Pale Yellow Eyes

The sounds ceased, amplifying the racket of anticipation. But, she was still intact. Opening her eyes with a turbulent discharge of breath, there it was, standing with her painting in hand. Its pale yellow eyes studied it while three other limestone heads attached to its grossly thick neck, like ornaments, faced forward, left and right, staring off in the distance. Her gaze dropped to the painting, drifting over the blood spatter stained hand that appeared like rocky armor, stretching up with vicious fractures until the wooden interior revealed itself at the elbow. 

She winced at the violence, unimaginable. There was a tree only 5 feet away, maybe she could side step over behind it while attention was elsewhere. The thought alone was invigorating as a kid's fantasy, and just as childish. Her eyes shot up to the creature's giant antlers, fearing impalement for just considering it. She became dizzy. Presented with her own lifeless body in so many ways, she questioned if she was still alive. 

The creature dropped the painting. Its other arm lifted, about half the size, putting a beet red hand that looked anguished by the air around it, in between itself and her. There was a gesture by this stub of an arm that moved awkwardly in the process of regeneration. A gesture that could have only been learnt from a human. With no hesitation, Quinlin subtly bowed, though she meant to nod in agreement. She couldn't have agreed though, the gesture hadn't even registered. It was rather a show of submission. 

There was a ravenous relief that gorged on her rabbit pulsed heart as the creature stepped by her, making its way back to its origins. She would not take flight yet, stationary submission had worked out, it will sustain until the threat is out of sight. 

A strong gust of wind blew through, causing a slight stagger for balance on her drained legs. The receding dizziness left a haze that battled her capacity to conceive what happened, coming face to face with a nexus, parting unscathed. It'd be a go-to story to tell if you didn't care to be called an imbecile. 

"Please, just keep walking." The apprehension of those words from her gut seemed misplaced. Why wouldn't it keep walking? It wasn't an apprehension of immediate danger, rather something else unpleasant. She tried to shake it off. "It's leaving"

You couldn't see the creature's head, any of them, through its stiff hunched back. She'd recite a thousand prayers to never have to again. That was supposed to be hypothetical, yet, she was praying. The creature's stride was short and much slower than when it walked towards her. She took a weary step back, beseeching the gap between them to grow faster. 

"It's walking slower now that its curiosity is fulfilled." She proposed what seemed a reasonable theory. 

"I'm free." A frail assertion, but if she looked back, it'd surely pour out through the patchless, creatureless forest with a bright bloom. Her neck only made it halfway, unable to pull her eyes that latched onto the creature like an anchor.

A bird flew from a branch above the antlers as they began to swing, puncturing the air as easily as it would most armor. It was only rotating to face her, almost calmly even. She dropped her head with no expression. It only sank in now, that it had to, what that earlier gesture was. A signal for her to follow.

"I'm not free."