FINTAIL

𝘌𝘐𝘎𝘏𝘛𝘌𝘌𝘕

THE DARKNESS was everywhere when Speck awoke.

It smothered his scales. It stained the floor. It scared the skies that he begged to shine, and snarled in his face like a raptor to the night. For it was the darkness, and only that, which welcomed the longsnout into its regime. Its invisible claws filled the predator's faded gaze with a void stripped of color, stretching out in all directions with no end in sight. Like staring through the curtains of a wrinkled blindfold, his mind could only assume the gloom -- not the tinted blades of grass or the glassy shine of granite beneath a crescent moon -- only blackness.

And that alone was terrifying.

It was one thing to hunt in the dark; being a partially-nocturnal creature was not an issue for his gifted specs. But to see nothing, to hear nothing, to sense nothing...

Oh no.

Speck's conscious mind immediately turned to panic. It made him wonder if there was something hiding in there. Something cruel and hungry, watching him with interest. And waiting.

BANG!

BANG!

He couldn't escape. Something else was holding the longsnout down, something tougher than stone and hotter than mud. It constrained around his limbs, snout, torso, and tail, leaving little space to squirm and buck. And, when he tried, a sharp 'bang' would follow, a result of bone and metal furiously colliding with one another. It was futile to fight. Speck could only flare his nostrils to hyperventilate away, and reluctantly squeeze three talons into the palms of his claws and feet. He hoped the pain would awaken him from this nightmare.

All it did was prove its authenticity.

This place had an aura of wrongness to it. The shadows did not match that of a cave, who's walls would drool with moisture, and who's air hissed with the soft echoes of time. No, 'here' held no structure. 'Here' whispered no words. 'Here' lived to enact a deep hum to the heavy mist, foreign to all but the mind, body, and spirit. And it was irritating, to say the least -- Speck started to suspect that it was growing louder the longer he laid there. And I, for one, agreed with him.

There was a malodorous scent to this place, too. It burdened a musk stronger than dung and spicier than smoke, but, where it came from, nobody knew. For a predator who's nares evolved to seek out the dead and flavor the freshest drop of blood, this rancid odor was more than just disgusting... it hurt. Each inhale stabbed at Speck's lungs and lit a fire beneath his throat. Every exhale sucked away his courage and polluted the cold, sticky atmosphere that flooded the void. And he could not hold his breath to stop it. He was too scared to bother.

Speck's eyes then lifted skyward; there was something up there. Like a triad of pterosaurs circling their wounded meal, three glowing orbs of light rounded around his body, illuminating his spotted scales and dorsal fin against the surge of the darkness. They didn't make a sound, as did anything else in the room. Aside from the distant hum, the only thing the longsnout could hear was himself; from the throbbing thuds of his heart, to the rubbing of his scales against the binds that held him, to the panicked breaths that left his maw -- all of it a collective strain to keep himself sane. To tell himself that this was real... and this was happening.

BANG!

BANG!

Fear took over yet again. Speck didn't care who was watching, his instincts demanded release, and he had no choice but to follow. The spinosaur's body jolted up and down, thwacking into the binds until his scales cracked. His tail whipped violently into the slab of rock he laid upon, again, and again, while his claws slashed mindlessly in the air, displaying his killing talons to the void. He felt a couple binds suddenly buckle against his strength and thrusted harder, entrapped in a haze of desperation. Deep, guttural growls would force its way past Speck's throat once his attention turned to the muzzle; he withdrew his snout just enough to sink a fang into the straps and pull. Then a second. And a third. Speck gnawed and chewed at the loose ends as much as a longsnout could-