6 - Mighty Minotaur

We’d only been traveling for a short amount of time before we came across the first sign of monsters. A pair of trees along the side of the road had been mauled almost. They looked like something had exploded in between them and the trees had taken the damage. Or maybe something had shoved its way between them violently and caused it. A car in the middle of the road next to the downed trees looked like it had been in a head on collision with something, but there was nothing but skid marks stretching behind the car from where it tried to brake.

Ashley pulled over to the side of the road and we got out to investigate and see if anyone needed any help. She pulled out her purple army gun and brought it up to her shoulder, but kept the barrel pointed down. I got out of the truck and summoned a [Bone Spear].

The others pulled up behind us and I could hear them getting out of their car. I waited for the others to meet me on the side of the road. Ashley took the initiative and moved forward, though she came at the car from an angle so there was plenty of space between her and the car, but she still had a clear view of everything. The barrel of her gun was raised a little more as she moved.

“I don’t see anyone,” she called out as she came level with the front of the car. The entire driver’s side door looked like it had been ripped off and was barely hanging on by a few bolts and scraps of metal. “But there looks like a lot of blood,” she continued to move forward until she was in front of the car.

I walked toward the car, my spear held low and ready. As I came level with the front of the car, I noticed the same thing. There was blood pooling beside the driver’s side, and then it ran in streaks to the front of the car. I followed the trail around the crumpled front end of the car. The blood trail curved around the car and then off into the grass toward the treeline.

“Fuck, I think…I think the driver was dragged away from here.” I said, voice barely above a whisper.

I jumped when Ashley’s voice sounded right next to me. “Yeah. It looks like they hit something, and then that something killed them and dragged them off into the woods.”

“How do you know they’re dead?” I asked.

“Because that is a lot of blood,” she gestured toward the pool beside the car. She kept her gun and eyes pointed toward the trees.

“What do we do here?” I asked.

“Kill the monster before it can hurt anyone else,” Mara said from behind me.

“Won’t this distract us from finding the portal?”

“Keeping people safe is just as important.”

“Ugh,” I groaned. “We’re the like really goody-goody good guys aren’t we?”

“Duh,” I could hear Mara’s smile in her voice.

“Fine. Let’s hunt the monster.”

“Alright, everyone stay behind me. Try to step where I step, keep your head on a swivel, and stay quiet,” Ashley instructed everybody.

“Shouldn’t I go first?” John asked.

“Have you ever hunted and tracked something before?” Ashley asked.

“Well, no–”

“Alright, then I go first. You can be right behind me. Trust me, I’m not going to try and stand between you and a monster charging at us.”

John nodded in agreement. “Alright. Sorry.”

“It’s ok. Let’s just get moving,” Ashley reassured him. She looked around, meeting all of our eyes before setting off into the woods. John followed closely behind her. Mara went next, followed by Oliver, and I ended up at the end of the line.

None of us, except maybe Ashley were quiet. John, with his [Metal Skin] weighing him down practically stomped through the underbrush. The rest of us just weren’t used to moving through the wilderness. Despite living in a small town, I’d always considered myself more of a city girl than a country girl. I had no wilderness skills whatsoever.

So, maybe I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was that the monster found us before we found it. Oliver was the first to see it. “Left! Left!” he shrieked.

I turned my head and saw a giant mountain of muscle with a wide bull’s head. The fur ended halfway down his bare chest, where smooth, dark skin took over. Blood matted his fur from his muzzle down his chest and arms. He stood a dozen feet away, but I could still make out the sharp teeth that filled his mouth when he opened it and bellowed at us before he took off in a charge, lowering his horned head.

John leapt in front of the group, smashing through a large sapling to get there in time. At the same time, Ashley pivoted and opened up on the minotaur. Rapid, but measured gunshots rang out through the woods as holes began appearing on the monster’s chest and neck. Still he kept coming.

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John braced and tried to ground the minotaur to a stop. Unfortunately, even covered in metal, the minotaur outweighed him by a severe amount. What ended up happening was that John caught the bull by the horns, literally, and then was bowled over. He managed to keep ahold of the minotaur though, and brought him tumbling down on top of him. The minotaur flipped over John’s body as they tumbled.

The rest of us leapt out of the way when we saw the large bovine man running at us, screaming bloody murder. The minotaur and John went tumbling past us, crashing through the underbrush and small trees.

The minotaur stood up slowly. John lay curled into himself on the ground, still very much dazed, and possibly injured. The [Metal Skin] didn’t make him invincible after all. It didn’t keep his brain from rattling around his skull when he got run over by a monster.

Ashley finally stopped firing into the minotaur as she ejected her mag and slapped in a new one from the harness she wore around her chest. The minotaur turned toward Ashley and took a step in her direction. My ears were ringing from the gunshots, and I could barely hear Mara screaming as she hosed a stream of fire onto the monster. She stepped to the side as she did so she could avoid cooking John.

