Flanz - I lived bitch

He heard something. In this dark and quiet place, he heard something.

It didn't sound like a predator, at least none of the ones instinctual to him. It didn't smell like a predator either, although it did have a smell he didn't care for. Burnt. No smoke, and no light of flames, so he wasn't particularly concerned, but he remained alert as the sound drew closer, slowly. It sounded like a scrape. Like something dragging itself across the ground on its belly. It groaned with each scrape.

The sound became a rhythmic pattern. The pattern broke only so often, followed usually by heavy breathing. After a minute of this pattern, the horse grew used to it. No immediate threat. He bent down and ate more hay.

Into what small light there was scraped a skull.

The horse paused mid-bite.

The skull scraped forward again. It was actually only half a skull. The rest had a face. The horse resumed eating.

The half-skull, half-face reached out its arms. Its palms pressed against the ground because the digits on each hand were mangled in all sorts of directions.

As the horse ate, the ruined thing lifted its arms and wrapped them around his neck. The horse wasn't worried. The touch was kind. It was reassuring. It was friendly. More friendly even than his master, the human boy who wore such heavy armor. This thing didn't seem heavy, at least. It was small for a human, although it was human-shaped.

The hands caressed. The horse liked the feeling. It distracted him from the hurt of his own broken leg.

Then the thing lifted its face to the horse's ear. It whispered something the horse couldn't understand, something that didn't sound like the human speech his master used, a whistle pressed through the parsed lips of the half-face that still had them.

What the words were, if even words at all, didn't matter. In those whistling notes the horse heard something delicate, something unlike the gruesome thing that uttered them. The horse understood. He stopped eating. Careful of his broken leg, he lowered himself to a lying position.

The half-melted creature, with extreme effort, crawled onto his back.

Then, it fell off.

***

[10] And Then! Upotte!