Quoted By:
It is a curious thing when noise exits the world. There are places of great silence, but there is always something. Some flutter of wings, some droplet of rain. Something to remind you that you are in the world, you are of the world. Your experiences are of this world. There is a…voice, as the chest-limbs grow slack, and as you retrieve your makeshift cross. You do not hear this voice, you feel it. There is no sound, only the vibration of an impossible basso staccato. It fills your ear with low motion. You feel it roll through your body, your bones. One word, one short word. What it is you do not know, you can’t hear it.
The cross ignites, throwing a blasting, interminable shine out into the grove. The Divinity pulses, you see half of the Lamb’s Blood which consecrates it melt to droplets in the air, up towards heaven. The Divinity turns a terrible hue, a trumpet of light. It pulses again, and like a rushing river half of <span class="mu-s">its</span> chest-limbs, including the ones holding you aloft shiver into ribbons of white powder. Sound cleaves its way back into the world as you fall. Fifteen feet, maybe more. You land on your back right next to your Colt, the wind knocked out of you, and retrieve the weapon. You get up, you take your time. <span class="mu-s">It</span> thrashes about in abject agony, noticing nothing else around it. You look for Quinton, you see him lying still. You cannot tell if he’s dead, his back is broken, or he’s unconscious. Your head clears itself and you move for him just as the creature crashes both <span class="mu-s">its</span> forelegs back down. The resulting quake topples the pine tree onto Quinton, obscuring him from view.
There is no time to think, the creature froths that peculiar rust-blood. <span class="mu-s">It</span> carries <span class="mu-s">itself</span> gingerly, bringing <span class="mu-s">its</span> legs down so hard seems to have broken something in one of them. <span class="mu-s">Its</span> still spry enough to lash <span class="mu-s">its</span> tail-limbs out to scourge you, but you see it coming and roll under the flailing things. You come up and fire again into the right foreleg this time. One, miss. Two, miss. Three and four, hit. One bullet left. Before you can place it the creature twists <span class="mu-s">its</span> neck, digging <span class="mu-s">its</span> antlers into the ground, and rakes them towards you, screeching.
