Page 12 of Demon Monster's Little Human

There’s not just one.

There are more.

It moves.

Not in the way a beast moves. There’s no weight to it, nothudof claws on rock. It scuttles. Fast, too fast, its limbs folding unnaturally, dragging its segmented body forward in jagged bursts of speed.

My muscles lock.

Dain doesn’t wait.

He’s on it before my mind catches up, slamming into the bulk of it, claws tearing into its armored hide. The thing lets out a screeching wail, recoiling, but its other limbs lash toward him.

He snarls. Dodges. Strikes back.

The cavern erupts into chaos.

I should run.

I should leave him to it, let him handle the monster and find a way to escape?—

But I can’t because another shape moves in the dark, a second one.

This one sees me.

I barely throw myself sideways before it lunges, its too-long limbs cracking against the stone where I stood a breath before. My shoulder slams into the ground. I roll, scrambling backward, hands empty, useless, weak.

Dain is too busy tearing through the first one to notice.

The second creature stalks toward me, moving too smoothly for something so massive. Its clicking slows, as if tasting the moment, savoring it.

The way a predator enjoys the way its prey shakes before the kill.

I scramble back, my breath a sharp thing in my heart, but there’s nowhere to go.

The limb strikes.

I barely twist in time, the curved talon slashing across my arm instead of my throat.

Pain erupts. I choke on a gasp, pressing my free hand to the wound as blood spills too fast.

My pulse slams in my ears. The creature tilts its head.

It can smell it.

It likes it.

I clutch at the ground, my fingers finding nothing, no weapon, no defense, nothing but stone and death waiting to happen.

I’m going to die.

The beast tenses, ready to lunge?—

Then it happens.

Something bursts through me, not from my body but from beneath it, from the center of my heart outward, like a pulse that has always been there, waiting.

Power.

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