Sadly, as I expected, we hadn't gained enough speed to evade the predator's advance. I could only watch as our friendly neighborhood grizzly bashed into our carriage recklessly. Though the barrier tried to repel the attacker, I guess a monster bear was too mighty to defend against.
Like glass, the barrier shattered into a thousand shards of light before dissipating entirely, leaving us vulnerable to the beast's mercy.
Time seemed slow initially, allowing me to experience every moment fully.
First, there was a colossal jerk of motion that sent the wagon flying upwards off the ground. Eventually, the two left wheels completely lost their grip on the ground as the left side pushed up into the sky. Once we'd reached a diagonal angle, the horses began buckling too. Finally, the carriage completely flipped over on its side, dragging the leftmost horse into it.
Though it had been shrieking the entire time, the horse eerily ceased its cries after the distinct noise of a "snap."
The ones inside had been lucky; they were protected by the barrier's usual aura. It had wholly encapsulated the passenger's cabin, preventing them from flying out of the windows from the collision.
Like the horses, the lemming and I were vulnerable to the impact; we had no protection against the force of gravity, after all. We were launched from our seats and spiraled wildly in the air. After a moment of gliding, we collided with the ground, slamming into various foliage along the way.
I repeatedly struck the ground, with each strike leaving my skin more tattered than before.
When I finally stopped; it'd only been because I slammed into a sturdy pine tree behind me. Thinking about it, I was immensely fortunate I didn't shatter my spine after colliding with the rugged brown bark.
The wind had been knocked from my gut. Talking, grunting, and even breathing, none of it was possible. Unable to move, I only lay there, reeling in shock from the gashes the coarse tree bark gave to my now nearly bare back.
In spite of my resolve, every gasp for air had still been met with an empty vacuum. Ironically, I felt as if the act of breathing itself had been what was suffocating me. Yet, somehow, I managed to twitch my neck up from the mud and focus on the crash site.
It'd been hard to discern any details. My vision was being encroached upon by growing darkness from all sides. The parts that still withheld the light of consciousness were blurred and unfocused.
pαпdα Йᴏνê|,сòМ I wanted so deeply to lose consciousness at that moment. My body had been shouting internally at me, ordering me to slip away from reality. But there's no way I'd survive everything I had just to become a meal for some furry monster.
Between me and the carriage was the unresponsive and unmoving body of a cowardly lemming, his face planted firmly into the mud.
'Did he bite it?' I had no way of telling whether he was still alive since my body refused to obey any command to move. I tried focusing on him, but my eyes involuntarily trembled from my fatigue.
Looking past him, I saw our upturned carriage. Next to it was our assailant, a beast that had nearly been gloating in victory as it explored the crash site.
It stepped over the first horse, the one that had already perished; its neck was bent irregularly forward, with a bone jutting out in a gross display of blood and muscle in the back.
The other, though it was bellowing for aid and tore fiercely against its tether, was just as doomed.
The bindings that kept it moving forward had now been the shackles that held it in place. It could only look on and shriek in terror while knowingly living its last moments.
Once upon the mare, the beast rose up on its hind legs, towering higher than even the carriage itself, and swiped down with both front paws in a decisive killer's blow.
The horse's skin ruptured like butter, and a burst of crimson fluid showered the air in a mist around it. After being struck by the jets of blood, the bear's deep brown fur became slick and dyed with a red hue.
After reducing its prey to mere hunks of flesh, the bear lowered its head and filled the forest with the wet smacking of its lips. It'd been eating with such ferocity that it practically inhaled the meat it had torn out.
From cracked bone to ripped muscle, the beast gorged on everything it could bite and claw out from the horse's chest cavity.
Disturbingly, the beast was a picky eater and recklessly discarded the pieces it hadn't wanted. From a spleen to the lower intestines to even a strange and pulsating violet heart. It threw all of it away in disgust.
Digging through the saddler's innards, it gnawed at the organs it deemed unfit for consumption and hurled them in various directions. One of which was mine.
After a wet splat, the torn remnants of an animal's bright innards piled up in front of me. Though I'd seen plenty of gore back at the mansion, I never knew how much a creature's insides could glisten with just a few rays of sunlight.
I guess I was too desensitized to the image of gore at this point, or maybe I was just too tired to react. Either way, I luckily hadn't felt the urge of nausea, despite having such a sickening mound of flesh in front of me.
Seeing the beast so preoccupied with its meal, I thought I was lucky. I thought it would be too busy with its meal to notice me. That would've held true if it weren't for the loud knock of the carriage door opening. Because of that, the beast pulled itself from the meal ahead of it.
Once it lifted its head, it revealed a blood and gut-marinated snout and snorted while searching for the noise source.
It locked eyes with me, completely paralyzing me with fear. My fingers had been too petrified to shake, and my legs were too rebellious to move.
A terrifying thought entered my mind. 'Was I next?'
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