of my whereabouts, I would be able to escape. It crept behind another tree, just far enough away that I couldn’t hear the breaking of the branches below its mass, and I took my chance.

I don’t think I’d ever run as fast as I had just then. My feet hit the ground so hard that I felt the dirt hit back. My legs vibrated as I moved, but I couldn’t think about it. I had to get home. Back to the village. Back to safety. Back to…

That same warbling cry rang out again, shaking me to my bones as I tried my best to stay ahead. There was no mistaking that it had found me, but I had a bigger lead this time. As good as it was at moving through the jungle, there was no way it could track me once I made it to the bramble thickets. Its large body might have allowed it move powerfully, but there was no powering through the thickets. If you didn’t know the paths through it, all the intricate little ways you had to move through the interlocking vines, then you were likely to be cut to pieces by them.

I saw the trees start to thin out. I saw the way that the hills started to slope downwards, a sure sign that the thickets were near. The trees were breaking behind me, and I could tell from the destruction that the creature was getting closer. The forest was being torn asunder, and not for the first time I wondered why there weren’t any other creatures around.

Then it dawned on me. There weren’t any other animals because they were eaten. The creature had eaten everything around here and made its home in the middle of the carnage.

I had made my way into the den of a very dangerous creature.

I tripped as I came upon the slope at speed. Usually I would try to catch myself in situations like these, but rolling down the mountain would have been faster than trying to right myself, so I crossed my arms over my head and let gravity take me away. The sound of destruction continued to ring out in the trees, and my heart sank as I heard the sound of breaking bark end. It was soon replaced by the sound of cracking dirt as the creature followed me down.

I was disoriented by the time I hit the ground at the bottom of the hill, but I couldn’t allow myself to dwell on that. The earth and the sky were switched, and my head and stomach seemed to disagree on which way was right-side up. There was an overwhelming desire to hurl that flooded my very being. Despite all of that, however, I knew one thing for sure: which way the thicket was. It was right in front of me, and I was going to dive directly into it.

My back stung as something ripped clean through my armor, scoring lines in my back. The coolness of the breeze contradicted with the heat from the wound, but I didn’t pay it any mind. Not for now. That would be all that damned beast got from me. I stomped my feet into the dirt once more.

GRAAAAGH!

Its roar was ethereal. It crackled with electricity as it sent putrid intentions my way. A part of me wanted to turn around. To look at the creature that had gotten itself caught in the endless tangle of roots and hard, spindly branches. But I couldn’t. Every second spent wasted was another one where that creature could track me. I wasn’t sure of what the creature was capable of, so I didn’t want to take any chances. I curved my body around the branches, maneuvering around the branches in a path I had memorized since I was small. Even the strongest of the crimson raptors couldn’t follow me through here, and not for the first time was I grateful for my smaller stature. I was nicked, of course, but that was leagues better than whatever that monster wanted to do to me.

It didn’t take me long to reach the middle of the thicket. It was a safe place. Somewhere I came to entirely by accident on a malicious dare from some friends. I could still remember the place I curled up in—it was a small divot that I buried my then tiny body in. I remembered how scared I was; I was hopelessly lost and without any friends to guide me out. I was sweating. The sweat was making my clothes stick to my skin. And yet, it was peaceful. It was a peace that permeated my entire body. I didn’t have anyone to worry about. Not the hunt, or my parents, or the other kids that would bully me. The only thing I had to worry about was how I was getting out.

And then, suddenly, I wasn’t worrying about that anymore.

Why did I need to leave the thicket? It was the safest place for me. Wild animals tended not to venture in here, leaving the most of it to grow relentlessly. It wasn’t until my village moved nearby that we started to actively cull it, and by then it had already taken up a space    that was twice as big as our village. It would take me a while to leave, but at the same time it would take a while for anyone to reach me.

As long as I was here, I was alone. And there was a certain peace to it.

That peace permeated me long after I brought my hand to my face, feeling the warm, sticky blood drip off of it. I coughed, hacking on the blood filling both my throat and my lungs. My vision turned blurry, the vines turning indistinct as I became colder and colder. I raised my head, a gargantuan task in itself, and took a look at my torso. As I thought, it was flayed beyond belief. I could see parts of my ribs sticking out from my skin. I wondered when that happened. At least I couldn’t feel the pain.

My head dropped once more, and I was greeted with the sight of the orange sky. It was the same as when I first came here, so long ago. There weren’t any clouds up there when I was a child, though. It was clear. And bright. And beautiful. Mother would have loved to see this, but her back was never very good. Crysselda would have also liked to see this, but she never liked to go hunting with me. The blood made her queasy.

As my head lolled back and I saw the creature force its way through the vines, the only thing I could think of was how odd it looked now. It had grown limbs. Or… what seemed to be limbs. They were appendages that weren’t on its body before, squirming and sprouting from its body like tree sprouts. Blood, mine, spilled from its mouth as it chewed on the part of my stomach that it ripped out.

Eyes. They were much like mine. Same color of gray. Same flecks of green. Turned in sockets that were previously empty. It was slightly bigger now, and it pulsated as the purple nectar of the bramblevines seeped into its previously white skin, staining it purple.

It snarled, shaking itself as if it were trying to rid itself of something, then it changed once more. Its bulbous body retreated, thinning itself until it looked vaguely human, except instead of hands it had two, long scythes. It continued to shake as its body underwent horrible mutations then, when it finally stopped, it looked up at me.

Its smile wasn’t human—it was crooked and wide and showed far too sharp teeth—but I knew that it was trying to pretend to be one. It stalked forward, the now-hard purple scales of its body pushing aside the bramblevines with ease.

“Consume. Adapt,” it said. Its voice echoed, as if it were speaking into the Mesaposa Canyon. It plunged one of its claws into the ground, then used it to pull itself towards me.

I had no illusions as to what the creature would be doing once it reached me. The only thing I could take solace in was the fact that I wouldn’t be alive to experience it. I let my head fall back to the ground, not even feeling the impact of my skull hitting the hard dirt and looked to the sky once more.

It was cloudy today. Much cloudier than when I first came here. Yet, all I could think of was how peaceful it still was.