Don't Get Eaten

Chapter Sixty Nine

PART TWO: ZARED

"I love you, Jinsen. So fucking much." I say brokenly, knowing this is the last I'll ever see him.

But I needed to make sure he lived. Even if it breaks my promise to him. Pushing him as hard as I could I'll never forget the look on his face as he realizes what was happening. But it was too late for him to do anything as he free falls, screaming, heading straight into the river.

I don't get to see him submerge as the thing that was embedded into my gut clenches hard and pulls me back roughly. Crying out in massive pain, I'm thrown back against the floor, the pouring rain hitting me right in the face as I struggle to grab onto anything I could.

But the damn thing was too fucking strong. As much as I knew I was going to die, Jinsen's face kept me fighting to hold on. And I fought hard. Grabbing onto anything I possibly could get my hands on while the thing dragged me backwards against the wooden floor.

The pain going through my body was more than I could bare but bare it I did. I snatch a wooden beam that was attached to the upper wheel to the mill that produced wheat into flour and held on as tight as I possibly could.

I hear the screeching cry of the monster behind me when something breaks like splintering wood with part of the second landing giving way. It screeches again along with another as I watch in horror as they fall through the molded wood and fall to the first level, taking me with them as I was still captured.

Screaming out in fear I feel myself falling into the open air as I was pulled roughly from the gravitational pull of the tenacle that was still in my body. If this thing doesn't kill me this fall sure as hell would. And while I wanted to try and fight to live, I don't think I could fight myself out of this one.

Thinking fast I spot a broken piece of wood sticking out from where the floor had given out and I took a leap of faith and reached out to it just in time hoping it was sturdy enough to hold me up. I felt my body jerk as I gripped onto it tightly. I grunt as that damn tenacle took hold and didn't let go. The pain of it ripping me inside and pulling me desperately to follow I couldn't help the scream that comes out of me.

Tears streamed down my face wondering what I was going to do when I see the one on the stairs before quickly reach the second landing again staring right at me. But then a loud whoosh sounded below, and a burning heat reached beneath followed by a deafening cry of pain and anger.

I was so focused on the one that was ready to leap in my direction that I didn't see it coming. The sudden blaze of fire that speared up the stairs and right at the monster before it could do anything. I was so shocked that it didn't register that the pulling had stopped on my body. I watch as a cloaked figure slowing ascending the stairs to the point where they couldn't walk any further, holding a blowtorch, torching the shit out of the creature until it was smart enough to head through the outside window and into the rain where it disappeared.

I quickly look to the person as they stopped what they were doing and race back down the steps. My eyes follow them until the wooden beam I was holding onto cracks a little, dropping me a few inches causing panic to shoot through me.

"Hey! Let go!" Someone yells up to me.

I carefully look down to see the first floor in a blaze of fire and the creature that was about to eat me burning into ashes on the ground just below my hanging feet. The tenacle was flapping in the air as one end was cut off. I was breathing hard, and my vision was starting to blur. Dizziness begins to overtake me as four hooded figures all gathered by the one who had called up to me.

They were all looking at me now.

"Jump! We'll catch you! If you don't you're going to die!"

"We don't have much time, the place is going to collapse any minute, man!" Another cries out.