Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 55551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Pthlew!
It spits out little bits of bike, twisted metal shrapnel dropping around me in a heavy but languid rain.
Then the ground creaks, the animal lifts its foot, and it moves on, one, two big strides taking it away from me as it continues its hunt through the night. The bike and I were nothing but a passing curiosity to the leviathan.
In a matter of minutes, the creature is gone, heavy footsteps receding into the distance. I look at what remains of the bike. The poor thing is bleeding heavy black and green liquid. The seat is missing. The handlebars and steering column are gone.
Thorn
Following Avel is possible because he does a good job of going just high enough to stay in my field of view.
I am at a sprint, moving through the forest at high speed. It feels good to move my body this way, to be on the hunt. My size can make it seem as though I might not be capable of much in the way of haste, but that is an illusion. I was made to hunt, and that means I was made to chase. Running turns some of the fury at having been robbed out of my blood, and reminds me how satisfying it is to move under my own power. I am not as fast as my bike, but I am faster than most.
Ahead of me, I see Avel start wheeling around, signaling he has found something. When I wave to indicate I’ve seen him, he puts his wings back and swoops down in a dive. I wonder if he has caught the human. She deserves to be snatched up by him, though I do feel a pang of something like possession and jealousy at the very idea of her being touched by anyone else.
Seeing him disappear gives me an extra boost of motivation and speed. I reach the place he landed within minutes, amped by the process of catching the human again.
When I arrive, Avel is standing in the middle of a narrow path, his wings extended slightly as if to obscure what is behind him.
“Bad news,” he says as I approach.
“Did the human get herself killed?”
“Worse.”
“Worse?”
For a moment, I don’t know what could be considered worse, and then I see them. The mangled remains of my bike laying in a roadside clearing made not by any technological means, but with the downed trees and crushed underbrush that is the unmistakeable mark of the passing of a primal.
Avel is standing solemnly in the clearing, his wings now wrapped forward around him. True primals are rare now. Sightings of them are uncommon even from the sky, and actual interactions with the beasts themselves are so remarkable that scholars will develop entire careers based on one fleeting moment.
There is something about the human that makes me feel as though I should not be surprised to discover yet another scene of impossible chaos. My poor bike is destroyed. No amount of restoration is going to put that back together. It’s ruined. An hour or two ago, if someone had told me my bike was going to be primal chow and end up in ten thousand pieces, I would have felt my body absolutely flood with rage.
For reasons I don’t dare to begin to explore, I find myself slightly more worried about where the human is than what state my bike is in.
“She was here.”
“She was here,” he confirms.
That means the human has enjoyed an honor she will not understand, and she has destroyed something very precious to me, an act I also am beginning to doubt she has any capacity to understand. She seems to be of the type and mind to simply blunder through life without appreciating any of the treasures she destroys along the way.
My desire to catch her is only growing. She needs to be brought to justice. She needs to be taught a lesson. And she needs to make amends for what she has done within a matter of hours in my territory. This kind of chaos and destruction will not go unpunished.
“She can’t have gotten far.”
“Hard to say. She might be in the digestive tract of a primal one by now, in which case she could be miles away.”
Avel is being practical, but he’s not seeing the clues that strongly indicate her survival.
“There’s no sign of blood.”
“There wouldn’t be. She’d be less than a mouthful for a primal.”
“But there’s plenty of metal shrapnel from the bike here. It would be bloodied. There would be chunks of flesh, bone, and hair. She escaped. I’m sure of it. And she’s probably close.”
“We could bring in the hounds. Track her down.”
“We could. Or we could look around a little. If I’d just seen my first primal, I’d be heading back toward civilization, following the track I knew at least led somewhere. Odds are, we’ve already passed her.”