The Dispersed (prequel or previous chapter to strange maidenhead,but who cares...
Grey as the day and its haze ripping through the salty air, his beard long and in the wind was the same. He dispersed sentences and demanded truths. Ramming a finger towards the cliff's edge. Towards the ocean one hundred feet below. The man he gestured to was to dive in the morning, but presently had other more pressing challenges.
Gnarled and poignant with wisdom,the sentencing finger had three gold rings molded in points on its length. It turned from the wiry muscular man,tied to a stake and directly pointed to a walrus-like beast straining against a chain in the ground. Not 3 yards out of reach, it salivated a thick black mucous,heaving and shitting and slipping in its own mess. It wanted to eat everything in sight. Oily black scales shimmered and flipped as it breathed. Odd omnidirectional eyes bulged from sockets. Crab's eyes grafted into its head in some strange lab,the mutated thing probably even hated itself.
White robed men untied the thin gnarled man from his post. He seemed as stiff and stout as the thing he was bound to,with hands calloused and tough as edges of rock. The fingers were lengthened and came to points with sharp dark nails. They stepped away from him and clambered up off the mountainous plateau to a higher one. To observe the fight that was about to take place.
The Disperser levitated, and in doing so struck down and released the slobbering awkward beast from its chain. It didn't hesitate. For its massive size and weight it was agile. Cumbersome on land,it was still dangerous. Without warning it turned, slinging a pink knobby fleshy rope from its anus, attempting to wrap the man with it. A barb on the end bloated with poison slung madly through the air. The man a lanky blur,rolled and bounced against the nearest wall and with webbed feet,he sprang claws out and was on the rubbery beasts back.
In a blink the watching men missed what had happened. He was gripping its tentacle beneath the stinger with a crushing hold, keeping it from retracting back into its foul orifice. The beast shifted its body and rolled,wanting to crush the man,but smooth movements harmonized and went with its direction. He arched his entire body a circle through the air and planted his feet on ground, jamming his black finger tips into the tough beasts hide. It howled and rolled the other way, yanking the man and catching him by surprise. Fear registered and he realized in this moment he might be killed.
The tentacle came loose from his grip and instead of striking, it retracted. They were both hurt. The beast shifted back and the two stared at each other. The man's hand dripped blood from where his tips were ripped off, buried somewhere in the thing's fatty thick skin. He knew not to wait to react to its attack and moved. Before anyone observing or the beast itself knew it, his hand was in its brain. A fist sized hole in its skull.
The beast quaked on the end of his arm,convulsing it howled and the eyes wobbled and extended in shock. It still wanted to fight and perhaps still tried to execute bodily functions ,but nothing registered. It sagged heavily and its face slid from his fist.
The wiry man heaved and looked down at his hands, one covered in his own blood and the other gripping yellow bubbly tissue.
"You've completed this." Said a voice close to him as if from nowhere.
The Displacer stood before him with an empty stare. The beast still died,shivering and making gasping sounds from parts of its body.
"Tomorrow you complete what you started for them. You fulfill your broken promise."
The man looked down at the ocean and knew he looked at his death. Boastful lies had finally gotten the best of him. Winning trust with fantastic tales of accomplishments earned a living. Now it would earn his death.
"Tomorrow we will turn you over to them to carry out their sentence. To have their game with you. As you had your game with them."
The Disperser left every one's sight,retreating into a cavern opening in a grey wisp. The man felt his body go limp from science or spells,then hands on his arms. They chained him up again.
Tomorrow he would either discover other mammals or he would die.Or both. More likely simply the latter. The rest of the Disperser's effect soaked in and he was asleep.
The next thing he knew was the three looming hunched beasts before him hissing and grinding. It was morning and the sun was up.
"I think we should remove his other fingernails." They laughed and remarked about his wounds. Hanging with arms practically wrapped twice around his body,his one hand still dripped. The Disperser was there and nodded.
"He is yours to do with as you please. We offer him to you and hope it maintains our peace."
One of the needled black shapes whipped back a pitch black cape and out came a gaseous form of a hand. It shined sharp edges that came to invisible hair-like tiny points. Thousands of thin tips for teeth gleamed in its darkness. An evil mouth,the man didn't know why mammals didn't declare war on these foul machines.
There was sudden pain and a grip as his hand was bound and a fingernail on his good hand removed. He kept dead eyes for them. No pain shown.
"He likes to tell tales of mystery....Doesn't he?" One said and hovered in his face.
"More of your kind... are there? Magical kind? Watery kind? Astral Kind? ...Gods?"
It spit on him.
"Today you find out." It said tersely. Another fingernail ripped and he almost flinched.
From above and hidden, the Disperser silently whispered and cast fingers at the man. Superstitious and hopeful. Curious. He mostly just figured, "What the hell...maybe there are some ancient evolved ancestors down there somewhere...." He gave the man some incentive. Some oxygen.
"Why not?" He thought.
Then walked away to catch up with the rest of his day.