章節 17: Chase
As Marcus was running, he spotted a sign up ahead that read 'Ebonscale', which he assumed could only be the town's entrance sign. Though he hadn't gotten the chance to find food in the town, at least he'd found an exit. Sadly, just as Marcus got his hopes up, a huge chunk of wood, that must have been from a wall of a building in the town, rocketed past him and collided with the entrance sign.
The sign and the thrown piece of debris fell down and formed a barricade in front of Marcus, completely blocking off his path of escape. In shock at the change of events, he turned around and saw two individuals running in his direction.
One individual was the woman who called out to him earlier. The second, however, made his face pale and his eyes grow as wide as saucers. Behind the woman was the same green monstrosity Marcus had spotted earlier when he was first exiting the building he was kept in.
This time, the swamp creeper, as it was referred to, had changed slightly. It still had the same grotesque and horrifying characteristics as mentioned before, but now it had something hanging out of its mouth.
Hanging from its mouth was a mangled and disfigured body. The body had dark-red blood oozing from the waist down, and the waist-up was the only thing visible, as the rest of the body was within the creeper's mouth. The body's eyes were bloodshot as blood leaked down from eyes, as well as the nose and ears. Where it's midriff lie within the creature's mouth, the body's intestines and guts lay severed and hanging from its waist all the way down to its torso.
If you looked closely at the body, past all the blood and gore, you'd noticed the horrified expression on its face which must have been there in the poor fool's final moments before being slowly eaten alive.
A horrifying image formed inside Marcus's head, as he pictured himself as the body within the creature's mouth. As he did so, the creature looked him directly in the eyes, seemingly pleased at having found another source of prey to feed on.
Marcus stood there rooted in place and stunned for a moment, whilst the creature headed towards his direction. The creature didn't seem to be moving too fast or too slow as it approached Marcus, but it was a truly menacing sight nonetheless.
He soon felt the vibrations of the creature's footsteps as it drew closer and this knocked him out of his paralyzed condition. Marcus looked to the woman who now darted left after seeing her path of escape had also been cut off.
Marcus decided to follow after her in hopes of evading the creeper. Unfortunately, this involved him running back from where he came, directly in front of the accursed monster.
The side street the woman turned down was only about fifteen feet away from him and thirty feet away from the creeper. It would be close, but there weren't a lot of other options Marcus had left to choose from. As a result, he darted to the side street to make his escape.
The creeper sensed its prey's desire to escape, so it changed its slow brisk wall into a slightly faster jog. It spit out the body it had been carrying in its mouth as it picked up speed and crushed it beneath its giant-tentacled foot, sending dark-red blood and guts flying in every direction.
As it began jogging, it let out a monstruous roar in hopes of paralyzing its prey again with fear. However, Marcus had long sense gotten past his paralyzed state from earlier and only clutched his ears while continuing to dash to the side street.
The creeper realized its roar didn't effect Marcus so it changed tactics.
It sent a tentacle from its arm flying forward towards Marcus. Marcus noticed the tentacle flying in his direction would certainly crush him if it made contact, so he ducked as it flew directly over his head.
The tentacle crashed into the dirt pavement and formed a miniature crater the size of a car's tire, that caused a tiny dust cloud to fly into the air.
By the skin of his teeth, Marcus managed to escape down the side street past the creeper. Due to this, it let out an angry roar because it failed to catch its nearly cornered prey.
Marcus's body still ached due to him overexerting himself but right now he couldn't care less. The only thing he was concerned with was getting as far away from the walking death trap as possible.
Marcus spotted the woman from earlier as she rounded a corner on his left. He continued to chase after her in hopes of overtaking her and separating himself from the monstrosity hot on his tail.
'I can't keep this up for long, I need to find a place to hide.'
Marcus couldn't find where the woman went even after following the same path as her, so he chose to look for somewhere to hide instead.
His master must have noticed his pupil's plight because he decided to give him some advice.
"Run into that flower shop up ahead."
Choosing not to question his master's help, Marcus ran into the flower shop to hide. Once he was inside, he noticed familiar purple flowers decorated all around the shop. These flowers were the very same flower's Marcus's father promised to bring Alicia back after their training session.
Marcus only looked at them for a moment, reminiscing about the past, before refocusing his energy on hiding.
Just as Marcus ducked behind some shelves full of flowers, the creeper came rampaging around the corner. It's eyes looked especially ferocious as it scanned its surrounding for its prey.
Marcus cursed under his breath after realizing he had forgotten about the unique eyes the creeper possessed. He was as good as dead when the creature looked in his direction.
His heart started to beat uncontrollably and he started sweating profusely. Just when he was going to book it and leave his hiding spot though, a hand grabbed him from behind and pulled him back under the shelves.
It was the woman he had spotted earlier. She held a finger to her lips and put a hand over his mouth. This didn't help to hide them but it was only meant to calm Marcus down to prevent him doing something he'd regret.
Exactly after that, the creeper stood in front of the shop. It crouched down on all fours, or all tentacles in this case, and scanned the shop with its red-reptilian like eyes to see if it could spot something.
Marcus and the woman remained completely still as to not alert it to their position.
The seconds ticked by ever so slowly and eventually turned into minutes, that then started to feel like hours. The monster's tentacles wrecked through the numerous parts of the shop, causing flower pots and vases to crash all over the store front. Just as the tentacle was about to reach the two, a sound was heard outside.
The tentacle stopped right above the woman's head and was instantly pulled back outside. It seemed that the creeper had heard something else nearby and went to investigate.
It took one last look in the direction of the shop to make sure nothing was there but seeing that nothing moved, it turned around in the direction of the sound it had heard earlier.
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