Meatcream Stew

As I wake-up, I feel my hair sticking to a furry surface behind my head. My arms are intact. My legs are fine. My stomach hasn't been opened... Going good so far...

But then I go feel what my head is sticking to: something wet. It should have been obvious, but curiousity won't kill this cat. Taking a look at my hand it seems like dried-up blood with... bits in it. I feel sick, nearly crying and barfing out whatever food was left in my stomach.

Whatever the Thing did to me seemed to also make me ignore hunger, usually I'd be starving in the morning. My eyes finally adjust to the lighting, showing a... normal room. It's something one could find in any apartment, though maybe slightly fancier with all these gray pelts placed around. Even the window was covered, the only light here coming in from behind a leather curtain at the end of the room.

Getting up I feel a chill up my spine, this place has a faint smell like that of an anthill. Carefully, I look through the doorway which looks like it had it's door smashed off. There were five or seven slender, pale creatures sitting around a glowing rock and looking at what seemed like a map.

In my shock I put my weight on the floor, crunching a bit of dried-up pelt. The things look at me with bug-eyed faces, their mouths were a collection of six pincers and they looked like death. One quickly jumped towards me, clicking its mouth and vibrating its throat. I could almost make out the sound for 'hello' from the mouth of this towering ghoul, I couldn't stop shaking with it's skeletal arm rising to my shoulder.

"Whoa! Alright, let's stay calm!" I lool over to see the traitorous kidnapper who I think I should have eaten when I had the chance. He looked at me like he wanted to throw-up, really polite... "I think we should get you some wrappings..."

I look at him sceptical, trying to think of what he could be meaning, before he pulled out a mirror and showed me the back of my head. "Ah, I see..."

After getting everything with my head sorted, we sat down. As I am given a strange kind of vegetable and meat stew, I learn the name of the traitor: Lauri. It also seems like I was knocked out a bit longer this time and looking at the surroundings it seems we're somewhere a bit colder.

Acording to Lauri, even he doesn't know what happened after the giant incident. During the time I was lights-out, he had been captured by these things with a swift strike to the head. The only thing he figured out was a few specifics on this strange species giving us food.

For one, they prefer the cold. This also proves that my sense of cold had practically gone away. Secondly, they mostly eat rodents, insects and vegetables, but still tend to feed on larger things.

"I'm guessing it's those giants, nothing else around here compares...", Lauri explains while we continue eating the stew. It's actually quite nice, having a creamy feel thanks to some strange component of the unique meat. It would taste really great with some bread, I can't believe how much I'm missing bread. "And they killed a couple of giants when they found me, but they also didn't take all of the meat on them."

I look over at the saviors, seeing their mandables maticulously cut through whatever ends-up in there and any liquid getting... sucked up... I decide to focus on Lauri a bit more, trying to start a conversation.

"So why did you run?" I looked him in the eyes, they were an odd shade of gray, having a small sliver of gold on the rim of his iris. But it didn't seem natural, more like something filling out an empty space.

He shifted his legs, getting his bowl of food on the pelted floor. "Honestly, I thought you'd be faster..."

I felt emberrased, most people in my country did go into military service and I wasn't any different. "I guess I haven't ever been an active type of guy..." I try to laugh the awkward feeling off, but that just made me cringe.

"Damn... And I thought my explanation was boring... Anyway, I think we should stick with these guys until something bad happens."

"Could you... Maybe... Explain that a bit more?" I can't understand Lauri, one moment he seems... relatively normal, other times he sounds like a lucid dreamer.

"Eh, sure. You see—!" He snaps his ring-finger. I jump back, almost wanting to scream out some string of curses.

"Why would you—"

"Simple. We don't seem exactly capable of dying."

The saviors look at us finally, one signaling if it could... eat... the loose finger. They seem to also have an understanding of whatever is going on with me and Lauri.

"Hold up..." He chucks the piece to them, resulting in me contemplating the sanity of everything going on, again. "As I was saying... As we can't seem to die and can regenerate back pieces of our bodies, including braincells, we can basically just stick around and figure stuff out with these guys. And if something bad happens, we can just get away."

"But... Why did we try to run away from those giants? Why did YOU run from them? You seem to have this figured out pretty good..." I can't seem to imagine why I should just trust this man, even if he has been pretty sharp with everything around us.

"Well I first didn't exactly make the calmest decisions then, I wasn't exactly used to this regeneration thing", he tells me as I decide to start eating again. I need something to at least bite into...

"Then I thought that maybe we should try to stick to the plan of getting to the storm... And after that I thought that maybe we could die if we got eaten..."

Now that I think about it "you're right..." If we do get eaten, would we even be able to come back? There would have to be a limit to our ability and honestly I wouldn't want to gamble on that.

"Exactly, but that incident is far past us now. And I think sticking with these guys is our best bet at figuring something out. Despite them being clearly not from around here", both of us look at the insectoids cleaning his severed finger. "They also clearly know how to survive here."

"I hate that you might be right..." I drink the broth of the stew, enjoying the suprisingly sweet and salty flavour at the bottom. "Fine, we'll work with these guys for as long as we should..."