Panther Park good bone structure

several days had passed since shardik had last felt @Mou's presence; he cursed the fumbling of his claws, the blindness of his hand -- and cursed that dog, for cheating him of his deserved meal.

he had filled that slit with stone and rubble; it would serve no one as egress to safety anymore. shardik saw to it that the very mouth of the gap was obscured, and then he slunk down an unknown path, searching for the scent of his quarry.

he was aware that like mou, he was tiring - he licked at blood where he found it, chewed moss or lichen where it sparsely grew. it was hardly enough to fuel him, but soon, he would have dog.

soon.

the corridor he kept to carried him deep under the reserves of an unknown ridge; shardik could hear the groan of great stones and the grinding of unseen ledge. as he travelled deeper, the distant sound of water trickled. at first it was an occasional patter, a light trickle -- yet eventually even the stones he tread were slick and damp, and foul algae grew along the sodden walls.

they were now deep in the holdfast of a long undisturbed subterranean realm. in his passing, he felt even the stones disapproved of his presence. shardik was now fueled as much by his craven hunger as he was by an unyielding will to see the surface; the black pools that accumulated at the feet of several tunnels he had forded slaked his thirst, but also filled him with a fell dread that he might drown in this wretched world if he took a wrong turn.

He could still feel the warm pulse of blood from where the beast had punctured the flesh of his hip. It had stopped bleeding of its own accord, but in the process Mou felt more and more light-headed as he scrambled through the dark; whether this was from blood loss or the air thinning, he wasn't sure. For a few hours at least, there was silence. He could feel his beating heart and the pounding of his head, but there were no more booming voices, no more reaching, stabbing shapes in the void around him.

Still, he dared not let himself feel content or safe. As long as he was stuck in this system of corridors and dusty rooms, Mou knew he was only running from an inevitability. The creature would corner him if he didn't get out — but where was out? How could he find his way when there was literally nothing for him to go on?

Things changed when the scent of water touched his nose; he didn't know how long he'd been on the run but he knew he was exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and in all likelihood, dying. There came the familiar smell of dampness in the dark — and Mou didn't want to believe it to be real, didn't want to give in to the hope that kept him from giving in to his growing despair. He ignored it for as long as he could, but when his paws began to slip across the ground he knew he had found something of great importance.

There were pools in the darkness. They smelled like mud and slate, and when he dared to pause long enough to probe a puddle with his snout he found it surprisingly deep. The water tasted terribly but the boy was in such a desperate state that it didn't matter; he gorged himself, only to turn and vomit against a nearby wall when his belly couldn't take it.

shardik prowled along the dark, claws feeling smooth stone and andesite; occasionally skittering over split basalt and chewed bedrock. the patter grew louder, more insistent - as he passed along a solemn corridor he heard the wretched heave of bile, and a splatter sounded ahead.

his round ears twitched; he was so close, separated by thin walls of earth and root. the beast picked up his pace, plowing through rot and tepid water alike, wading the foul sewage with his eyes fervently searching. "dog," he rasped, raking slime from his chest as he went: "dog, what is your name?"

His stomach rolled, and he pitched again through the dark as if to vomit, but he only gasped uselessly as the fit took hold of him. This happened one more time before there was nothing left inside of him, and at that point there came the sound of thunder behind him; he felt it in the rock, and knew it was the beast.

Despite feeling as though his body was trying to contort him inside-out, Mou forced himself to his feet and he scrambled to find a hiding place. He fell along rather than ran, and finally stopped and held his breath when he thought he was safely placed along a small shoulder of stone within the cave.

The voice came to him. He thought he could taste the foulness of the beast in the air as he slowly stifled an inhalation, afraid to even breathe, and his heart began to pound again with barely contained terror. It took a few moments before Mou realized what was being asked of him — but even so, he couldn't answer if he'd wanted to.

His name was a sound that even he could not utter. But dare he try, and the beast would be upon him. He tried to shuffle along like a commando behind enemy lines — and as he went, he heard the rushing sound of water behind the wall next to himself. It was a sussuration like the rain, a whisper.

The boy was delirious — but he called out with the hope that it would echo, that he would stay hidden: Sssi-th-isss.

Not his name, but a plea for help — he saw Maegi in his mind's eye, just a flash of what he had given up, then he grit his teeth and fell silent.

ripples of black water rolled out in front of him, but it was too dark to see. the bear hauled onwards, gouts of rime and decayed matter disturbed by his wake. ahead the form of the dog bent again and heaved; another dry, contemptible sound.

when he rose from the foul waters it spilled around him in sheets; blackened liquid oozing down through slick stone. he shook and a foul odor rose from him; the scent of blight and decay.

shardik rumbled in response to the frail thing's answer. sithis. the name's significance escaped the leviathan, who repeated the name in dull rasps. "sithis, sithis, sithis." a prurient chant; "sithis, dog, aren't you tired?" his claws fumbled along the stony wall, feeling its smooth face for fissures or weakness. pressing his massive head against bedrock he listened for a moment, his cupped ear keen as it detected the hoarse breathing of the being in the tunnel besides him.

The beast was nearby. There was no way for him to gauge how close exactly, but the sound of that voice repeating his assumed name gave him some clue. The sound echoed through the chamber, booming more than his own whisper had. Every muscle along the boy's body was tense; he felt a thrilling sensation run down his spine the longer he sat crunched against the floor, nervous to breathe, terrified of the slightest movement. He needed this rest because he was tired — the beast had worn him down to his breaking point and they both knew it. It had become a waiting game.

the dog had stilled; in that darkness all shardik heard now was the trickle of distant rankwater, and the occasional groan of the earth shuddering above them. his great frame slowed to a stop, and the raking of his claws slowed with him -- until all that could be heard in that unfathomable blackness was the slow creep of decay, and the chittering of strange denizens who lived and died in this realm of rot.

it would be a long time before either stirred again; shardik needed his rest same as mou, and with a sigh heaved himself to the floor and felt a tiredness overcome him.