The Curious Way of Blood

TW// Blood, Death

The blood had dried in a particularly curious way. At least, that's what the huntress thought.

This might be because there was blood on the other side of the tree; the part of the tree the body was nowhere near. Or maybe it was because it wasn't an animal mangled against the roots of the tree. She thought that maybe she wouldn't even be surprised if it was a human. But resting at the base of the tree, roots skewering its body was...

Was?

She wasn't sure. A fish-like creature, maybe. Or perhaps a bird? Its body was all long-limbed, scaly and slimy, shimmering in the summer sun in a strangely beautiful way given that the attached shimmer was a very, very dead creature. The huntress reasoned that from its abnormally long limbs should have been long, curved talons. It had a falcon's head to match.

But, the huntress thought that it was perhaps none of these things that made the scene so strange. Well, actually, all of this made it strange. But strangest of all, she reasoned, was that the body didn't appear to have shed any blood at all.

Not where the roots burst through its chest or legs. Not where its head dangled by nothing more than a tendon. Not even where it had been de-clawed; its talons scattered around its body.

No blood, anywhere.

Which raised the question: where was all this blood coming from?

It didn't occur to the huntress that perhaps the blood had come from the assailant. But that was simply because she had not heard of a person who could raise roots to skewer victims.

To be fair, she had not heard of whatever this creature was either.

So, the huntress came to the most logical conclusion available to her. This creature had angered the gods (or the tree deities or whatever force worked out in the wild, she wasn't sure) and had paid the price. The creature had been impaled, de-clawed, and nearly decapitated.

One angry tree god.

She stood, brushing the dirt from her pant legs, and began her work at dislodging the creature from the roots. She was certain that if a rabbit had stumbled upon this sight, it would never return. And food was hard enough to come by in these lands.

It took the huntress most of the day to rid the creature of the roots, and by the time she had thrown it into the lake, it was nearing dusk. Nearing dusk, with nothing to eat. Her stomach grumbled at the thought, then she slung her bow over her back, and began the long trek home.

She would try again in the morning.

The creature was there at dawn. Not at the tree (no, it didn't want to return there), but outside the huntress's home. It had been a real chore to get this far, especially with its head dangling so severely the whole world appeared to be upside down.

And after long, its arms became too tired and sore to hold its head up. And without the attached muscles, even the smallest breeze had knocked its head right off the stump of his neck.

The creature was growing very agitated. And it wanted to thank the huntress for freeing it. Though, it hadn't quite figured out how it would do that since it couldn't speak the same tongue, nor could it bring a gift since it had been so viciously de-clawed.

So it stood outside her door, waiting as the sun rose and trying to figure out what it would do when it spotted her.

The hours dragged on, and the creature's patience began to wear. But it stood, and it waited. And waited. And waited.

It opened the front door.

The silence washed over the creature like it was plunging into water. It was overwhelming. It was everywhere. It was suffocating. It padded through the home; the only sound breaking the silence was its sticky toes pressing and peeling against the wood as the creature walked.

The creature opened the closest door. It led to a small and empty kitchen. Clean counters, swept floors, no dishes. No people.

The creature stepped out, closing the door behind it. It opened another. A bathroom. Messy, compared to the kitchen. Hair clumps on the floor, a knocked over toothbrush, an unflushed toilet. But no people.

The creature stepped out, closing the door behind it. It opened another. A bedroom. A horrible, horrible scene. The creature should've known that the trees get what they want. Always.

The blood had dried in a particularly curious way. At least, that's what the creature thought.

This might be because the creature had no blood to shed, and it found the very sight disgusting and very foul-smelling. The viscous liquid made the creature retch. And while it retched, another thought struck him. A very confounding thought.

It lifted its head to examine the scene. The huntress, impaled by tree roots as if she had fallen from a great height, was not bleeding. Not at the wounds, nor at her nearly decapitated head. Not even where her fingernails had been torn off.

The blood had dried in a very curious way, indeed.