[KoJ] Chapter 3: Terror (Patreon)

There are no discernible features on the Titan. No eyes, no ears, no skin. Nothing. It is all hidden within the void of space the being stays within… assuming that its body isn’t simply the lack of space itself.

It makes no sense how such a being can exist. How can something both hold such a presence, and have none at all?

Nothing but the lack of its being reveals it, and yet I know it is looking at me. It has no eyes, yet it glares down at me with the weight of a mountain. Why did I have to be so stupid and let out such an outburst?

The Titan’s gaze approaches. Its body spreads across all the surrounding space until nothing is visible besides the curve I rest within. A darkness like I have never experienced engulfs everything.

Then I feel it. Space itself quakes. Like tremors rock the earth, the spatial fabric holding me in place shakes unlike anything I’ve experienced. It vibrates around me, both freezing me in place and thrumming through my spine in a disorienting clatter.

The spatial vibrations continue until they bleed through into a deep, audible groan. It blares loud enough to deafen me, but even without my ears, the vibration permeating my body makes it impossible to ignore the sound.

It lasts a moment, but resembles an eternity. The thunderous groaning eventually takes the form of words. Loud, deep and hollow, but comprehensible words. The same words taught by the Beyond.

“For spawn of Jörmungandr, you show quite the disrespect to your elders.” The Titan’s words are simple, but slam into me with the weight of the world.

In a brief moment of clarity that breaches my fear clouded mind, I realise I never stopped hissing in opposition to this monster of a being. Its presence froze my body stiff, yet some part of me still held defiant.

Before sapience, I would threaten predators I thought might be too much for me, but when facing a truly terrifying beast, not a sound would escape my mouth; I would flee. Now faced with this Titan, a being so far beyond anything else I’ve seen, and with newly acquired intelligence, why do I continue such a foolish action as hissing?

It doesn’t take long to discover the answer. Emotions have been running rampant since the Titan tore through my cavern and my resting spot. As with curiosity, it seems all the desires that come with sapience are worse than their worth.

Hatred, greed, pride. I refuse to back down to the one who destroyed what is mine. It isn’t logical, but each emotion competes with the act of submission, and drowns it with brutal glee.

And so, while the Titan’s presence engulfs me, I continue to hiss in my stupid, terrifying and… strangely satisfying defiance that is sure to get me killed.

“Ah, I see…” the Titan’s voice trails off with a thunderous echo that leaves my muscles clenching out of my control. “Comprehension may seem like a curse at times, but it is a wondrous thing. Though be warned: gifted knowledge is rarely objective truth.”

Space reappears within the black nothingness as the Titan pulls away. It doesn’t eat me, it simply lets me go. Maybe it treats me as I do the bilbies: too small to bother with and, if nothing else, entertainment.

“Now, leave. The earth will not remain untouched by my work.”

Finally, the world becomes visible again, but my cavern is no more. Like the upward pillar of uniform space I tried to climb a few hunts ago, my cavern is replaced with a vast emptiness. All that remains within the far range of my sight, is the pillar still glowing with energy, and the Titan, who I cannot feel the end of.

Taking in such incomprehensible damage to the area I consider my home, I finally smother my raging emotions enough to stop the hiss leaking from my throat. I take the opportunity gifted by the Titan and flee. As I slide through spatial bends, the Titan’s all-encompassing voice ripples through my core once more.

“Word of advice: these warped tunnels will not survive the coming Fracture. Best if you make your way out.” And with that, I feel the entirety of the Titan’s attention lift from me and return to the massive pillar piercing through empty air.

I slither away as fast as my body and the spatial curves allow, but through twisted space, I can still watch as the Titan’s uncountable limbs wrap around the pillar. The range of my sight isn’t short at all; in fact, I’ve long since been able to see ten times further than the entirety of my territory, and that’s without rifts that can extend it further. Yet, I cannot see the end of either the Titan or the pillar.

The non-existent limbs of the Titan grasp firmly around the pillar, and pull. The entire structure slides sideways, brushing aside bent space, only for the loudest grinding quake I’ve ever heard to reach my ears. Rock and stone have finally returned to my vision, but in every such area I can see tremors with an intensity only comparable to the Other Side.

