Chapter 8 - 8: Delicate Prey

Shoulder-length, matted dark hair comes into Umeko's view with a wide and solid body that poorly matches short and skinny, hairless legs under a knee-length robe. 

Eyes, burning fiery pinholes through vapor, pairs with an eerie sniffing like a predator on the hunt. 

Covering her mouth, she focuses on breathing slow and steady to hold back a scream.

He must be able to smell me! 

"I can smell you, little human," his raspy voice sends a shudder through her. The fiend's impetuous nose grows louder as he lurks around the stone barrier.

"Don't be afraaaid," the low and menacing tone sends a cringe through the girl as clawed feet tap the stone floor with every step, "I won't biiiiite."

Discerning that his actions are led by his nose and not his eyes, she sees a black robe hiding a mottled complexion and whiskers around his conical, furry nose with buck teeth. 

Why do bad things keep happening to me?! 

"Oh?"

She searches for the sudden object of his interest.

"What's this?"

Abhorred, struggling to suppress a gag, she catches him lifting her dirty dress to whiff. A soft chuckle in the barrel of his chest, the thrill in his tone makes her stomach churn. 

"You don't smell like the other ones that come here. What a pleasant surprise," cupping the shredded, rotten fabric in his hands, he buries his face into it inhales. Buck teeth grow larger before her eyes when he points his furry muzzle into the air with an ambitious growl.

Grimacing at the foul presence washing over her at the sound of his words, "Won't you let me have a little taste? I promise you'll enjoy it," he looks her straight in the eyes with his last word, the mass of his body lunging at her with an unearthly quickness.

As Umeko's eyes open from a blink, she is ripped from the shadow and pinned to the cavern's wall by the pudgy chest of her present danger. 

His clawed hand holds her jaw firmly in place by her chin, the moist flesh of his tongue curling up her cheek to her ear.

Wrenching, she swallows back a vomitous gag and writhes in every direction to break from his grasp.

Umeko reaches a new level of fright when she notices the water is only waist deep and her naked body is held against his clothed, barrel ribs.

"Mmmm, you taste so spicy sweet, little girl," he slides his other hand down her side, keeping her back and hips pinned to the wall with his uncomfortably rigid body, "How'd you manage to get all the way in here?" 

Opening her mouth to scream for help, three bulbous fingers force their way into her mouth until she coughs and gags against plump digits holding her mouth open. 

Scratching his face in a desperate attempt to drive him back, her plan is foiled when he bends his fingers around her lower teeth and pulls her jaw forward to whisper in her ear with a low growl.

"Try anythin' like that again and I'll rip your face off," aggressively pinning the back of her head to the wall, he presses her tongue down and strokes her jaw with his thumb.

Oh No Oh No Oh No— Now what!? …I'd rather he do what he wants than rip off my jaw...I'm too scared to move…Tsukiyomi...please...help!

Saliva pools from the corners of her mouth at the roughness of his hand scraping around her dry lips.

Too terrified to breathe, forcing herself to detach from her body so she can think clearly, she sucks in a gasping, muffled scream when he shifts just enough away to clumsily loosen his pants with his free hand.

If I bite his fingers off maybe he'll be so angry he'll kill me quickly. Or it'll make him angrier and he--!

The pressure of his body is gone so swift that she collapses into the water with a distraught splash.

Before rising from the water in a trembling crouch, she covers her chest and groin with her arms.

As though the heavens opened for her at her hour of need, she breathes a deep sigh of solace at the sight of Tsukiyomi on top of her assaulter. 

Pressing the beast's body into the stone path of the small clearing by its face, she believes she made the right choice by following him.