Soulseeker

Lithoniel 3.3

Lithoniel didn't dare to breathe or move when she looked at the creature roaming around the temple's entrance. It looked humanoid, but barely; its face close to an animal's muzzle, its hands as paws while its jagged nails were almost like claws. And yet it wasn't animal, though it moved liked one, on all four as it smelled those stone tiles where Lithoniel had walked.

Its size wasn't big, maybe even less than her, but it was deformed: its fleshy hunchback creating an imbalance with the rest of its scrawny body. Its skin was hairless and coarse like leather, filled with pale green lumps and foul pustules scattered everywhere across that sick yellow body.

But what stood out the most were its eyes, or better, the absence of them. There were just scars in the place where its eyes should have been. On the other hand, both its nose and ears were oversized, way too big for the rest of its body.

It lurks in the dark. It doesn't need to see down here.

Lithoniel thought as she looked around the temple, assessing her options. The creature wasn't going deeper inside, but it kept walking---or trotting---back and forth, obstructing her only way out. Maybe she could slip past it, but she had two big problems before she could even start thinking about that.

First, she had to cross that sea of bones, and if those huge ears were of any indication, she had to do it without making any sound; and second, she had to find a way to wake up the girl lying next to her. On the bright side, the pain on her arm had subsided for some reason, though she still couldn't feel it and for sure she couldn't use it.

"Liara" She whispered to her while she shook her shoulder.

Liara's eyelids flickered and opened, the drowsiness disappearing from her face as she looked at Lithoniel. But then her eyes widened, and the scratching sound of a scream came out from her throat.

She was watching Lithoniel as she'd never seen her before. Lithoniel covered her mouth with her hand, but Liara bit it like she was a rabid dog.

"Quiet" Lithoniel hissed to her. She didn't know what was going on, but they were both dead if she kept screaming that way.

However, Liara kept struggling, looking more like a scared little beast than an elf. That's when a second shriek, shorter but higher than the first one, resounded in the temple. Liara froze, while both of them looked at the same direction. The creature was sniffing the air there, its webbed foot stepping over a big bone, a femur, before crushing it.

At that cracking sound, it stopped, backing away, but it stayed there, waiting for them. After a minute or two, it turned its head sideways, then toward the entrance, its forked tongue making a series of clacks, close to strange popping sounds.

What is it doing?

These sounds could seem inconsequential, the nonsensical noises of a monster, but they repeated themselves, starting and stopping at regular intervals like they were following a specific pattern. A rhythm.

Don't tell me...She started but shook her head, what she was thinking was absurd. It's like...it is communicating with someone.

She continued to listen, but after some seconds the creature stopped and resumed sniffing the ground like a big horrid dog.

Maybe, I am overthinking.

"Liara." She whispered. "We have to leave."

But the small elf just squinted her eyes, staring back at her. It looked like she didn't understand a word of what Lithoniel had just said. Lithoniel frowned, but she had no time to think about what happened to her. She put her index finger on her mouth, and the pointed toward the temple's entrance.