I dive into space where gravity pulls me away faster. Each hole or rift I find increases the distance, but it is never enough. Quickly, I reach far enough from the Titan, but anywhere I find myself quakes with an intensity that leaves me unsure if I’ve landed on the Other Side or not.

Eventually, I find my saving grace; a rend through space that leads somewhere calm. My body slithers through without a moment’s hesitation and I nearly allow myself to land across the hard, unmoving earth in relief. But doing so would be dangerous; I’m still far too close to the Titan. My body keeps moving. More holes and rifts take me further away from the rend that holds back that incomprehensible being.

My comfortable basking rock. My territory. My home. It is all gone.

I never used to be so sentimental about where I lived, just hunting wherever I found myself, but that cavern had been my home for hundreds of hunts. How can it be gone? Why does such a being exist?

The Beyond was right. Titans are the enemy of the world. For what else can a being that tore everything away from me be? I’ve never felt such fury, such loathing. Not even toward the creatures that tried to eat me when I was young.

These new emotions are horrible, forced on me without my wish, but I can’t deny what I feel. I hate the Titan, but I hate my hatred just as much. It is not helpful. It isn’t like I’ll ever be able to return the favour to such a being, no matter how long I live. That Titan is ancient. Older than I can comprehend.

I slither into a coil of space and bite into my tail as I spin. It’s an old habit I broke a thousand hunts past, and one I’m not happy to see return.

The Titan spoke. It used the same words taught by the Beyond. It is sapient, like me. The meeting raises so many questions that I simply never considered.

Are there more sapient creatures? This is my first time meeting any other with comprehension. It was always a possibility, but until I found another like mind, it remained difficult to believe. The Titan, no matter how much I despise the being, is undeniably intelligent. So is sapience a result of age? I have been around for a long time, so it’s possible, but if it is age, that might also mean for creatures far older than I, there is another stage that I can’t yet know. A super-sapience? Maybe.

The Titan warned these tunnels, which were everything I knew, were going to be destroyed. Should I believe it? What is the Fracture?

I don’t want to believe it. The Titan is the enemy of the world; It could be lying simply to play with me. The being has already destroyed my home, and now it wants me to flee what I know.

Even if the Titan’s words could be believed, my attempt to reach uniform space ended in failure. There is no way out of what the Titan called the Warped Tunnels. But what the being said indicates that there truly is something outside the lands I know. There actually was an end to that large, empty cavern.

I simply cannot reach it.

Do I need to be as large or powerful as the Titan to climb my way out? Such growth seems unimaginable. How many thousands… millions of hunts would I need to reach a portion of that might? Probably best not to concern myself with impossibilities.

For now, I am safe. The quakes do not reach me, nor is the Titan nearby. The narrow tunnel my pocket of space rests within is filled with life completely unaware of the danger only a few spatial tears away. A tiny insect scuttles across the ground before passing through a bend, which leads it to the ceiling. It continues unfazed by the changed orientation. A slender lizard — four legs too many from the perfect shape — chases the bug, but a spray of bubbling liquid scares it off.

The bilbies! I suddenly remember those young siblings I’ve been watching over. Those poor critters are dead now. Killed by the Titan. The loss is painful, more so than any of their previous generations. I’ve experience death of plenty of my sources of entertainment, but none has left me this… gutted. Sad. Is this another horrid emotional addition to sapience, or am I just spiteful that the Titan was the one to end them?

Regardless, they are dead and there’s no coming back from that. I hiss in annoyance, again startling many of this tunnel’s inhabitants back into their burrows or other hiding places. This pain is too great to be feeling at the loss of such a lesser creature. Why must I feel?

I snap out of my cyclic space, lashing my tail out at the nearest wall. The rock crumbles easily, caving in the tunnel while I slither forward, uncaring for how many lesser creatures perish.

My stomach won’t call for a meal for another dozen sleeps, but I need to bite something. Hopefully something with a lot of limbs.

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My tongue stabs at the air, tasting the lingering scent of an Apikull. Not nearly as many limbs as I’d hoped, but there aren’t any centipedes around large enough to satisfy this blood-lust.

As I search for the frozen beast, my body slams into every cavern wall I pass. The physical impact doesn’t soothe the wrath within, but not making the attempts is impossible; the anger needs to go somewhere, anywhere but where it is, coiled up within me. My scales scratch and lose their polish with every strike, but even that is secondary in my mind.

