Who Goes There?

[Help_U]

The cave opened, suddenly.

Loudly. Like it had before.

It could now smell them again, but only faintly.

There were more, in the distance. Many more.

It had to find them. Feed. Learn. The scent was too vague.

Lying prone on the mountainside beside its open crate, Chimera went still. Sense-memory overwhelmed it momentarily, as its breathing slowed, before seeming to stop.

Before, it encountered others. They smelled Chimera before it smelled the pack of them. Weakness. Fear. It heard barking, howling, and felt gnashing teeth on its scales. They tasted blood, then it tasted theirs and it learned.

Remembered huddling for warmth. Wagged a tail. Fur standing on end. Sniffed the ground, and listened for other footsteps in the snow. Howled at the moon, perched atop their still-warm piles of viscera. It remembered branches snapping under hooves. Their prey. Its prey.

An hour passed, and it remained in the shadow of the mountain. The wind that carried unfamiliar scents slowly began to lift away loose tufts of hair from the Chimera’s face. A patch of pale, dead scales formed where its thin, slit-like nose had been before.

Slowly, the creature’s breathing resumed its previous steady pace. The hint of a deeper sensation crept through discarded tissue. The new flesh itched. Chimera rose from its position, and tried to inhale. Could not. It pawed at its face, eventually resorting to rubbing the dead skin against a small boulder nearby.

The flesh sloughed off of where the narrow slits of its old nose had been. A shiny, black nose emerged underneath, wet with a clear, viscous fluid.

Tongues shot out from between its lips as it licked the boulder, and its own face, reclaiming the disused tissue. It wasted nothing.

The scent of the new prey returned, stronger this time. The Chimera looked up, towards the tall shapes in the distance.

Sense-memory returned, of every vocalization it understood. The old pack howled to one another. The flock had cooed. The large one let out a roar. The smallest ones made the tiny noises, indistinct and barely audible. The new prey were like nothing else. It tried to speak, as they had.

“...don’t know… hhhere… don’t move…”

Instinct and sense-memory tried to make sense of new sensations. The old pack howled to one another. The new prey had vocalized as well. Complex. Guttural. It would learn.

Stretching to its full height, it took in a heavy, deep breath. Chimera let out a deafening howl, a complex amalgam of sounds that only barely evoked its new prey.

Nevertheless, it would no doubt be heard down through the narrow valley and to the village below.

“WHAT. ARE. YOU?!”

((Chimera Continued Elsewhere))