The creature yanked its claws from the corpse's tattered chest. Krr-shhk.
The sound was wet and revolting.
The creature let out a furious hiss. It had been tricked, and that enraged it. The small red eyes swiveled in the darkness, searching, and then... finding.
Kang Ji-Won was still flat on his back.
His left leg was a sea of liquid fire. Every beat of his heart sent a fresh wave of searing agony washing through his body. His knuckles were white around the rusty crowbar, illuminated by the faint, ghostly blue-green glow of the surrounding fungi.
It's coming. It knows I'm not dead.
This time, there was no circling. There was no trickery. The test was over.
The creature coiled its long gray limbs beneath it, muscles bunching like steel cables under its pale skin.
Then... it lunged.
A six-foot nightmare, a blur of bone and talon, launched itself into the air, aiming directly for Ji-Won's throat.
Damn it.
Ji-Won didn't have time to swing the crowbar. He didn't have the strength to sit up.
No time... no time...
He did the only thing he could do from his back.
As the creature descended upon him, Ji-Won let out a desperate cry and thrust the crowbar upward with both hands.
He wasn't aiming. He couldn't.
He simply angled the pointed end of the crowbar toward the descending red dots. He thrust upward with every ounce of strength remaining in his shoulders, using the hard ground beneath his back as a brace.
Die. Die. Die. Die!
There was no metallic clang.
THWOOK.
A muffled sound. Sickening. Wet.
A sound like driving a stake into a bag of rotten fruit.
A cold shock traveled down the shaft of the crowbar to his hands, but it wasn't the jarring vibration of striking bone. It was... soft. It sank in.
Ghggrrrk...
A new sound. A wet gurgle came from the creature.
But the creature's momentum didn't stop.
WHAM!
Ji-Won felt the full weight of the beast crash down on top of him. A heavy, dead weight, crushing his chest.
Whoosh!
The remaining air was forced from his lungs in a painful burst.
The foul stench, the acrid animal musk, filled his nose and mouth. Something hot and thick began to drip onto his face.
...Is this...?
Silence.
The red eyes... were gone.
Ji-Won was pinned. Trapped under the creature. He couldn't breathe. He didn't know if the thing was dead, or if he was the one dying.