Felix scanned the far bank, heart thudding, drawn by the unmistakable sound of something being torn apart. A sharp crack cut through the river’s roar, letting him zero in on the source.

  There it was.

  He stared, frozen, as a grotesque creature hunched over a mangled corpse. Its head resembled a flattened praying mantis, twisted and wrong, with four chittering mandibles peeling open to reveal layers of lamprey-like teeth gnashing greedily at flesh.

  Its body, if you could call it that, was a malformed mass of dark brown carapace plates, segmented and sprawling. From each side jutted dozens, maybe hundreds, of spindly legs that twitched and clattered with every bite.

  The thing’s elongated frame disappeared into the undergrowth, it's flanks studded in clusters of barnacle-like scales. From each one, a faint, colourless gas leaked out, rippling the air like heat haze.

  Felix inwardly groaned. "You've got to be shitting me..." He muttered, slowly backing away from the river as a second, then a third creature stalked out of the brush. Mandibles chittering as they began to fight over the corpse beneath them, coiling around each other in a tangle of limbs and fumes shimmering around them. Where gas touched the plants, the foliage withered, leaves blackening and stems sagging under their own weight. A viscous fluid oozed from the dying greenery, pooling across the bank. The bug-like monsters began to slide in the fluid, their bodies becoming coated in it.

  Felix gagged as the noxious fumes reached him. His eyes stung, throat burning. Trying to escape the haze, he stumbled into a thick bush that left shallow cuts on his back and arms.

  The cacophony of chittering and screeching suddenly stopped as the trio of monsters began to silently untangle themselves. The smog emanating from them stopped as they began to hunt.

  It took Felix a moment to realise what the new found silence meant. The fumes in the air finally dissipated into his surroundings as its source was cut off. He bolted upright. Eyes still full of water, he wiped them on his newly equipped pants, already slightly torn and dirtied from his fall. As his gaze focused, he peered at where the millipede-like creatures were fighting.

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  Hundreds of tiny black eyes stared back at him. Like pearls soaked in oil, they glistened in the light. In unison, they let out a bloody wrenching screech. Like a chorus of knives scraping along a plate. Felix's ears rang as he quickly covered them to block out the sound, to no avail.

  With two still emitting that burning scream, the third rushed towards Felix, using its allies like a spring board. Despite fighting earlier, the creatures seemed to possess an uncanny level of intelligence and teamwork. Seeing the terror rush towards him, Felix sprang to his feet and turned to flee, the screeching causing his blood to pound in his ears.

  Behind him, the river exploded with spray. The charging beast plunged into the current, its many legs folding close to its body, slipping into the water like a dagger.

  The depth of the river suddenly increased as the creature began to snake through the water. As it passed the halfway point, it began to slow, as if yanked by something unseen, it suddenly jerked down slightly. Again, it was pulled down, this time much more violent before resurfacing. It began to thrash about. its barnacle-like protrusions leaking a brown, viscous fluid that moved through the water like oil. Felix turned at the sudden sound of struggle. He paused his retreat to watch, shock plain on his face.

  A large, almost scaly vine broke the rivers surface and coiled around the upper torso of the large insect and it went taught like a boat mooring as it pulled the head of the creature into the depths, it's legs and tail swinging wildly like a worm on a hook before another tendril snaked its way along the rest of its body before it disappeared into the water, dragging the millipede-like monstrosity with it.

  The river was still.

  The two creatures left on the other bank were quiet now, he hadn't even realised they had stopped their piercing screeching to watch in stunned silence just as Felix had.

  Slowly they began pacing the edge, mandibles chittering as they searched for a way across. Their bodies jittered with sharp clicks and chirps.

  Without warning, they turned and vanished into the trees, the last one pausing long enough to let out a final crackly hiss back at him. A sound that felt more like a warning than a threat.

  Felix didn't move, he just stared at the river, its gentle current already forgetting the horrific that unfolded. His breath caught as he realised… that could have easily been him, drowning as he was devoured by something unseen.