Apes are filthy creatures — more so than most mammals — and leave a disgusting trail in their wake as they travel. Their filth makes them undeniably one of the easiest beasts to detect and track even through the curvature of space. An Apikull’s nature to freeze any environment around them should mask their scent somewhat, but they are still apes. Still just as unclean.

I want to allow myself to hunt with my full size, but rein myself in before I give in to the temptation. Hunts are never satisfying at full width. There is no challenge, and while the feeling of throwing my weight around might make each strike against the earth more satisfying, I know the resulting hunt will leave me with intense discontent.

A chill rolls over my scales. From a hole I just passed, an icy wind flows into the tunnel.

I’ve found my prey.

Slithering forward, I thread through a curve in space and exit right before the chilly hole. My tail twists out of the way of my head, but the scales still rub against one another as I brush past myself and through the spatial hole.

The vines hanging from the cavern are an unfamiliar sight, even below the thick ice coating them. I have come far from my home. My territory no longer exists, but even if it still did, I’m not sure how long it would take to return.

The path travelled as I cowered from the Titan is indistinct in my mind. I simply wanted to get away as fast as I could, and didn’t consider recalling each curve passed.

Not that it matters anyway; everything that was mine is now gone.

Despite my intent to hold back my size, my body seems to grow completely on its own. Fuelled by burning hatred and spite. My enlarged body slithers through the larger spatial bends, often having to slither along rock to keep myself moving; an immature motion only serpents without true-sight need rely on.

The Apikull notices me as soon as I do it: upon my breach through the spatial hole. Prey with true-sight of its own climbs through space with a unique motion. The ape reaches its limbs through curves in space not large enough to fit the rest of its heft and swings itself through the air. Each hand grips the stone or frozen vines of the cavern, but it allows the mammal to fling itself towards me without restraint, passing through larger curves in space and closing the distance with speed only beaten by my own.

Behind my prey, is five other, smaller Apikulls. None of them join their biggest in its attack, but the small ones snatch up the tiniest of them and carry them away. They do not concern me, so my focus returns to only the largest ape.

Air freezes with each of Prey’s motions. Any time its hands touch a surface, icicles spread outward in an instant. The frost grips at my scales, trying to slow my slithers as crystals form.

A hiss rumbles through the cavern as Prey’s opposition incites my fury. The thick ice layer coating my scales cracks and shatters as my body continues to gain size. Already far beyond my size while eating the Diosgris, my weight is enough to crush stalagmites with hardly a glancing blow.

Prey, despite being larger than the lightning enhanced tiger, hesitates at my growing size, but only for a moment before throwing itself forward with renewed vigour. It doesn’t dodge to the side, try to hide, or attempt any sneaky manoeuvres. My prey simply attacks me head on, and I meet it.

With a pair of clenched fists, it brings down both its upper limbs to hit me from above. Frost gathers in its arms, ready to explode on contact. The apes watch on from the cavern edge as we tear through the air, ready to rid the other of life.

The Apikull’s fists crash onto my tongue sheath and white explodes outward with a powerful blast that leaves my tongue numb.

My jaw snaps closed with enough force to crush every bone in Prey’s body. Blood and innards splatter out the sides of my mouth, but most of the creature remains inside. The ape’s legs dangle lifelessly between my fangs, so I quickly lift my head and swallow Prey whole.

A deep sense of annoyance washes over me, only enhancing the irritation and wrath I feel. I knew it would feel like this, and yet I couldn’t control myself. Hunts with my full size are never fun and they never satisfactorily fill my stomach.

The howls and wails of the smaller Apikulls reach me. One throws a rock, which loops through a bend and whacks the back of its brethren’s heads. Nothing could better show the ape’s inexperience.

My frustration still has not fled.

I slither forward. Five more prey to hunt. Maybe these will satisfy me.

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I'm not usually a fan of adding formatting to speach like all caps or bolded letters, but for the Titan's speech, it feels almost necessary to add to the weight.

Also yes, I did have a Titan ruin everything for the protagonist in the first few chaps, again. Don't point your finger at me like that, Titan's are too important not to.

Also, surprise! Titans are intelligent... at least this one is. No more hints. :)

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