The young one, the instant its vision filled with the gaping maw of the large spiteack, turned tail in a desperate attempt to flee. It didn't know why it had been attacked, or how something had gotten so close without it noticing. But this was not the time for questions. Instinct overrode thought—there was only one thing left to do: run.
It made a sharp, frantic maneuver to escape.
But it was already too late.
The larger spiteack had already engulfed half its body in its monstrous jaws. Now, it was purely a battle of speed—a battle in which the young one lost.
The spiteack's maw slammed shut with a wet snap, a whiff of air hissing from between its teeth as it did. In an instant, a large portion of the young one was severed—ripped apart. Its internals burst outward, as if detonated from within, and splattered across the forest floor. Though the blood didn't coat a wide area, it was still a startling volume, considering the small creature's size.
The young one began to thrash, its half-bitten body twisting and writhing in pure agony. Its movements were senseless—spasms of terror and pain, jerking here, then there, as if its very nerves were screaming.
It had no strength, no time, no clarity to seek out what had caused this or even to comprehend who had done it.
Its vision—its every sensation—was now consumed by only one thing:pain.Agony.
It writhed in pain for some time. Perhaps sensing that the smaller spiteack had no hope of survival, the larger one didn't bother finishing the kill. It turned away and stalked toward the hunted rabbit instead—a small snack, and far more palatable.The smaller spiteack, after all, tasted poor.
The wounded creature continued to writhe on the ground for hours, a grotesque display of suffering. And then—it stopped. Its light went out.It seemed certain: it was dead.
But hours later, the spiteack's eyes snapped open.
All around it, tiny insects lay scattered across the dirt—gathered near the place where its body had been bitten in half. At first, the spiteack didn't understand why they had all died so close to it. But as it chewed lazily on the dead bugs, it began to realize:It was its own body. The poison that ran through it—the slow, bitter outcome of chewing on toxic forest fruits for so long—had leaked from its wound. Now, it bore results. Lethal ones.
The pain remained—but pain was a constant in the wild. It didn't leave; it only swelled or faded. It was a part of life, as inseparable as breath, as ancient as hunger.The spiteack accepted it.
It filled its stomach. But then it noticed something terrible.
Everything it ate slipped out.The food, once swallowed, spilled back through the torn cavity of its belly—never absorbed, never digested.This was not just pain—this was a threat to survival.
It tried blocking the wound with mud, leaves, anything. But nothing worked. After a day, the truth settled in:
It would not last long.
And then—an idea.A strange, feral instinct.
This time, the spiteack didn't try to plug the wound. Instead, it opened its mouth wide—and swallowed part of its own tail, starting from where the bite had ended. Before doing so, it stuffed its mouth with the dead insects scattered around its body.
Then it lay there, curled, sleeping in that grotesque position. It only stirred to vomit—releasing the half-digested remains from its mouth after circulating them through its body. Then, again, it filled itself with fresh insects.And so it continued.For days.
A closed circuit of survival. A grotesque, desperate cycle. But for the spiteack, it was enough.
The poison in its mouth did more than harm—it became its salvation. It neutralized the rot and killed the bacteria that had seeped into its open wounds. Because the poison wasn't actively released into its own body from the inside, the spiteack never suffered from self-inflicted toxicity. And the small traces that did leak through the wound helped to prevent infection, both in its body and in the food it cycled through its system.
The food it chewed, circulated, and vomited after partial absorption kept it from dying of starvation. And so, week after agonizing week, the spiteack held on.
Though the insects and other dead things around it had all been eaten a week or two prior, the creature endured. Slowly, its mangled tail began to regenerate.
And at last—it recovered. Fully.
But though its body healed, its mind had changed.
The spiteack made a vow to itself:Never again would it eat anything within the territory of its own kind.Too many predators, too many waiting mouths—it had nearly died because of a moment of hunger.That nightmare had been enough.And for decades, it kept that oath. Never breaking it. Not once.
Until now.
Because now... it saw the child.
It didn't know what the child was—or why it felt the way it did. But the moment the spiteack laid eyes on the small body, something inside it snapped.
Its body no longer listened.
The mind went blank.The only thought that remained—Gluttony.
To eat.Anything.Everything.
It was as if the child had bewitched it.There was no logic. No resistance. Only desire.
And though it didn't understand why, that didn't matter.In all its decades of life, nothing—nothing—had ever looked so irresistibly edible.