monster was close behind, groaning with teh weight of its recent feeding. The awnings above shuddered witht eh raor, the inhuman aching roar of a beast long gone from the mortal realm. The man gripped his shoulder, a wound sputtering orange-red blood. The beast hunted my scent and fear, grasping at the walls of the citadel with its massive tendrils.
A mouth emerged from its muddied hide, screaming with the fuel of nightmares and horrific things. It was the face of a child, crying and in seconds, it was swallowed back into the amorpheous body of the beast. The man...
The sun seared our backs as we dove hand in hand. We were days from civilization, and it was the happiest we had ever been. The sand invaded every nook and crevice of our lives, but we had no shadows and no secrets, so it was inconsequential.
I looked at my son and saw his mother in him. His eyes were the color of eagle-sky, as if he spent so many hours cloud-gazing that the heavens imbued his irises with their hue.
"What did you learn today, daddy?" He asked me this every evening, knowing I had long been mute....
My discovery took the world by storm.
The university had sent me to South America to carry out research into unfound species in the Amazon forest. The remit was wide, almost too wide, in fact, as wide as the forest itself. After all, where do you start? And, what was I looking for?
The going was hard. Dense foliage, humidity, bugs, leeches, snakes, ants and a million other species that wanted me...for lunch. Then I saw it...nestling in the thick vegetation, it looked out at me with eyes that seemed to be on the end of sticks. I approached it...