A Legend Dies for the Rage of Man
The cold managed to overtake her in the dark, unfiltered night of the Alps. She stayed still, though she knew she shouldn't, she couldn't. At this altitude, and in such solitude, frostbite was the Grim Reaper himself, ready to poach on unsuspecting visitors of these snowy peaks. She had found refuge from the unfavourable conditions outside in an abandoned observatory. But that was not the only thing she was after.
She also brought with her a notebook that was as well-travelled as it was degraded -more like a collection of rugged and overused pages of a centuries old novel-, an unsharpened pocket knife and a decent sized bag of salt. But so far, in the last 5 days at least, she hasn't had the need to use any of the three. Perhaps for the better.
Maeve was 42, and she could no longer ignore it. She was no stranger to places or expeditions like this, but her body had begun to fail her ever more often in her travels. Her face could perhaps mask the pain in her joints and soreness in her muscles, but the glowing feeling of fear, of helplessness, cannot be hidden away. And it knew it. And she knew that it knew. And so both came prepared for what they knew for certain: that someone would die on this silent December night.
The hours passed and the calm and the cold and the aching pains did not cease. And Maeve started to feel the overwhelming force of sleep. She had to move her body, using every bit of energy she lacked. But "she had to, she had to" she kept telling herself that, contracting every muscle fiber that complied with the commands of her nervous system. Maeve tries to stand up, and after a minute -that felt like an eternity- she manages to put herself upright, legs shaking and mind blurry. She feels the blood surge back through her body, her eyesight being renewed in the dim observatory.
A thump is heard on the elderly stone roof. She looks up as adrenaline begins to surge onto her brain. She starts walking, the excitement numbing her pain, and she takes out her pocket knife.
A high pitched growl resonates through the walls, and Maeve Harlow begins to rush in every direction, trying to pin down the position of whatever is crawling outside. And through the observatory window, she sees it. She sees the dark spotted silhouette moving with agility on the snow, and a single snake-like eye peeking to eye her prey. Whatever it is, it is hungry and desperate, Maeve reasons.
The creature pushes its claws into the inside of the observatory, and the full figure begins to come into focus. It is unlike anything most have seen before. However, Maeve has seen them, the beasts of fairytales. The creatures of legend, at least what was left of them to hunt. A job without glory, to hunt down the monsters that keep humanity awake at night.
-Tatzelwurm.
Maeve spoke quietly, as the creature showed its razor sharp teeth and amphibian tongue. Its body, covered in fur and frozen scales that reflect the light of the moon, a serpentine body suspended on two large legs with firm raptor claws. Most would say this being was a thing of myths, and in a way it was. No mythical creature matched the descriptions, not truly. There really was not much power in these animals of legend as it had been presupposed. Perhaps that is why they are almost all gone... Almost.
Maeve took her bag of salt and sprayed the tatzelwurm with it, a chaotic spray of white grains raining down on the monstrous worm. The animal hissed and twisted, its long body compressing in on itself. As the creature became distracted by the salt aching on its skin, Maeve ran, knife in hand, without technique or coordination, with an unrelenting fury in her eyes.
She landed a blow on the tatzelwurm, straight in the head. The cryptic beast growled and squirmed one final time, the body still shaking in terror, as if it didn't know it had just died. As the creature stopped pulsating and its blood began to paint the floor of the observatory, Maeve fell to her knees in exhaustion, and with all the strength she had left, took one of the teeth of the ancient creature, perhaps the last of his kind.
Perhaps one day that teeth would end up in the hands of some rich gullible aristocrat that still believed in fairytales. At the end of the day, that's what fairytales are: dreams for those who can afford it.
Maeve dreamed once, but not of this. Rage had defined her life, she knew that. She could just never let go, and she never will. The next morning she would walk out the observatory, back to civilization, leaving the corpse of the creature for the crows and vultures to enjoy, let history forget that night in the Alps, when a legend died for the rage of man.
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