Celia waited till night fell. Which took about roughly ten hours, if an hour was still an hour here, that is. In that time she had discovered a few things. The first of which was that the surface was never quiet. Unlike the cave systems below, there was always something stupidly loud going on. As if nothing up here had ever considered minding its own business. The second was that the monsters of the surface tended to be a lot bigger than their underground counterparts. At least, based off what she’s seen. Which, in reality, wasn’t much.
Lastly, she learned what starving felt like. As the ever spoiled brat that was her stomach, went from just craving almost literally anything to threatening to eat her alive from the inside out. A feeling that she had forgotten about how exactly bad it felt. Which was very. But it was either deal with a very persistent hunger pangs or risk going blind. And of the two, she liked to imagine she chose the better option.
An opinion she felt was verified when, shortly after the wound in the sky was completely filled with darkness, Celia could still actually see.
And there were a lot of things to see, when night fell.
Like how most of the days survivors had gone into hiding hours ago. Or how the giants that ruled the land seemed just as active at night as they did during the day. Or her favorite bit, which was when all the nocturnal critters came out to forage. Some large, and some less large.
Celia set her sights on the latter.
Removing herself from her perch, and searching for an appropriate spot to plan her ambush. Though, she was so hungry that she almost dismissed the idea of an ambush entirely. An impulsive thought she immediately reigned control over. Forcing herself to forget about it as she started stalking her chosen prey.
A plump rainbow colored bird, with four eyes and four wings. It was also like, maybe half her size. Which Celia was surprised to find only stoked the fires of her greed even higher. Drool involuntarily falling from her mouth as she thought about cooking and eating it.
And then getting herself another meal afterwards.
Which once again reminded her of how… close she was to not being human anymore. The hunger in her gut an alien thing. One born of a parasite literally hijacking her biology and trying to turn her into something else. She imagined that if it had succeeded she probably would’ve ended up barely any different than the very monsters that surrounded her and called this place home. A dizzying thought, that pushed her thoughts deeper down a hole she didn’t like to think about.
What if the monsters once were people?
Suddenly, Celia’s hunger seemed like a very minor thing as she grappled with that possibility. With the horrid idea that maybe, just maybe, her situation wasn’t so unique. That she was just another accident that no one heard about. She just happened to be the accident that survived.
Something in her gut told her that wasn’t the case, though. Sure, she had seen Jonas, and those other - was mutants the right word? - but they could talk. None of these other monsters did that. They didn’t even seem remotely capable of it, or really exhibit any other signs of having once been people. Plus they were a bit too numerous for that anyways. Celia was sure that if that many people had been getting shucked into the void it would’ve at least been a very prominent conspiracy theory in Glome, if not city wide news.
So, with that minor existential crisis resolved, she resumed her hunt. Stalking closer to her prey, her every step measured and silent, the distance between them slowly closing till she was only a few feet away.
Something with too many claws and an attitude jumped at her from out of the trees.
Celia noticed it a second too late. Tremor sense firing off as it leaped down. Head turning to face it right as its sickle shaped claws cut into her. Sides and shoulders compromised, the weight of her attacker dragging her to the ground and pinning her. Black maw full of sharp fangs roaring above her.
It looked like an oversized feline made out of anything and everything sharp, four muscular arms working to hold her down. Eyes a dizzying mix of reds, whites, and blues staring into her own.
Celia lashed out with her shoulder tentacle. Watching as the limb crashed into her attackers bladed flesh with a crack of noise. Leaving neither unharmed. Tentacle cleaving half deep into the blade cats shoulder, before the inherent sharpness of the feline cut the limb in half. Which didn’t hurt nearly as bad as Celia imagined it would. It was more like getting a pimple popped rather than losing a limb.
The same could not be said for the living knife above her. Who reeled back with a cry of pain, hook like claws yanking out of her with a worrying amount of ease.
A part of her almost wished she blacked out from the pain.
That part died down and was replaced with confusion when she regrew her shoulder tentacle from her forehead. Which was so distracting she almost didn’t notice the teeth coming down towards her neck.
Celia all but exploded with teeth. Absolutely agony consuming her as she met the guillotine of teeth with a head butt of her own. Tooth and fang meeting in a dizzying clash that left her rattled. All senses temporarily losing track of which was which and even where she was. Not to mention the migraine that followed. But considering she was still alive, she assumed the mass of sharp objects shaped like a cat got it just as bad or worse.
She confirmed it a second later when her head cleared some and she found said cat trying to pull its head away from hers. The front of its face held captive by rows of teeth spearing into it. Followed by the realization that her head tentacle had been cut off in the chaos and was trying to regrow out of her other shoulder, but couldn’t due to all the teeth in its way.
In a somewhat similar vein, she was also stuck. Trapped as she was beneath the blade cat, who despite its best efforts, couldn’t pull away from her.
It died bleeding to death on top of her.
After that, freeing herself was a matter of persistence. Painfully hacking away the teeth that had made her flesh their home. Leaving her covered in a mix of her own blood, the blade cat's blood, and dirt. Worst of all, by the time she was done her original choice of prey had already vanished. Having flown off in the midst of their battle earlier.
But it wasn’t all bad. Celia still wound up with a meal. A particular sharp one of questionable edibility, and she learned something new about her shoulder tentacle. So, all in all, it was kind of still a win. Barely, and that was mainly dependent on whether the living mess of blades she just killed could even be cooked and eaten. Which she doubted.
It wasn’t going to stop her from trying, however.