Pain. Pain all over. The smell of burnt flesh and blood filled their nostrils before their eyes even opened. Of the eight creatures that entered the aperture, half were strewn about, their charred bodies still smoking, their flesh burnt away in areas revealing the guts that were still spilling blood. The bodies had the stillness of death. The first creature got to its feet, charred flesh feeling tight as it moved, cracking and bleeding ulcerations all over its body as it struggled to stand. It watched what was left of its pack doing the same. The creatures’ memories stirred. It remembered the pull as it entered the aperture, the stretching sensation as its body felt like it was being pulled through a tight hole. Then, there was no feeling, no body. Only consciousness as the creature raced through light. There was a wall of oncoming light shortly after, then a collision, a fight of wills, then a flash. The world came into view as they tumbled through it, shot out in a gout of fire from the aperture. Then the sudden impact as it hit the ground, jarring its entire body.
Looking around, the creature was now aware of the outpour of the hundreds upon hundreds of shadows. The creatures looked around at the carcasses of their brethren, finding the Alpha creature’s half-melted body amongst the fallen. The four stared contemplatively at the Alpha creature’s body. They were not intelligent creatures; they were not meant to be. They were war machines, with the single purpose to follow the Alpha creature. They were not meant to feel emotion about it, just loyalty and the willingness to die for the pack, for the Alpha. An alien feeling crept into them as they stared at the Alpha creature, though they would not know what it was—grief, madness—it built within them with nowhere for it to go. There was no apparent threat, no target. Finally, the dam inside burst, and they roared and bellowed as one over the Alpha creature’s husk. They bellowed and bellowed, the vale reverberating with their rage and frustration amongst the fallen, and the outpour of shadows pouring from the aperture. The shadows! Dim as they were, they felt an anger towards the wisps leaving the aperture. They felt danger, and then rage. Bloodlust rose in them as they watched the outpour of the wispy tendrils.
The thin, long wisps kept leaving the aperture, emerging as lines of shadow swirling on the ground, with no apparent source casting them. They were shadow, but somehow, they were alive. The creatures felt that instinctively. The creatures watched as the shadows swirled around the aperture, a nebulous threat they did not know how to attack. Silently observing, they noticed a shift in the pattern and behavior. The wisps were no longer circling but were now connecting with points within the circle of stones. The tendrils latched to the spots and began to expand and fill out like smoky balloons. The creatures watched in alarm at this change, realizing that hundreds of the shadows were becoming something else, as though the shadow had become an inky substance filling an invisible mold. The creatures’ ire grew as did the shapes filling with the tendrils they were attached to.
One of the creatures, enraged, bellowed and charged without warning. It only took a second for the creature to contact a group of filling shadows, only to pass through it. The creature skidded to a stop, the mist within the filling shapes dispersing but then reforming, the long tendril of shadow still filling it as though nothing had happened, continuing to enlarge and take shape. The creature charged again and again, bellowing, charging and dispersing shadows, with the same effect. After a time, the creature just stared at one of the shadows as if willing it to shatter from rage directed at it alone. The other creatures were also staring at other growing forms, wanting to attack but not sure how to. Then, as if aware of the creatures for the first time, all the forms opened their eyes. No pupils, only glowing yellow sclera, and they were all staring back at the creatures.
The eyes of the forming beings bore down on the creatures, glowing, unblinking, unflinching. Despite their size and ferocity, the creatures saw the promise of danger in those unblinking gazes. They felt an emotion even more alien than grief or madness: fear. They felt it, though not knowing what it was, it was as alien as the glowing eyes staring at them. Even with the horde of beasts howling for their blood as they raced for the vale, there was urgency, self-preservation, and a duty to unwaveringly die if the pack or the Alpha creature required it of them. Even with the grief and madness they could act, but fear now burned within them, robbing them of any action other than to watch as though waiting for the unblinking gazes to pronounce judgment upon them.
Features became sharper as color began blooming over the bodies of the beings as the thinning shadows from the aperture continued feeding the process of their formation. Each of the beings forming was different yet closely the same. The heights varied from one hundred sixty to two hundred thirteen centimeters, with a few standouts that looked like boulders with legs well over two hundred fifty centimeters high. As the features became more distinct, the toned bodies of the beings could be discerned; heavily muscled with girth anywhere from ninety to one hundred thirty kilograms. Half of the beings’ upper limbs ended in grizzly-looking clawed hands. A feature that started to stand out on all the beings, some more pronounced than others, were glowing cracks, of what looked like molten magma flowing within them.
