Daily Writing Challenge 2023 - Gleaming/Hurt
Bright lit across a black sky the brilliant white orb lit the island like a spotlight as it cascaded it's refracted lenses of light on to the world. The wind blew softly with a warm breeze in a feeble attempt to cool the hot day sending palms into a sway of leaves and creak of timber. But it wasn't just the wind that moaned and howled tonight. There was something far more dangerous.
Rounding about through the sand a hulking monstrosity tore about in a fury. It's black fur bristling as flecks of foam and blood flew from it's maw of mouth, the teeth yellowed and sharp within the muzzle of a canines. Arms wide as palm trunks and hands thick as larger than a clam shell slashed at the sand, truly pounding sad in it's ultimate frustration.
The seafoam eyes who watched could still not decide what it truly was or wanted. Only that deep in her heart, was a deep seeded sense of pity for the human who she had continued to visit for the last few weeks.
She had been afraid at first, especially from the first time she had seen him change. Bones cracking, hair pouring from all over him, as muscles grew and flex into the behemoth that claimed the island once a month in a rage of the deep ones. It was terrifying. But she dare not speak of it with her people. They would want him slain at his weakest. They wouldn't understand. No one under the blue understood.
No one but her apparently.
For sure there had been other of her people who had come to the surface to observe or contact, but near all of them always ended in tragedy. Murder, capture, or worse had befallen those who had contacted the air breathers. Or touch them for that matter. They were obsessed with them it seemed and coveted what they would take when all they needed was ask. She had seen the hooks, the lines, and the nets.
But this one had been different. He wasn't exactly handsome like her people with their dark skin and lithe bodies from the constant motion they must keep as the ocean spoke to them as much through them. The currents guided all, her people who listen and protect. The monster man had a sense of sadness all about him, something that made her pity and wish to help him as much as be near him. He had been kind, speaking in his gibberish language but always calm in his movements and gifts. The gifts were always incredible.
The sing song of his animal wrapped tomes where magic seemed to flow with his strange words. Or the flame that could spring to hand with a mere push of metal or spring of wood. The liquid fire as well had been good though she'd only had a few tastes, sending a shock through her body from head to tail tip. She had enjoyed the glow but hated the hours after, yet still would come for another bite another day.
The creature was nice. Pitiful, but nice.
Watching him now run across the sands, tearing into trees and howling into the night the beast made her heart skip a moment as slid through the tide and skid into the water and wet sand. Gleaming red eyes stopping to find her own and lock. She sat still staring back.
In those precious seconds she saw deep into those red eyes and felt a strange wanting within them. Not so much to hurt or maim, but a shadow of the man she had been seeing for so long. As pity had been in her heart so now in it's eyes was fear and shame.
The moment passed as the shadow of her friend disappeared to be replaced by the rage again.
She watched him run. She watched him rage. She waited for his return.
@daily-writing-challenge
