Regression

“Beth, come on! You can’t survive on your own in this place. Everything wants to eat you! You need me!”

“YOU just ate me!”

“I didn’t know it was you-”

“It doesn’t MATTER! You shouldn’t eat anybody! If it wasn’t me, it would still be murder!”

“Listen! As soon as I knew it was you, I spit you up! I’ve never done that before, and it wasn’t easy! I almost choked! And the only reason you weren’t crushed when I grew was because I protected you!”

Beth waited for a bit before responding. Her breathing started to relax as her panic lessened. “Do you expect me to be grateful?” she asked incredulously. “I guess I am glad you saved me. But Crisis, you’re a mass murderer. Saving one person doesn’t erase that. Especially not when you hurt that same person without a thought the next second. When you couldn’t even be bothered to check if it was somebody you might want to spare. That proves you are just going to keep eating people. Would you have spit her up if she wasn’t me?”

“I was hungry! I’m a naga! Nagas eat humans! That’s just how it goes here!”

Crisis didn’t like being on the defensive. It was unfamiliar to her. Most of the time, when someone objected to her eating habits, she could just eat them and be done worrying about it, or at least ignore them and leave. But she couldn’t just eat her friend, or leave her for dead. Even if Beth might not want to be friends anymore, Crisis felt bad for mixing her up in this business. She belonged back on Earth, safe.

Besides, Crisis couldn’t blame the girl for reacting badly. This was a completely unexpected and traumatic experience for her, and Crisis couldn’t help but remember that that’s how it was for herself only a few minutes ago.

Beth started to shout her objection to what Crisis had said, but she interrupted.

“Listen! You don’t have to like me. We can argue all you want later. But now we need to wash up, get somewhere safe, check up on my old friends. We need stability. Whether you like it or not, I’m your only chance of survival in this world. Almost anyone else would eat you on sight. So come with me. Okay?”

Beth opened her mouth to object once more, but as she looked around, saw the immense size of the forest, strange birds and bugs in the skies, strange shadows on the trees, she couldn’t help but see the sense in Crisis’ words. “O-okay.” she agreed grudgingly.

Crisis smiled, relieved to have settled this problem for now. Slowly, carefully, she picked Beth up and set her on her shoulder. Beth still winced at the pain of being moved.

“Sorry,” Crisis apologized. “I’ll try to move as smoothly as possible.” She slithered away from the rotting corpse, maybe a bit faster than she should have. She was certainly glad to be away from that thing.

“It’s fine. We do need to move.” Beth sighed as Crisis started off, moving towards an old creek she remembered in these woods.

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Even moving slowly and carefully, Crisis moved through the forest faster than Beth ever could, even if her leg wasn’t broken. Beth held on tightly to her injured leg, trying to keep it from moving. “Ouch,” mumbled Beth as she slithered over a root, bouncing a little. “I need to figure out how to make some sort of cast.”

“Maybe you can make it out of leaves or something. I can gather a lot for you. Anna probably knows more about that sort of thing than I do, though.”

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“Anna?”

“One of my friends. She’s a naga, like me. Kind of grumpy, but really good with human-y stuff like that.”

“Does she eat people too?” Crisis was saddened by the suspicion, the accusation in her voice.

“Not usually. Only when someone steals her stuff, or when she’s really hungry. She’s a bit strange like that.”

“She’s strange because she usually doesn’t eat people?”

“That’s kind of how it is around here. Can we not talk about this right now?”

“This seems like something that NEEDS to be talked about.”

“Can we at least get showered first? We both stink!”

They had finally come upon the little creek. Come to think of it, Crisis supposed it was a massive river from Beth’s point of view. She’d have to be careful, make sure she protected Beth from any small fish in the stream who happened to be hungry.

“Do you want me to set you down on the shore so you can get undressed, or…?”

“Just put me in the water.”

“But your clothes will be drenched!”

“I can deal.”

Crisis supposed she had an easier time understanding the strange sensitivity of humans about clothing, now that she had been one for a few years, but it still seemed strange to her. Nevertheless, she did as Beth asked, wading a ways into the water, then setting Beth down, as gently as she could, on the portion of the shore covered in extremely shallow water. She was careful to wait a little bit for the waves she created to subside and to be gentle in her own movements, so that Beth could sit without being knocked around by the waves she created.

They sat there for a while, relieved to finally be able to wash themselves of the worst of the blood and guts. Once, Crisis snagged a fish out of the water. Beth looked on as she swallowed the fish, which was the size of a small shark, without even bothering to chew. Crisis saw the funny look her friend was giving her. “What?”

“Nothing,” Beth sighed. “I guess that’s better than… well…”

She trailed off. A ways up the shore, she saw the face of a teenage boy looking out from behind one of the trees. What really caught her attention were the furry cat ears on his head. She even thought she saw a tail flick out from behind the tree once.

The boy was staring behind her, towards Crisis. His eyes were wide in fright. He backed up slowly, tiptoeing as quickly as he could without making a sound, retreating back into the forest.

“What are you looking at?” Crisis asked. She startled, grunted as her leg moved a little, and turned around to face her. “Nothing, nothing. I was just lost in thought, that’s all.” The last thing Beth wanted was for Crisis to see what she had seen.

“Anyway, now that we’re all washed up, I suppose we should go towards the tree, try to find Anna and the others.”

“Okay.” Beth let herself be picked up again, and Crisis slithered out of the water. She looked around the forest skyline until she saw the giant tree far in the distance upstream, and began moving towards it along the shore.

Crisis’ stomach rumbled, which seemed to put Beth on edge. So far, all she’d really had to eat since she got back was that one little fish. Plus she’d just recently puked her guts out. The fish had been enough to reawaken her appetite after that, but not nearly enough to satisfy it.

Her ears perked up and she stopped as she heard a noise from within the forest like the rustling of a bush. She focused hard, reaching out with her predator sense. She was frustrated at how difficult it was: she hadn’t done it in years, and she was almost unbearably rusty. But she would have to be blind to miss this.

A ways into the forest, she felt many little figures scurrying around as though they were panicking. There must have been at least two dozen of them! A smile crossed her face, and she resisted the urge to lick her lips. Hunger wouldn’t be a problem for much longer.

How would she explain it to Beth, though? She couldn’t really take her along. Crisis knew it would kill her to see her eat that many, when she seemed to have been shaken just by seeing her eat the fish. But this was such a golden opportunity, she couldn’t bear to just pass it up.

She picked Beth up again, set her down on a high branch, and looked around to make sure there was nothing too dangerous around. She should be fine for a few minutes if she just sat still. “Crisis, what’s going on?” asked Beth, concerned.

“I’m sorry. I just have to go do something. I’ll be right back. I’ll only be away for a few minutes.”

As she slithered quickly away into the forest, Beth yelled after her. “WAIT! CRISIS! WHERE ARE YOU GOING!? WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? YOU CAN’T JUST LEAVE ME HERE!”

But Crisis was gone. Even if she had still been within shouting range, she would still have been too focused on the hunt to hear her friend’s cries.