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The magma lines that crisscrossed the creatures’ bodies glowed hotter and brighter as they seemed to rise to the surface of the forming beings. The lines became so bright compared to the semi-translucent bodies forming that they gave the impression of raw power etched into the beings’ flesh. But as they became more distinct and seemed to be stretching further over the bodies, it appeared that the lines of magma were consuming them.
The creatures' eyes narrowed, their muscles tensed, and low growls rumbled from their throats as fear gave way to frustration and rage. They were creatures of war, weapons for their Alpha creature. They tore their eyes away from the glowing eyes to the half-melted corpse of their fallen leader. They were weapons of war, and they would cower no further! A shift within the four-remaining turned over like a switch, rage and bloodlust overflowed in each, and one by one, driven into a frenzy, they began bellowing and stamping their feet, making the ground shake and rumble in defiant challenge. Yet still, the watching beings stared, watching and seemingly unimpressed.
The dam burst, and the four creatures lowered their horns and charged at the staring figures. Running through them, trampling them, stomping on them, the figures exploded into a dispersed miasma mist, only to reform as quickly as it had dispersed. The creatures turned and saw the unharmed figures, roaring in rage, all the creatures charged again, plowing through line after line of the figures, turning to see that they were again reformed. They continued, again and again, never stopping; kicking and thrashing, running through being after being, exploding the body, yet the result was ever the same, with the body of the figure reforming even more completely than before.
Stopping within the center of the beings, the breath from the exhausted creatures billowed out in gouts of steam within the frigid air, their sides heaving as they stared at the figures. One of the creatures walked up to a figure, its horn inches from its face, and just stared at it, the other three watching yet unmoving, too exhausted to do anything at the moment. The tendrils of shadow faded to nothing; the forms of the beings distinct yet still ephemeral. Then, as if a bomb had gone off, a huge screech filled the air, like nails on a chalkboard; it came on so suddenly and so earsplittingly loud that the creatures were staggered. The beings’ forms vibrated, the magma lines etched on their bodies shone like the sun, the glowing eyes were all but beams of light with the increased intensity. The sound increased, bringing the creatures to their knees, then it stopped as quickly as it had started. The beings’ bodies seemed to flicker, then shimmered, and as though a thin mesh was pulled from the center to the top and bottom of the figures, leaving behind a fully corporeal being.
The beings began to move animatedly, looking around their surroundings. The creatures shook their heads to clear out the ringing in their ears. The creature still in front of the being that it was face to face with now realized that it was looking at something that truly was looking back at it. Both the creature and the being stared at each other as if figuring out what the heck it was looking at. The being fell back, pointing, mouth agape, weird squeaking sounds emanating from its mouth. The creatures could sense something they could not before with the beings in front of them. They could smell them. With that realization, the frustration and anger of the creatures had a target. If they could smell the creatures in front of them, then they could kill them.
All four creatures bellowed; their roar arrested the attention of all the beings. Some began to take a posture as the beasts were about to charge, then the air was split by blood-curdling screams within the group of beings.
The being in front of the creature, as well as those within the group of beings whose magma-like lines were nearly all over their bodies, began to glow white-hot. They screamed as their bodies smoked, then when the screams seemed like they would never stop growing in volume, they burst into flames, their bodies writhing as they self-immolated. Pyres of beings within the throngs of beings were burning and screaming, all within the ring of stones, including the creatures, were frozen as they watched the horror before them. The screaming stopped as the affected succumbed to the burns and turned into piles of ash; it happened so quickly. Then, as if breaking out of a trance, both sides began to posture for the attack. Sounds were shouted from the beings, bellows and roars from the creatures. The beings raised their hands, palms facing the creatures, fissures opened in the air emitting gouts of white-hot fire engulfing the creatures. The creatures hit the ground and tucked their heads as the flames engulfed their bodies. The red lines on the beings grew more numerous and glowed brighter as they shot fire at them. Then, a rippling in the air behind some of them, a shouting of warning from others, a portal behind some of the beings sucking them through then snapping shut. The beings lowered their hands in shock. The beasts, singed yet not injured, rose, their eyes filled with rage. The beings and the creatures looked back at each other. The bloodlust swelled in the singed creatures as they rose, they lowered their horns and charged again.
