Submission (#7409) Approved

(Word count 1676)

“We’re lost” Oil mumbled, as he struggled to keep pace with his sister.
The inhabitants of the previous level had left him limping on his right leg after they sent their tails covered in sharp spikes to his thigh. The young sucho was quickly growing exhausted, just managing to maintain his balance was a struggle but they couldn’t stop now.
They didn’t know where they were, didn’t know where the exit was.
“We have to get out of ‘ere” The older sister insisted, driven by the anxiety of every shadow moving towards them, every step echoing on the tall ceilings of the lab. “We can't be too far, it's getting cold don't you see it must be air from outside” She tried to rationalize as she kept pushing her brother to keep walking over his injury, not because she wasn't aware of the severity of it, but because of a childish panic, an inability to deal with it on her own.
It wasn't often that she felt like she actually needed her dad, but on this occasion, there was a tight pressure on her chest and throat, knowing that this incident could be fatal, and she was the only one there.
On their way down the tunnels, room after room of weird tubes and pods, barely illuminated by emergency lights that seemed to be active for the first time in decades. Red and white, turning on and off in an alarming dance. They didn’t know what it meant, but it was for sure unsettling.
Oilslick became weaker, the pain was so strong that the poor thing could barely put weight on his leg, and for a two legged predator, that was a death sentence. The tiles that covered the floors of this part of the labs were slippery, and didn’t make the task any easier. “Muskie” He cried out for his sister as he fell down to the ground one more time.
“No, nonono come on, get up” She went back, trying her best to push him up with her muzzle, pushing his sides, trying to carry with all his weight. “We can’t stop here, we’re almost there” She lied “I can see the exit” But Oil was exhausted, the shocks of pain from his bad leg flooded his whole body in waves, while the one leg that was still working was cramped from exhaustion trying to push his whole body weight around.
The emergency lights came on once again, covering the whole scene in red, sweeping from one side of the room to the next before disappearing again. This time it was accompanied by a deteriorated voice recording, struggling to get out of some metallic mouths in the walls. “Calmly evacuate the area, Zone D is in danger of a nuclear collapse”
For the siblings, that meant less than nothing but it didn’t make it any less scary. They both remained still in the corner where Oil had fallen down, next to the cold metallic wall and with a decent view of the room through the cracked glass of the pods that decorated the room.
They were almost containing their breath, observing every shadow. Muskie could notice the remains of some deformed creature inside of some of the glass pods, drowned, half decomposed. Others, still filled with a murky liquid, seemed to have pieces of shapeless meat floating in them.
The lights came back around again, another red light swiping the room from one side to the other, and the metallic voice trying to escape the walls. “Shhh” She whispered to her brother, as he pressed his body to the ground in fear.
She looked up, scanning the room and trying to figure out where that voice came from. It sounded high, maybe it was one of those awfully annoying flying things that had flooded the island in the last year or so. She wasn’t sure, but that surely had to mean there was an exit close by.
They just had to be careful they didn't steal their eyes, or some other awful crime they were known for back home. Little devils with their slim sharp beaks.
Muskie was almost on top of her brother, in a protective stance and her senses were as sharp as ever. Where are they- The light came again.
Once again the red swiping from right to left, and the weird voice, repeating the same message over and over. She couldn’t see where it was coming from. Where are they hiding?
Then she caught a smell. A weird smell, like a living animal that’s been living, trapped in a small place for way too long. It was strong and raw, blood, sweat and feces. Her eyes widened, as she felt under her paws the subtle shiver when that thing started to walk closer to them.
She pressed her body over her brother’s. Almost forgetting for a moment that he wasn’t a chick anymore, and couldn’t hide him between her feathers. She contained her breath, almost in awe as the biggest dinosaur they had ever seen in their life walked past them, heavy, she could see his meat hanging and dancing around with every step. Some of the tiles crushed under his weight as he stopped to stretch his neck and shake his body.
“Where’s that stupid thing” He mumbled under his breath, afterwards he yawned, showing a collection of the biggest and sharpest teeth Muskie had ever seen.
And something else.
It seemed like light was coming from inside the mouth. It had to be a weird trick of the light. The emergency red light came back, blinding them for a second. Nidhogg squinted his eyes, and raised his head to where the speaker started to emit once again the mysterious voice. He ruthlessly located the point it was coming from and launched his jaws towards the speakers in the wall. His teeth made an awful, horrible sound as they scratched, perforated and teared apart the metallic support with which the speaker was hanged of the wall, and showing little care for spacial awareness, he swinged his head to the side, to finally kill the voice and in the process smashed his head in one of the glass pods, shattering to pieces.
Angry, small shards of glass covering the skin around his head and neck, the beast squared itself up and let out the loudest bellow of rage.
Every muscle, bone and feather in the siblings’ bodies seemed to shiver in panic, together with the whole room after hearing that.
It sounded unnatural, like a monster. Who were they in presence of? What were they even witnessing?
This animal seemed wrong, misshaped, too bulky to be able to get out through the tunnels they came from. How did it even grow this big?
Why was it glowing.
What did it even eat?
Did it feed solely off the malformed shapes of meat inside these pods?
So many questions and barely any answer. But Muskie wasn’t fully thinking rationally. She could hear the heartbeat of her brother, close in contact as they were, and her own heartbeat, frozen in fear hoping that thing didn’t even notice them.
But the light came back, the red light soaking the room once again and straight into the eyes of the beast. Nidhogg squinted again, annoyed and turned to where the light was coming from.
“WHAT do you WANT” he roared to the void, completely destroying to pieces another pod hitting it with his tail as he tried to locate where the light was coming from, he did, and immediately took off, not caring if he trashed the place, not caring if he had to charge through equipment and glass shards, just to get to the emergency light hanging from the ceiling. With a less than gracious jump he closed his jaws around the lamp and immediately ripped it off, together with a good chunk of the fake ceiling tiles that also fell and shattered in the floor. Once again he let out a powerful roar, annoyed and trying to scare away whatever was that bothered his daily routine. Whoever turned on the lights, wasn’t welcome.
Taking a better look at the room, the walls, floor, everything was quite damaged, scratches, bites, clear signs of fight. As if he had been trying to escape.
As if he had been fighting those metallic walls for decades.
He remembered the times where the lights were on in the island.
He couldn’t remember a single good thing that came out from them.
Nidhogg had taken it upon himself to destroy every single light that dared to illuminate his prison room. He was the only light that was going to shine down there.
Luck wasn’t going to last much longer for the suchos, though. Trying to take the easy way out, while he was distracted destroying the red light, Muskie tried to get up, and push her brother up to try and reach the tunnels once again. He wouldn’t be able to follow them once they get back inside. There has to be another way, a turn they can take somewhere else that lets them avoid this beast.
But Nidhogg thrived in the dark, his clear bright eyes caught the movements of the siblings immediately, locking eyes on them and stopped, squaring himself to the little suchos. Muskie froze, looking at him for any indication of violence.
After a second of observation, Nidhogg let a low rumble sound out his throat, almost like a weird purr or a laughter as he observed the two.
He tilted his head, looking them up and down with curiosity.
“We’re looking for the exit” Muskie tried to explain, to no avail.
“There’s no way out” Nidhogg’s voice was low and rumbly, almost broken at the end with amusement.
Offerings from the above levels were weird,but regular. This was irregular. Nidhogg had never seen meat like this. And seeing Muskie square up to fight was, if anything, more amusing.
He hadn’t had a proper fight in ages. He could have fun with this.

Reward	Amount
Alpha Labs	1
Alpha Challenger	1
Relic Bones	35