The War of .Zip (Working Title)

Chapter 25: The Metal Monster's teeth.

Klara covered the sun with her hand as she emerged into the meadow.

The blinding light of the day was only enhanced by the heat that hazed the world around her. She panned around slowly, taking in the wonderful sights of the field that she'd been denied so long.

''Fresh ass!'' She screeched happily, unaware of the muck up she'd just made.

An even more intense heat suddenly singed the back of her fur, so Klara turned.

''So, shall we?'' The Skeleton said. But Klara wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were bound to something above him, so he looked up.

Nothing.

He then turned his head around and saw what had captured her attention so entirely.

It was as yellow as the long grass that they stood in, yet it was so much bigger.

It was even larger than the chair.

Fuck that, it was at least ten times taller than the chair and at least twenty times a long, or at least it looked it.

Even then ground around it seemed distraught by its presence. The grass that usually covered the field was disrupted around the beast, patches being surrounded by distressed, rough mud that seemed like waves captured forever frozen as they approached the shore.

The beast stood unnaturally still, the wind unable to move it's folded, cubic tail or it's joined arms.

It's legs pushed into the earth, cracking the ground with it's sheer weight.

''What in the stars name is that?'' Klara asked.

''I don't know...'' The Skeleton admitted. He leapt from the ground and flew towards the thing much like how a meteor descends to earth.

He halted inches away from one of the beings arms. Nothing. It didn't see him.

Could it see him?

The Skeleton reached out and placed his bony paw on the flat side of the creatures arm.

Though he had no skin, he could still sense the cold that resized deep beneath the slumbering beast's hard outer shell. ''What are you?'' The Skeleton placed his head sideways against the beast's arm, stroking the space in front of his face.

Eventually, Klara reached one of the beast's rotund black legs and took a less subtle approach.

Placing the sack of scrolls down on a bed of grass, she charged the leg, holding her axe high so that gravity assisted her swing.

When Klara brought the axe down it struck the blackness with tremendous force, but all the blow did was knock the axe back from whence it came, ripping it out of her hands.

Klara watched it sail back over her head and into the mud behind her.

''Well then...''

The Skeleton floated back down to Klara, his arms crossed as he tried to think of any legend that mentioned such a being.

''It's quite a monster, ain't it?'' Klara asked, astonished at the sheer size of the thing.

''I'm not sure it is.'' The Skeleton seemed concerned by it's being here. ''We should go before it awakens.''

''But how come no one's noticed it before?'' Klara seemed perplexed as to how something of such astonishing size could be kept concealed all this time.

''Simple: It wasn't here yesterday, and it'll be gone soon. It's resting.'' Replied the Skeleton. ''We should go before it awakens.''

Klara and the Skeleton returned to the sack and the Skeleton quickly returned Klara's axe to her.