Harm and Harmony

-Chapter 39-

Day: 22

Days Left: 5458

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It was close, Harmony could smell it. The golem should be nearby, but it could easily blend in with the sandstone.

The scent was getting stronger and stronger as Harmony got further and further away from the mountain cave where Corinna was safely asleep.

Good, the chimaera thought. It meant that she was far from harm. Or rather 'Harm'. She chuckled to herself at this joke but her toothy grin quickly dissipated upon the sight of the amphibian. It was the one that had hidden in the Land of the Lost and had frightened Corinna.

The scaly angler-fish creature turned its head as it noticed the chimaera. It took a step back and snarled with its brush-like teeth, its antenna popping up and the orb at the end of it glowing.

Harmony let her talons spike out of her three-fingered paws, cautious, prepared to defend if the erratic amphibian creature would strike. But it didn't. It remained still, frozen, clenching onto something in its webbed hands. It was a blue button-up shirt. Sniffing the air, Harmony couldn't believe it- that was the source of the scent. That was what she had been tracking.

Gritting her fangs, the chimaera lumbered forward towards it. The amphibian, in fear, dropped it onto the sand and scrambled a safe distance away, watching as Harmony inspected the blue shirt.

This was it. Harmony pressed the shirt to her snout and inhaled the smell. This belonged to the clay golem, at least when it was in human form. Since the scent was still strong and clung to the shirt, the golem must have recently transformed back into a human and left it behind.

It should still be nearby.

Harmony looked around at the flat wasteland. All she could see were a few sprouts of vegetation that prevailed in such infertile earth. Her eyes then landed on the amphibian, who flinched and looked down at the ground upon eye contact.

She stepped closer, then stopped, gazing down at the blue shirt hanging from her talons. How was she supposed to communicate with the creature? How could it possibly understand her? She considered writing in the sand her question, but it seemed somehow the amphibian knew what she was about to ask.

The creature stood up on its tiptoes and hunched its shoulder, then walked in shuffling and heavy steps, mimicking the clay golem.

The chimaera nodded, then motioned to the blue shirt.

The amphibian also nodded.

It then pointed to the mountain behind Harmony.

To the cave where slept...

*

Corinna ducked to the floor. The large mass of clay and sand knocked down the cave door and seeped inside, spreading out before receding back into a tall and towering structure- a golem. Having lost almost half of its body from the explosion, the golem had fused itself with the sand outside. Its complexion was now lighter and gravelly. With each movement of its lumbering limbs, crumbs of sand fell and scattered onto the cave floor.

Clutching onto the cricket bat, the young woman backed away slowly as the clay golem stomped forward. Its mouth drooped into a frown with sand spilling out of its eyes, running down its face.

The cave was too small, Corinna knew. She would be easily cornered in such a cramped space. Letting the golem edge forwards towards her, Corinna waited so that it was further from the exit then darted to it.

A powerful force propelled her down to the ground, and a large clay hand smothered her legs, pinning her.

The golem leaned forwards, its crumbling face towering over Corinna's. Yet the young woman remained passive, her own face expressionless and void of fear.

Corinna held the lighter and the can of bug spray at the golem's hand, the flame hardening the clay, causing cracks to creep and split up its hand, whilst at a cost also lightly burning her own legs. Perhaps as it had fused itself with sand, the golem did not even notice the heat of the flame.

Attempt to frighten her, the golem tightened its grip on her legs, but Corinna continued in her indifferent facade. Lying there on the cave floor, she almost seemed like a doll, inanimate and lifeless, her eyes never blinking. Hesitating, the golem gurgled and groaned, studying the fearless young woman in front of it. In one last attempt to terrorise the young woman, the golem once again tightened its grip around her legs but found that it could not move its hand. Its hollow eyes darted to it, seeing the clay and sand hard as a rock and cracking.

Corinna kicked up with her legs, breaking free from the golem's grasp, its hardened hand now in fractured pieces. With the golem startled and unbalanced on the cave floor, Corinna used the opportunity to stumble back up and retrieve a cut-out square of the duvet that she had prepared earlier. As the golem writhed in a pool of clay and sand, slowly morphing a new arm, Corinna collected all of the broken clay pieces and tied it up into the duvet.

She darted to the cave exit, whacking the golem with her cricket bat on the way to delay its pursuit after her.

At the very last moment, Corinna halted to a stop, preventing herself from falling down the sheer drop to the bottom of the mountain.

"You could have told me we were on a mountain!" Corinna grumbled to herself. Her teeth ground together as her heart thumped violently against her rib-cage. She looked up at to the top of the mountain. She could use this to her advantage. After chucking the clay pieces bundled up in the duvet off the ledge, Corinna began to climb up to the summit, enduring the surging pain from the burn marks on her legs. The clay golem, having finally recovered and grown a new arm, followed closely behind. 

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