I wobbled forwards over the pebbled turf of the riverbed. Fear clutched my heart as the red fur flashed before me. In an instant I withdrew into my carapace, in effect becoming a pebble myself. However the fearsome red demon behind me lacked none of the acute senses awarded carelessly to his kind. I may have been hidden, but my vulnerability remained intact.
The echoes of teeth on shell reverberated about me, until my stupefaction at the appearance of an immense nose relinquished my ears from their consciousness. Straining to draw my limbs further into the refuge of my shell I was taken aback as the trees and riverbed swung about me. I came to a sickening halt in a shallow eddy, the fierce creature thrashed through the water, drawing even with my insignificant form, which was sinking belatedly bellow him.
The swipe of one paw popped me from the mud into which I had been borrowing and shoved me to the surface. With one miscalculated lunge from his mouth I was soaring once more, only to come splashing towards the river’s hasty current, in a brawl of frigid water turned white with thousands of air bubbles upset by my poorly executed landing. My extended limbs strained against water, my tail grasped for some control or direction.
After a struggle in which I had gained no control I was swept against the muddy wall of earth that was victim to erosion. My fore feet pulled while my hind feet pushed, I gained some elevation from the ice melt. Coming to rest on the dampened grass at the bank of my vanquisher, I took a moment to snap off a fresh blade of succulent earthy green before scouting out the great red fox that had once more become the prime object of my fear.
With no amber tail in sight I moved off towards a smaller branch of the river for a proper meal. I plopped through the shallow liquid, then was forced to the surface by the waning movement of the stream; I stretched out a neck sore from adventuring and nabbed a crayfish. I was just another turtle, braving the perils that berate the small, for a snack, and a swim.
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