Encounter

There had been some euphoria in smashing that imbecile flesh thing against a tree. I am first to admit that and, no, I do not feel anything deep about it. That is what you get when you play games with things that you have limited understanding of. Even had that sweating, fear-stained collection of meat even known what they were doing, fate and time were really against them. The Other Gods have been changing guard and Nakhma'xor was definitely not on their calling cards. Bad luck, suckers.  

I decided to chill out for a bit and play about with the form that I would assume.  I gathered that wandering about in my preferred look, replete with horns, would garner some unwanted attention from the fleshlings of this accursed realm. Being in such an isolated forest, one was not challenged to avoid these human things. I had a good idea from the meat that I had destroyed a couple of hours before and morphed into various sizes and shapes. The problem was the walking, which I practised for a number of hours before getting it natural. In the end I was a tall, dark suited male with long, dark hair and somewhat pale and translucent skin. The eyes stayed their natural grey, which I thought to use in some intimidating way at some point. I just thought they looked good and had little other reason for keeping them as is.

Hearing the occasional rumble or roar from a short distance away, I decided to head in that direction for want of a better idea. I soon found a track that was overgrown with ferns and moss from lack of use. I picked my way through the trees, some of which were very tall and towered well above me. IK had to strain my neck to see even the lower branches of some especially straight trees with mottled bark and, in some cases, wide girth. I wandered through this honour guard of nature, keeping the strange sounds before me in the growing light of the rising sun.

As I emerged from the trees, I found myself beside a small building with some a simplified picture of a man and a woman on each side. They were not even good likenesses, really, and the smell that emanated from within that strange edifice was repulsive, not to put too fine a point on it. What fleshlings did there was a question I would have preferred to leave unanswered. The reek of decay and meat was an abomination to the senses. I quickly passed down a now concrete path to the blackness of a road with some painting on it. It was different to some of the roads that I had seen in aeons past, but it was clearly a road. That was confirmed by the source of the loud sounds: metal boxes that sped along it in both directions.

I found a spot on a concrete retaining wall next to some painted boxes on the road and sat down there. When unsure about things, if you cannot kill, I have always found it prudent to observe. Hopefully, these fleshlings would be predictable little vermin. I felt the cool of the concrete seep into my rear as the sun steadily rose to the east, the shadows of the trees retreating to my rear. As the first rays hit me, I felt their warmth, surprised by the pleasantness of the touch of light and heat. The trees assumed a more detailed appearance and they almost appeared to extrude themselves from the shadows, their eerie and eldritch limbs reaching for unknown visions in the air and sky.  

I had been sitting there lost in my own thoughts as a metal box slowed and stopped next to me. A window glided down into the silver painted door and a fleshling, I would guess a female from the long hair tied back, leaned towards the opening in its box. The blue eyes glinted in the morning light and the orange tint gave the fleshling a warm glow, even though it was inside the box. The hair was pale, almost golden, and it was wearing a casual red woolen jumper. I could do nothing but the stare of this thing and wonder what it was going to do.

"Are you ok there, bro?", it asked me in that language that they all seemed to use.

"I am adequate, fleshling.", I replied, getting a very odd look from the creature.

"Are you headed anywhere?", the human asked.

That really had me. I had not considered my destination. However, on the spur of the moment, I decided on a course of action.

"Where is the largest metropolis in this realm?", I enquired.

"Metro-what-us?" Now a look that I could only interpret as confusion.

"City, creature. City."

"Oh, that'd be Auckland, bro."

"Then that is where I am destined for." Another odd look.

"Well, jump in and I'll give you a lift at least Orewa. I'm working there this weekend.", smiled the flesh creature as it opened a door in the side of the box allowing me to climb in and sit on the seat.

I settled into the dark brown or black seat (everything was a dark colour within the box) and was just getting comfortable when I heard the thing speak again.

"Seatbelt, bro. The cops are real prickly about that."

I was a bit embarrassed that this creature had to show me what he was talking about and how to put on the seatbelt. A fact that both amused and puzzled the human, apparently. Soon after, we had left the painted boxes on the road and were hurtling down the left side at great speed. The feeling was not unpleasant and for the moment, I was distracted from the growing need for purpose and power here in this realm.

"What's your name?", the human suddenly asked. "I'm Ted."

"I am called Nakhma'xor.", I replied.

"Shit, that's a mouthful, isn't it?", he laughed.

The comment and the laughter puzzled me. No one had dared laugh at me before, which caused me to consider that perhaps this thing did not know who I was. If that was the case, it was entirely possible that no one else here knew me. And that opened up a whole range of possibilities and ideas...