LUCIEN'S POV.
I was horrified as I faced a hideous creature that I hadn't seen in all my life.
I couldn't explain the way I felt. Was it fear at having that creature touch me or was it just plain disgust. The creature had a large muscular body frame that could be about three of me put together, but it had the face of a woman and that face was horrible.
Her eyes were ink black and seemed to have vivid red veins connecting to it. She had two holes instead of nostrils and instead of teeth, she had worms…
Worms protruding out of her mouth, amd floating all around, squirming and looking disgusting. My tummy crawled, totally repulsed by the strange creature.
"You. Finish." She said with a growl and in a second, she ran towards me but I already held up my claws and she ran right into them. My hand m0ved back from the force but it still did the job as the horrific woman gave a howl of pain.
I was able to escape and get back to my feet immediately she was distracted and I dragged my claws down her rotting back. Loads of worms poured out of her as she howled once more, and I hit her head with my fist, hard enough to her staggering. She turned to me and in a blur raced to get to me, but I had already picked up a large stone and smashed it into where I felt her face was meant to be and annoying, squishy and mashed sound was the outcome. She tried to take me and fling my but I had the opportunity and wasn't going to let it go.
I plunged my nails deep into her neck, and slashed it as much as I could. It turned out she had worms instead of blood as they were the only things that poured out.
To be sure she would be gone, I pierced into her chest, reaching for her heart, and when I found it, I pulled it out. She didn't even scream. Her head just lolled to the side abruptly like I had just taken a battery out of a toy.
I looked at the heart, black with some greying spots. I stood up and threw the heart to the ground before stepping hard on it making it splatter with worms.
After the whole thing, I retched, throwing up everything I had eaten that day, and after that, I sprinted around the forest searching for a place to wash up. It took me some time before I found a little rushing stream. I unbuttoned the jacket I was suddenly grateful for wearing and it floated down the stream gratefully. Then I washed my face and arms.
But, there was still that feeling of numerous things walking down my body and in the end, I took off my clothes and dived into the stream, washing and scrubbing my self hard, before stepping out of the stream and putting on me clothes once more, regardless of how wet they were.
I continued my journey, still wondering of the creature I had just encountered, and wondering why I encountered it in the forest where such had never been seen.
~
When I got to the Kingdom, I was welcomed by the people as they were delighted to see me once more and the maids rushed to flank around me with their heads bowed, following me in case I need something.
"Get me a drink." I said walking briskly to see my Beta.
"Yes, Alpha." A maid said, and two of them scampered away to get me the drink. At each corridor I took, a maid stayed behind. It was so they could direct the maids who had gone to get my drink on their way back to me. Things were very ordered in my Palace, and it was just how I liked it.
"Alpha." My Beta greeted in a bow as we met by chance on the corridor leading to his rooms.
"Lead the way." I told him, and he turned, leading me to the Royal Soothsayer. "Any reports?" I asked him, concerning the Kingdom.
"There hasn't been much. Everything has been well." He replied briskly, and I pondered on conflicting thoughts—whether or not to tell him what I had encountered earlier that day.
If I told him, he would be worried, and I didn't need him to be worried when he was busy handling most of the things I ought to have handled myself.
Maybe the creature had lost its way? Maybe it had been sent by some witch to attack someone, maybe it had been cursed or it was a kind of hybrid creature, although I couldn't think of any hybrid creature would look like that.
It was literally dead. Everything about it was rotten. I couldn't even think of calling it a woman anymore. Calling it a woman was an insult to all the women in the world. It was something dead that had found its way back into the world. Maggots were in every corner of its body, they had acted as its blood and it's heart was something else entirely. My hand cringed as I remembered holding it.
It had been way too soft. I had never held a heart before but it felt like my thumb would go in if I made the slightest move to press it further.
"Is something bothering you?" My Beta asked, and I snapped out of my thoughts immediately.
"Uh?" I asked.
"You have a repulsed look on your face. Are you perhaps seeing something you don't like or smelling sometimes awful?" He asked, and turned to look around, maybe he would catch sight of whatever it was that was that was bringing me disgust.
"I do?" I asked, feigning innocence.
"Or you're recalling something that brings you disgust?" He asked, still looking at me.
"Um…"
"We're here." He said, motioning towards the door.
He stopped at the door, and then the drink I had ordered was brought to me. I took it, and raised it to my lips, downing half of it at once. The cold raced down my throat satisfyingly and I gave a sigh of relief.
"The Alpha is here!" My Beta announced and the door was opened from within.
"The Soothsayer is within. She has been waiting for you." A maid out of the bevy of mads standing there said as they all sank into a low bow.
I proceeded to walk in to see the Soothsayer and my maid followed, but I raised a hand, stopping them. I walked into the soothsayer's room of divination alone and saw her sitting with her eyes concentrated hard, staring into blank space and her face was one of horror.
I realized she was seeing something and stopped. I studied her for a while before sitting to the side, waiting for her to be done with her sightseeing.
My lips found the cold drink once again, and I downed everything. I waited for the Soothsayer patiently and after waiting for minutes, she let out a soft gasp and I turned to her.
Here eyes had fallen to the ground and she had a strange expression on her face. The expression of someone who couldn't save a dying person when they could have.
Then finally, she looked up at me with that same expression on her face, and then she sighed, and bowed.
A deep sigh escaped her lips, and she closed her eyes, restoring her actual expression to one of calm, and peace.
Then she re-opened them and sent a smile my way.
"I want to thank you, Alpha for coming even when you are surely busy from all the stress of your occupation." She started and I nodded.
"Indeed I am a busy person, but at the moment, I am not busy."
"Very well." She said, and looked at the doors. "No one is waiting outside, Alpha?" She asked, warily.
"I told them all to wait behind. You can go on." I told her, and she took a deep breath.
"I saw something yesterday. At first, it was in my dreams, my noon nap so I didn't think much of it, but this morning, it appeared in my dreams again, my night dreams and then I realized it was a revelation." She narrated, as she took a little mirror on her desk and held it delicately with her hands.
"And again, just now I saw it again, although it was more vivid as I was awake. I have broken the windows of the future and seen through them. I have beheld the brief future of this Kingdom…" she continued with wide eyes. She looked like she was seeing everything again.
Like it was replaying in her head, but I needed her to explain what it was she had seen because I couldn't wait any longer, my curiousity was inflating like a balloon by the second.
"What is it you have seen?" I asked, trying not to let my impatience and curiousity burst out.
"Danger… I saw Danger… Something is going to hit us really hard. Right now, as I speak, something is going on. Something bad is happening at the moment. What frustrates me is I do not know what. I only know we are in grave times. We must be careful… you must be careful, Alpha." She explained and I sank into my thoughts.
What was happening? I had seen a strange creature I had never seen before in a forest where I had never beheld any harmful creature with my eyes before.
Could it be all aligned?
Could what the Soothsayer saw be the reason I saw the creature?