His blood ran cold. This wasn't something he'd thought he would ever see. This wasn't something he really believed... was real.
No matter how many stories were painted of, "this gigantic corpse, that spread across the land like the plague..."
Nothing could have prepared Bast from its sheer magnitude.
"There was something this big..." his hands shook, breath parting, as he swallowed a gulp of saliva. Seeing the odd leg or two from a Daecan corpse--massive things that scared seasoned hunters--being shuttled through the back streets of Greyfair was fine.
Actually it wasn't... but the point is, monsters weren't unheard of. The whole continent was vicious, as there was no smoke without fire.
But seeing the remains of the old war... right in front of him.
"To think merchants actually travel through this..." he muttered; a sting coming from his throat.
Did it become a normal occurrence to see something so absurd?
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Besides the cold sensation that ran under his skin, something burned deeper within.
Was it curiosity?
Crunch. Crunch.Crunch.
Is that why Bast walked over, his boots scrunching the grainy sand beneath. Something told him to touch it...
It wasn't the Coin. It was silent.
'Touch it.'
Step by hesitant step, he drifted closer without thinking, until he stood before one of the ribs jutting out of the ground; it's complexion on the same playing field as Bast's current appearance.
"It looks rough," he voiced to no-one. Up close it did appear that the rib wasn't as smooth as he expected. It looked rough. Weather-bitten. Grooves ran along its surface like caves forgotten by time.
His hand reached out, somewhat shaky and slow. His breath hitched when his fingertips brushed the bone. "What the fuck..." he whispered. The touch felt wrong almost immediately.
He jerked back slightly, but not enough to break contact... just yet. His skin stuck to the surface by its tips, as if the bone was refusing to let him go.
Was it cold?
'No...'
Did its rigid texture cut him?
'No....'
'This is... weird,' the thought came slow, almost as hesitant as his touch.
A faint warmth bloomed in his pocket. He didn't look.
Didn't notice the subtle glow leaking through the cracks of his coat -- slight pulses of ember light powering once... twice... then dying out.
Bast exhaled, shaking his hand once. "Okay... okay."
His gaze drifted further up the towering rib again, and for a moment, just like when he'd first witnessed it... he felt small.
Small, and watched.
His hand dripped away slow from its grasp -- fingertips filled with dust.
He was here. After walking for so long the hours blurred with each passing step... he had finally made it to the point of no return.
His eyes looked past the scattered remains littered across the ground. "Took long enough," he said, eyes squinting. The Causeway was near. All he had to do, was walk a bit more. Just a little bit more and that long crossroad would pave him towards something to make sense of all of this... surely.
Grrr!!
His stomach was secondary to everything he was experiencing in that moment.
If this real: 'Imagine what else is...'
His head inched only centimetres from the bones tip; his amber eyes beaming at the very grains that dressed its tainted features.
He stayed like that for a moment...
Then a moment longer
It lasted until he finally snapped out of it -- a minute or so, gone in concession.
Grrrr!!!
His stomach seemed to wake up at the same time as-well.
"Give me a break," he muttered, voice coming strained as he began to inhale toxins he'd never inhaled before.
He took a step back, before looking back up at the colossal bones, then sighed. "...What the hell stripped you clean?" he murmured. "Actually, no. Forget I asked. I don't wanna meet whatever did it."
He wasn't sure if it was the wind, the dark or chasing hunger. But his legs began to move anyway, one dragging after the other.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
It didn't seem to get normal, no matter how many steps rummaged through the ground. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.The carcass hovered over him like a warning, that the future wouldn't be as bright as he could hope.
The air didn't seem to help. Dust floated, carried alongside thin suffocating flakes. His breath came out in weak puffs, too shallow to warm his own lips.
Grrr!!
"Shut up..." he muttered, pressing a palm against his stomach. The ache was a hollow blade now, carving him with every movement.
He just needed somewhere, anywhere, to collapse for a few hours. But would that be possible? In this ravaged field of history, with a carcass watching over him like a monarch of death, no amount of luck could conjure safe bedding.
"Give me anything for fucks sake..."
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
A couple shapes emerged in the dark. His eyes dragged across the ground expecting nothing.
Torn bags. Splintered poles. A few pieces of cloth piled into one--maybe an attempt at a tent--but nothing useful.
He sighed--then froze.
Something leaned against the base of a rib to his left.
A dip. "What is that...?" he whispered. He leaned in closer. It was a shadowed nook. A silver of bone and ground forming a small crook in the ground. A crooked little shelter.
"...Seriously?" he muttered, as if wanting to argue the short blessings he received. But his mouth closed steadily, as if remembering all the times where he had even less to work with.
Crunch. Crunch.
His legs carried him toward it -- each step crunching under the ground.
Another Grrl tore out from his stomach. Louder. Angrier. Like his body was cursing him for not diving through bins today.
There was no light, no knowledge, and seemingly nothing in sight. There was no chance he'd be able to find any food tonight -- no chance to quell the black hole knotting his stomach. "This ain't worse than last week. Let alone a month ago," he voiced out, clutching his stomach like it owed him something.
Right as he approached the little mound of shelter resting in the ground, his knees buckled.
He fell forward with a thud.
THUD!
Sand sprayed up as he hit the ground.
"Kff--Khff!" almost choking under the spray of dust, it forced him to cramp painfully, curling his body tighter.
Arms wrapped around his stomach. Breath shallow. Lips dry.
"Kff--Khff!"His chest shuddered once. He just needed a moment. He just needed some rest. A short rest, even inside the stomach of an empty carcass.
Darkness pulled him under.