The Ficus and The Hunter
A tale of nightmare monsters from other dimensions
Liza crouched in the leaf litter, flinching as it crunched and crackled under her feet. Dense shrubs sprawled around her, black and grasping in the silvery moonlight. Blood dripped down her cheek and streaked her bare arms red. The sticky sweet smell of overripe berries clung to her clothes and she gagged as she tried to catch her breath.
She needed to be quiet.
So, so quiet.
It was out there.
Making herself as small as possible behind the shrubs, she listened. There was silence at first, just the blood rushing in her ears, her own breath, and the trees moving in the breeze. It might have been peaceful, but she knew what was out there. Liza had been here before, had been hunted here before. Where here was she didn’t know, she never came here, nor was she ever brought here. She was always just here. They were both always here.
A rustle in the brush dragged her thoughts back to the night, and the danger. The hunter appeared out of a stand of tall white trees, its long antennae, tipped with luminescent green orbs, riffling through the forest’s detritus. She watched it for a while through the tangled shrubs, fascinated, frozen, too afraid to run. Each antenna moved independently, shoving its way under dead bark and piles of leaves. One going this way, the other going that, illuminating the forest floor as the beast lumbered slowly forward. Liza held her breath as one antenna stopped, hovering over a certain spot in the leaf litter, the other antenna floated over to join it. Then the orbs danced together, green and glowing, casting menacing shadows up into the trees. The hunter came to a stop, its shell black as night and veined with verdant luminescence. The antennae straightened and hovered, each trembling slightly. Liza sucked in a breath as two long, curved pincers shot out into the crackling dead leaves. A shrill cry broke the silence of the night. Then the twin, sickle-like appendages retracted back into the beetle’s mouth, a small, shrieking rabbit squirming in their grasp.
With her hand over her mouth Liza listened to the thing crunch and slurp as it consumed the rabbit.
When it finished, it moved forward again. Liza had crawled back, out of reach of the antennae, hoping that the thick bramble between them would be sufficient enough barrier. As the beast moved closer, she could hear its mandibles still working at the rabbit, clacking and grating wetly together. The antennae hummed as they continued to search, ever probing and poking, their wavering light growing brighter as they approached. Liza crawled backward, wincing as she ground debris into her open wounds. She looked quickly behind her to see if the path was clear, when she looked back, the antennae had stopped moving. They hovered on the other side of the thorny shrubs. There was a moment of stillness, then the thing uttered a grunting screech and lurched forward. Its pincers launched from its jaw. Liza screamed and fell back as the sharp blades sliced through the bushes.
Liza ran. She ran through this unknown place from an unknown creature. Just as she always did.
The thing kept screaming as it gave chase, crashing like a battering ram through the scrub and young trees. She jumped up on a large boulder, scrambling up its rough sides, feeling the skin scraped from her fingers and knuckles as she climbed. As she sat atop the rock she watched the thing slow to a stop, as if sensing that she was out of reach. There was only the probing green light in the distance, getting brighter, and brighter. And Liza wondered, would she ever get to stop running?