Tradition Part 2

Part 1 is here in case you haven't seen it!





As blood poured from her, the rest of the beast emerged from the cave and began tearing her apart, piece by piece. From my chest emerged a sound I had never heard before; rage and pain co-mingled in this roar that escaped me, and just as it dropped the last shredded piece of her perfect skin, I charged at it full force.

My veins bursting with rage I hurtled toward it like a bullet. I sunk both of my fists into its carmine chest and screamed in its face. Only then did I realize it had no face: no discernible eyes, nose, or mouth. There was only a head shaped lump atop its massive humanoid body. At that moment its thick claws stabbed into my arms and extracted me from its chest. As it pulled me backward from the wounds I had opened, I saw blood gushing into the empty cavities. I quickly realized, though, that the monster wasn’t bleeding, it was healing. The blood filled the cavity, but rather then spilling, it congealed. The beast was whole again.

As I lay on the ground bleeding and whimpering it turned and began to recede back into the caves maw. My pain turned to rage and I grabbed its ankle and dug my fingers into its gelatinous flesh. As I squeezed, its flesh came through my fingers like dough. The muck of flesh then spread over my hand and seemed to hold me fast to the beast’s leg. It dragged me into the cave with it raking my flesh across the rocks as it did. When we reached the heart of the cave, it threw its leg forward, and with that I was released from it and slammed soundly against the cave wall. My shoulders took the brunt of the blow.

I feigned unconsciousness and took the opportunity to watch it. It sat silently facing away from me. It made no noise and had no breath. The only sound in the cave at all was my breath and intermittent drips down near the entrance. It sat in the fashion of a frog with its knees up near where its ears should have been. I studied it looking for anything humanoid about it besides its shape. As I observed it, I began to realize the vulnerability we have as humans. As safe as we feel with our skulls and spines and ribcages, we still have eyes and orifices to attack. Skin protects us from the elements but is easily broken, and our blood seems so eager to escape, to run. A hopelessness settled deep within me, and I began to wonder if I could figure out a way to defeat the beast.

As my blood pooled beside me, it formed a crimson mud with the dirt on the floor. It reminded me of the path and the brook on my journey; how a cave is formed by drops of water; how a colossal tree rose from a small seed. Those thoughts, and my lingering pain for my lost love, brought me to my feet once again. The monster turned toward me, and its legs tensed, then it sprang forward, its claws surging toward me. I quickly stepped to the side but grabbed it by a wrist and dug my fingers in like I had before with its ankle. I began twisting to avoid the surge of blood that was trying to cover my hand and hold me fast. As I twisted, the connection of its hand to its arm became damper and damper with blood. Then, as if by a miracle, the hand separated from its body.

Without thinking, I plunged my hand into the base of the severed claw. I was sickened by the sensation, by the sound, as the partially congealed blood once again grabbed a hold of my hand. This time it would be to my advantage. Once my new hand seemed firmly in place, I set to slashing. I swatted at the beast, and a piece of its flesh flew from it and landed on the ground. The wound resembled the innards of a blood orange, and this time it didn’t heal. With this new found knowledge, I began slicing and hacking at the beast. It fought back, but I was propelled by a legacy of devastation, the most recent being out in front of the cave. I forged that pain into a warrior’s swiftness and accuracy. I received nicks here and there, but I was doing most of the damage, and the monsters flesh was dropping wetly to the floor in large chunks and darkening.

In one final push of determination, I screamed with an unfettered rage and sliced unwaveringly for each of the slain boys; each of the mothers cries of pain; each of the fathers done in by their own hand after the shame became too great, and they were swallowed by it. The cave floor was now covered with a quickly darkening sludge that once formed the beast. It seemed to writhe as it shrank and dried into a scabby crust upon the floor. I sat upon the one clean surface in the cave, a rock, and breathed a deep sigh of relief. As blood still dripped from me, a triumphant feeling washed over me bringing tears and sobs, partly from joy but mostly from exhaustion. I leaned against the cave wall, and, before I could stop myself, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.