Oh, and I have one question I'd like you to answer along with your reviews. Did I describe the creatures too little? Because I've read that it's sometimes best to leave just enough to the imagination. Did I do that, or did I not tell enough, or even too much? Thanks in advance.
Edit: For fun I thought it would be cool to add a picture. Hope you all like it.
The Dwindling Fire:
Why won’t they leave me alone?
The fire crackled as I threw the last bit of tinder into its flaming bosom. The hungry flames licked and darkened the surface of the wood, taking every last morsel of energy it possessed.
I pulled my bare legs up to my chest and hugged them dearly. My feet were callused and blistered, caked with mud and blood. My legs were covered in cuts from the twigs and bushes that had crossed my path. Fatigue riddled every pore of my being, and yet I couldn’t sleep. This, surely, was hell.
The fire’s light suddenly dwindled to no more than half its previous intensity. I rushed up to the flames, tripping over myself, and blew, rearranging the collection of logs and twigs with bare hands.
“Please, oh God, Please!” I begged. I moved more urgently. Each breath stronger, each rearrangement more thought out. Still, it wasn’t enough.
The flames shrunk to no more than that of a generous torch.
I looked back and saw the battalion of glowing, yellow eyes surrounding my little circle of light. Each menacing gaze burned into me more than the flames that scorched my fingers. They stalked closer.
I broke into a series of prayers I remembered from church with breaks to blow into the flames. “Our Father, who art in heaven,” blow, “Hallowed be thy name.” Blow. “thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” blow. It wasn’t working.
The eyes moved closer, so close their bodies began to take shape. My eyes widened in terror at their blood curdling sight. Satan himself couldn’t command crueler creatures. They were unholy, unspeakable, and above all, they were the embodiment of fear itself. I couldn’t let them get any closer, I just couldn’t.
I dug my hands into the hard ground and ripped out whatever grass I could find. Every piece of grass was savored as I delicately put them within the fire. They burned up the moment I placed them within the unforgiving flames, but I couldn’t stop. It was my only hope.
Once the grass was gone I desperately looked for anything else I could use. The creatures had stopped just outside my small circle of light, awaiting the moment the flame, their mortal enemy, was gone.
In my search I finally saw it. A lone stick sitting at the edge of the circle. It was well sized, dead, perfect. I reached out longingly. It would give me the precious time I needed. My fingers curled around it.
Then I looked up.
Eyes of pure evil drove into and through me. Its cruel face looked upon me as a meal, one that wouldn’t escape. Within its gaze I saw my own torturous death as they ripped into my stomach and devoured me alive. A wet warmth spread to my inner thighs.
The creature pounced.
I flew back, my precious stick in hand, with the creature on top of me. A scream escaped my lips that shattered the silent night air as deadly sharp teeth dug into my right shoulder, passing through muscle and bone alike as if they were nothing.
The creature yelped as the flame’s remaining light burned its pale skin. It jumped away with my entire right arm trapped within its maw. Half of the creatures ran after it to fight for the new meat.
I writhed and screamed in pain as blood spewed from the hole where my arm should have been and pooled around me. No one could hear me but the damn beasts that sought my death. It was hopeless. I knew there hadn’t been any hope before, but the certainty of the current situation hit me like a hammer. There was no escaping this death.
“No, no, no,” I moaned, reaching for the fire. It was my guardian, the only thing that could protect me, and it was so close.
The flames disappeared into nothing more than glowing speckles on the ashes. Darkness engulfed me, and all that could be heard was the creatures’ slurping, growling, and lip smacking noises as they feasted upon my arm.
I crawled over to where the fire had been and blew weakly. The bright sparks began to glow hopefully, but there just wasn’t enough kindling or tinder. I clenched my eyes shut and began to cry.
Silence took the night. No more slurping, growling, or what have you, but pure silence. At first, my hope resurfaced. Maybe they’d left. But then a series of clawed hands tightly took hold of my limbs. I whimpered as the first of many teeth sunk into my flesh.
They clawed, and bit, and ravaged my flesh as I lay there, unable to do a thing. I tried to scream, but one of the creatures engulfed my throat and slowly dug it's horrid incisors all the way through. I gurgled out a plea for help, but it was left unheeded.
My blood spewed and spilled into a pool around me that excited these terrible creatures. My pain, which I thought unending, grew numb, and I could no longer feel a thing. I was too far away, too close to death. I could only hear them gorging themselves upon the meat that was my body.
The last remnants of my life slipped away, and everything began to feel distant. I couldn't see, speak, or hear, but I knew what was happening to me. I knew my intestine and stomach were being ripped and fought over, my heart was long gone, there was little left of my flesh, and even my eyes had been devoured. They left nothing. Not even bones. They crunched into them with their teeth and used their powerful molars to grind them into a pale paste, which they savored before swallowing.
My soul began to drift away, and all I could think of was the mercy death had brought me. I would finally be in the arms of my lord, and the pain would forever cease. Heaven was in sight. The light at the end of the tunnel. I reached out with a ghostly hand.
The light disappeared. Suddenly I was back in what was left of my body, my skull. Pain engulfed me and I was once again tormented by the yellow eyed demons that had gathered around me. My skull, my new home, was picked and licked clean of meat, blood, and other tissues. I felt naked and afraid.
I was lifted up by clawed hands, and a pair of those terrible, yellow eyes stared into my eyeless sockets. They still held hunger, one of an insatiable expanse. It smiled at me, and a shiver rattled through my skull. It opened its maw, and slowly placed me on its hot tongue. The saliva was wet, and acidic, burning my fatally damaged skull.
Please don't! I cried as a darkness among darkness engulfed the one thing they shouldn't have been able to take, my soul. I writhed in pain as the jaws crushed all that I was. Each time its jaws came together, another piece of me disappeared. My memories, my personality, my likes, my dislikes. All were gone.
Before the final extermination of my being, all that was left of me was a faint glimmer of broken hope. I no longer knew what was happening, who I was, or what I wanted. I hardly existed. Then the creature's fangs closed for the last time, extinguishing everything.
