“Oh yes, I like this way of thinking.”The cat perked up.
“Playtime is over.”My claws extended and my fangs lengthened.
With a loud wrench I yanked off the rib bone of the lochness carcass I had been gripping. Sending a sickening crack through the still waters.
“There you are, kitty cat.” Cronin roared, clumsily attacking my position.
A feral grin etched across my face and I roared back, thrusting the lochness rib upwards into the darkness and straight into the rubber appendage of Cronin’s tentacles.
Muscling over the curved portion of the rib, Cronin wrenched his appendage back with a painful wail. Suddenly, I was catapulted out of the darkness and into the light.
“Poetry.” Purred the cat.
I smirked. Whether it was at the cat’s sarcastic wit or the grotesque widening of Cronin’s red eyes in seeing me dangling like a worm on a hook in front of him, I didn’t know.
I tilted my head. “You know Cronin, whenever we see each other, I can never decide which cluster of eyes I should look at.” I snickered before I sliced my makeshift weapon downward, flaying his tentacle in two.
Cronin roared with pain, his split limb flailing uselessly in the water, releasing bits of white blubber and bright red blood into the soft flowing ocean.
Satisfied, I brandished the lochness rib and hissed with my fangs. “I thought you'd look better with nine thingys rather than eight.” I wiggled my claws at him. “Mistake that, you’re still fucking ugly as ever.”
I didn’t have a death wish but my life was filled with nothing but.
“And it’s just the beginning.”The cat snorted.
I didn’t move when one of Cronin’s functional appendages snapped outward and curled around me in a crushing grip.
I braced against the pain of the mounting pressure—my arms were still free, Cronin’s biggest mistake that I had bet on.
“I could snap you like a fucking twig and destroy you, you golden prick.” Cronin spat, molting gray skin flaking off of him with each agitated movement of his bird-like beak.
“How uneventful.” I leaned back into my free arms, the rib bone still clutched firmly in my grip and gritted against the painful squeezing of his tentacle.
“You’re right, I like the idea of eating you alive—listening to your screams while I do.”
“Oh goddess, not that.” I wiggled and thrashed against his grip, my eyes widening with mock terror.
“If that's acting then I'm a mangey dog.” The cat snorted.
Cronin’s laughter stirred the ocean current.
“Nah, you just have to know your audience.”I brought my hands together, the rib bone pleading with me. “Please, please don’t eat me!”
Cronin’s laughter continued, amused by my begging. “As if I would grant such a request! I stopped following you blindly long ago, you golden prick. Looks like it’s going to be cat for dinner!”
I couldn’t hold back the gag from his rancid breath as I was brought to the underbelly of the kraken beast. His beak openedand closed rapidly while multiple rows of tiny razor sharp teeth gnashed back and forth in anticipation of their meal.
My grin grew the closer I came to the ominous clicking and sawing of teeth. Raising the lochness spear high above my head I stabbed downward with a vicious roar, my beast's voice echoing within, and Cronin's sharp wails joining shortly after. Ripping the makeshift weapon out, I repeatedly stabbed at the tentacle until it started to unravel away from me.
Fully free, I pumped my legs hard, the rib raised high, launching myself straight into serrated jaws of doom.
“This was your plan?” The cat drawled.
“Did you expect anything less!”I roared back at him and braced before entering the kraken’s lethal mouth. Streamlining my body, I clenched my jaw against the cracking of my scales from his sawing teeth, and gripped the lochness bone harder. Roaring one more time, I entered into the darkness, pumping all my strength into my legs to shoot through his body like a knife through butter.
“I may not have thought this all the way through.”I choked on the hot viscous guts pouring out around me.
The beast snorted.“Clearly.”