Her fire finally petered out after several long seconds of continuous fire and the flames died down quickly. The minotaur stood in front of us still. Singed, burnt, but still alive, and very angry. He turned and took a step toward Mara.

Something finally snapped in me. My body felt like it had been frozen as the minotaur crashed through our formation. I barely had enough wherewithal to step out of the way of his charge. But seeing him move toward Ashley, and then Mara. My Mara…my body thawed pretty quickly and I charged the large monster threatening my best friend.

I lunged forward, like I’d done it a million times before, and buried the head of my spear right between his ribs. Everything froze. The minotaur stopped breathing. I think we all held our breath for a moment. Then, without really thinking about it, I twisted the spear in his chest back and forth like a key in a lock, and then ripped it out of his body.

Blood pumped out of his chest, and then began to dribble out of his mouth. He burbled bloody bubbles as he tried to roar at us again. And then Ashley had her gun reloaded and resumed shooting him, this time as fast as she could pull the trigger. He took a single step forward, and then stumbled to the ground. He barely caught himself on his hands and knees. He gave one more feeble attempt at a roar, and then promptly crashed into the dirt. We didn’t need to check the body. A notification from the System popped up.

[You have killed: Minotaur x 1]

“Do you…” I suddenly couldn’t catch my breath. I hadn’t even done that much I thought. But I was huffing like I’d actually run or something. Which, ew. Running can suck it. The people who do it voluntarily are just weird masochists as far as I could tell. “Do you think that was the monster that attacked the car?”

“Yeah, he was covered in blood even before I shot him,” Ashley answered. “But, we should check anyway. There might be more? And we should be certain no one needs help.”

“Can I…does anyone mind if I look if this guy has an essence?” John asked.

“Let’s do it on the way back. First priority is checking if anyone is there that needs help.” Mara clapped him on the back.

John blushed, which was odd to see on a metal man. It was more of a bronze set against his silvery skin. “Oh, yeah. I mean. Of course. Sorry.”

We got back in formation and continued through the forest. A few minutes later we followed the blood trail to small clearing. Inside were a set of shredded clothes strewn about and a bloody, meaty chunk of something that had clearly been chewed on in the center.

I immediately had to fight down my gag reflex. Mara was not as lucky and ran to throw up in the bushes. That triggered John who ran to another set of bushes to throw up. I barely kept down my lunch. Ashley and Oliver seemed the least affected, though both were a little pale and shaky.

Ashley swept around the rest of the clearing and came back to us. “The blood trail ends here. I think it’s safe to assume that that’s our driver from the car.”

“Do we bury them?” I asked. Everyone looked around and kind of shrugged.

“John, you go and check the minotaur for any essence. The rest of us will dig a quick grave,” Mara pragmatically suggested.

“I’ll go with him,” I volunteered. “We shouldn’t be that split up in case something happens.” The others all agreed.

“Here, take my knife,” Ashley held out a long thin blade, handle toward John.

“Thanks,” he muttered before turning around to head out of the clearing. I followed right behind him.

We walked quietly through the forest until we came back upon the minotaur’s body. I helped John flip it over onto its back and stood back. I scanned the forest around us, looking and listening for anything else that could be out there. It sounded like just the regular forest sounds. Lots of birds, the occasional stick or something falling through the trees.

I turned back to John, who was kneeled down in front of the minotaur, knife in hand…just kind of staring at it. “That knife isn’t strong enough to cut through the ribs. You should cut through the diaphragm right under the ribs and reach up to where the core or essence is supposed to be,” I offered. John just turned a little green. He had dropped his metal coating sometime on the way back here.

“I-I don’t know if I can c-cut something like this open. It still looks somewhat human, you know.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course the dude most excited to get a new essence would be too squeamish to actually get it himself. I knelt on the other side of the minotaur’s body and held my hand out for the knife. He sheepishly placed it into my hand.

I made a quick cut across the minotaur’s skin, directly underneath his sternum. The skin split with the barest of pressure. Ashley kept her blades sharp. With a little more pressure I cut through the muscle underneath and then reached in to slice a gap in the diaphragm. I set the knife to the side and reached through the thin opening and up toward the monster’s heart. I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel the lungs and heart as I slid past them. After several minutes rooting around, my fingers brushed against something that was much harder and more solid than the organs deflating in the minotaur’s chest. I wrapped my fingers around it and tried to pull it out. It was stuck pretty firmly in place though. I felt the entire chest cavity rise a little as I adjusted my stance and tried to lift again.

Finally, with a wet, squelching noise, the object wrenched free of the minotaur’s body. I almost fell over as my hand came shooting out from the minotaur, covered in blood and viscera to my elbow. Looking down, I opened my hand.

[You have found [strength] essence. Would you like to absorb this [strength] essence? Warning, you may only absorb up to three essences. Once chosen, an essence cannot be replaced.]