CH553 Evil Gods and Eldritch Horrors Part Four

By the time it made it to the next wall, or was at least close enough to it that it filled all it could see, the creature was faced with new encounters to go along with it.

One was the difference in the current wall compared to the last. While it hadn’t been able to perceive the one it had been born into from the outside, the first it had seen after its escape had been firm and solid, something it had to work to make its way through until escaping again from the rules that existed within, but the new one before it seemed different.

The wall it now approached seemed thinner, giving the feeling that it would take little more than a touch to break down compared to the others it had pushed against, with that prospect exciting it plenty as it wondered what lied beyond.

But that wasn’t the only thing to catch its attention, far from it. As it drew closer, it found things it didn’t recognise in the journey it had taken so far. Not more walls for it to enjoy, nor the stuff that seemed to come and go with the changes of the chaos around it. No, the things it was sensing had a permanence to them that only it and the walls had so far, and strangest of all, like itself, they were moving.

The unknown things were acting in a way it couldn’t properly understand at first. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for any of it, some looked to move together in groups or follow in lines, others kept bumping into each other, with pieces of each drifting away with the collisions. More still looked as though they were taking in some of what was there too, growing larger with each bit.

The creature observing all of it lacked the frame of reference to understand what any of it could mean, and through that lack of understanding felt no hesitation in approaching, not realizing that some of the creatures it had been witnessing attack each other had turned their focus onto it, nor realizing that they were thinking creatures at all.

In the reality it had been born to, there was only itself. The idea of anything else with a mind or internal world was foreign to it, so foreign that it was something it wasn’t able to realize itself. The things approaching it were just that as far as it was concerned; things. Posing no more danger to it than any of the stuff that had been constantly popping in and out of existence, right up until one got close enough to try and eat it.

After the first bite taken from its flesh, it realized a number of things at once. The first of which was that it hurt terribly so, more than adapting to the chaos and more than pushing through its first wall. A piece of itself was gone, never to be returned and it recoiled away from the thing that had taken the bite.

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That led to other realizations. While it still didn’t realize that the things before it were conscious beings, it did recognize that they were a danger to itself. That what it had just gone through and witnessed amongst the others was a constant swarm of attacks, and that now, not only was one of them going after it, but hundreds.

It was like all at once they’d spotted an easy target and began to move, giving it no choice but to flee. The wall it had been going towards was all but forgotten in its rush to get away, all the while feeling the things living within the chaos tearing away at its body.

Unlike before in its journey when it had moved at its own pace, content to make its way only as fast as its enthusiasm would push it, now it moved out of a need for self-preservation. It rushed as long and as hard as it could, even if it wasn’t enough. It still felt bits of itself being torn away.

With each piece it lost though, it left it moving just a little faster, with its pursuers fighting amongst themselves helping it gain only a little distance, and with that, it tried to escape into eternity.