I fell and it clambered on top of me. Its six legs pinioned my body to the sand, holding me fast. I felt fire as something large and sharp inserted itself into my belly, slowly, as if the mindless beast were careful not to break me. \n\nI held fast to this irony as a drowning sailor clings to a broken mast, made breathless as a churning sea of pain gripped up my soul and plunged me into dreamless night.  \n

When the end began

Day 1

I came to my senses in a kind of large earthen nest, without knowledge of whether it had been moments or days that had passed. I scrambled toward freedom, to the lip of the nest, with the alacrity of wounded prey. \n\nI kept a silence, not daring to look at the depredations the creature had wrought upon my tender flesh lest I cry out, but it knew my intent and scuttled quickly to block my path. And yet, it did not slay me. \n\nA slow horror crept upon me, as I realized that the creature wanted or needed me alive.\n

Needed

Day 2

It watches me with wet, black pearls that I hope one day to burst. I think it never sleeps, though I have long since yielded any attempt to escape. \n\nMy body is no longer capable. And yet I hunger. It brings me meat, at times. I try not to think. No, truthfully, I do not think. I greedily consume the oozing guts it provides as if it were indeed I that were the monster. \n\nIt let me crawl to the edge of the nest, to drink from a small pocket of steaming water, though I suspect the noxious liquid slowly poisons me. I wonder, my friend, if you are still alive. Would you laugh with me, knowing the price we paid to hunt iron hides?\n

Meaning and meat

What Day?

I lay in fever. I write to distract myself from hundreds of small movements I now feel in my bloated, darkened belly, movements that ripple just beneath the surface of my skin as if my body were a demon’s cauldron brought to boil. \n\nIt dawns on me now. Scorpion’s Cradle is not a place. It is my body. I cannot help but laugh. Ah, the pain…\n

Is me

The Cradle

The sandswept and sunscorched desert in the West, and the last known home of the Ancients

Scorpion's Cradle Chapter - NWGuide Database of Lore

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