The Beasts Within

CHAPTER I: HER CAVE

Fast forward to about three centuries later…

The room is large with high ceilings and brick-layered walls. There are beautiful paintings with expensive-looking frames displayed all over with an occasional copper bust and porcelain vase on mahogany stands. One can smell the fireplace smoke, fruity and alcoholic scents and a dog’s mark on the thick colorful rug from the middle of the room.

Suddenly, a crowd bursts into the room and one can hear them more than actually seeing them. In the middle of the noisy shouting, Myrinna sees a beautiful woman with red flaming hair in a scarlet silken gown being thrown across the room. She lands on the rug and is then held down by multiple uniformed men as she screams her displeasure and agony.

The woman manages to fiercely fight herself free of the soldiers’ grasp before suddenly bursting out a string of commands into the air. Yes, she doesn’t seem to be yelling at anyone near her but at somebody else who was quite a distance away.

At this point, the havoc of her cries mixed with the crowd’s barrage of noises was quite overpowering that anyone listening to them would have gotten deaf if they didn’t cover their ears. 

Wait, are the crowds singing songs? Or are they chanting? I can hardly make out their words and it seems to be a language that I don’t know. Why can’t I see? What are these keeping me covered right now? Clothes? Damn it, these dirty linens are all blocking out my view…  

Next thing she knows, the woman in red suddenly starts glowing. Everyone seems frozen in amazement as the soft radiance engulfing the woman begins to expand and intensify by the minute.

What the… That lady is becoming bigger… and brighter…and hotter…

Then an explosion rips the room apart!

Once the shower of debris and lights settle down, Myrinna sees before her a gigantic and glorious creature, its green scales shining with an iridescent glow like an emerald held up to the sun. Its wings were expansive and frighteningly so, as those webbed membranes cast a massive shadow over the men who were once holding the scarlet-dressed damsel earlier on.

That beautiful but brave damsel, to everyone else’s horror, has now shape-shifted into a muscular and magnificent beast with a long snout filled with razor-sharp fangs. She now had a behemoth of a tail and large claws that can destroy villages and small dense forests with just a few swipes.

It’s odd though that I’m not scared of her. I’m actually so excited to see her like this. But this is a dream so not everything makes sense, right? But is this REALLY a dream? And what did she turn into exactly?

As everyone scrambles for safety, the mountain-sized lizard-looking being bellows an echoing roar that shakes the earth. It then heaves a huge breath to spew out an immense river of flame from its open and fanged mouth.

One can hear the people around the woman-turned-monster screaming in fear and pain as the flames threaten to engulf everything nearby. Myrinna can now also hear them screaming and wailing out one word in terror…

Dragon… DRAGON… DRAGOOOOOON!!!

Myrinna suddenly feels hands picking her up in a panic and the next thing she knows, she’s already being carried in someone’s arms. She can’t see who her savior is because her face is being pressed hard into this person’s brawny chest, his steel armor cold against her skin. As the runner makes a steep but quick turn, the curious girl manages to peek above the man’s armored arms.

She then freezes in fright at the scene she witnesses. A scene that drowns out all her other thoughts despite the chaos…

The dragon is no longer there. Only the angry woman in crimson stands where the fearsome monster was before!

And she is burning from head to toe!

High, scorching flames now turn the whole area even redder and brighter than when the gigantic beast was still there. All because the woman seems to absorb the fires of a thousand funeral pyres as she shrieks her death throes.

And Myrinna hears herself shrieking along with the dying lady on fire. Both are the sounds of pain, torture, and fear…

As if they were connected somehow.

What the heck!

Her eyes snap open with a start while her body is shaken awake by her deep violent gasp. No screaming or tears this time. Just deep shallow breaths that seem to have shaken her being to the core and her mind into a sudden realization.

Ugh, it’s one of THOSE dreams again…

Myrinna takes her time to fully awaken before sitting up in her bed. Well, to some it might not even be a bed because it is more like a flat rock inside a cave. True, on top of it are various kinds of warm, soft, and fluffy skins and furs, but right now no one would even think of that hard piece of flattened marble sprouting up from the ground like a piece of furniture. 

To be honest, they might not even manage to see this scantily-clad, female’s allocated bedroom within these cold and cavernous walls. Oh no, they would most likely get lost within the stalactite-infested caverns first or fall into one of the deep and dark ravines, or maybe even eaten by one of the humungous vicious animals that Myrinna keeps as pets.

Possibly, they will even go through all three experiences… all at the same time.

“Crawler! Creeper! Are you there? Please, everyone, give me a hug before I go!”

Myrinna hears several hisses and chattering noises from one of the darker passageways of the caves. Soon a centipede and a millipede, the size of anacondas, slither out towards the silver-haired woman who had called them by name. 

The tanned and topless sss opens her arms to welcome her pets. Soon there were two dozen other centipedes and millipedes, all smaller in size, fighting for the wavy-haired woman’s hugs and kisses. They crawl and curl all over her toned abdomen, shapely hips and curvy bottom, their sharp claws, and hooks unable to leave a mark on her voluptuous body.

”Oh you are all such good boys and girls, yes you are. Alright, tomorrow it will be the snakes’ turn to guard the cave and then the felines, ok? But you all did such a good job, yes you all did.”

Myrinna loves animals, insects, and other creatures, but does not like humans. As a matter of fact, she mostly hates them and is known to attack trespassers who enter, not just her cave, but her forest. Which is why she chose these large, dark caverns as home since they are deep inside a steep mountainside right smack dab in the middle of the thick dense forest. 

”Ok, everyone can go and find some food. But no need to give me any. I’ll be hunting for my own meal.”

As she watched her dear pets slither away, she takes her special limestone knife from under her blankets of furs. From the foot of the bed, she searches for the dagger’s leather sheath and ties its strong cords around her waist.

There’s no longer any food in her “house”, and even if she knew that some of her smaller pets would be willing to sacrifice themselves just so she can feed at once, she would rather hunt and kill her meal the hard way. And the truth is, hunting is not at all hard for her.

Except probably when she was still learning to hunt properly way back when she was still a toddler.

A challenge is always satisfying if you do it right.

She takes a second layer of soft leathers and wraps them around her large breasts to bind them in place. Myrinna finds it so bothersome when they bounce around as she runs or jumps from tree to tree. This is why she doesn’t mind binding her chest so tight that her cleavage looks like it’s ready to explode. Yes, it’s painful but that isn’t a factor to consider either since she has a very high pain threshold and she’s quite proud to put it to the test on a daily basis.

I might as well go straight to Amana once I finish hunting for my meal. She might just want to share whatever kill I find today. Besides, considering that every time I have one of those dreams she would also have hers, I look forward to us sharing these visions together. She is old, after all, and would look forward to having some company. And so do I…

Myrinna laughs inwardly at the thought since, to be honest, she has had way less company than Asana any day, any month or any year. As a matter of fact, it’s these states of lonesomeness that she finds fulfilling more than the company of her one elderly friend.

But yes, it has been a while. I hope my dear old surrogate mother has missed me too. 

Now fully dressed in a jungle outfit that would make Tarzan proud and Jane blush, she grabs her trusty sharp spear from the wall near her bed and walks out of the cave ready to kill and feast.

Perfect timing since the slivers of the sunrise are now slightly lightening up the eastern part of the sky.

It’s a new morning, and despite the dream, I feel this day would be a beautiful one. Makes me wonder if others luckier than me are feeling the same…