TAKEN FROM A DEAD MANS CLAWS
You came to the site of his burial, your paws trudging over the sacred and scorched earth as you neared closer to the mound. You felt sick, your gut twisting because you knew you shouldn’t be here. And yet, you were. You had walked here with your own paws and now you were going to dig him up. You didn’t have to, no, no one ever had to do things like this but maybe deep down you wanted to. With that you dug down into the dirt, your wretched claws raking away the dirt and rotting leaves. With each pawful of soil that you tore away from the earth you felt yourself leaving with it. Would you be satisfied with what you found in the end? Were you really only digging to steal from a dead man’s claws? Or.. did you just want to see his face again, to make sure he was really dead? You felt the soil turn to mush beneath you and that’s when you found his body. He had been buried with what he valued the most, wealth. You moved a rotting paw out to reveal his torn open and partially collapsed torso, sticking your paws into the cavity and searching around in his bug filled innards. The bugs that crawled over your paws didn’t even bother you as you stared into his cold, sunken in eyes. They no longer reflected the sunset like they once did. His expression was as if frozen in time, the pain, the betrayal and the unbridled rage when he realised he had lost was something that not even being dead could wipe away. After searching around in what remained of his torn up organs you pulled out something of value, tossing it to the side and taking a step back to stare down at the body you’d destroyed. His purplish fur was even more matted and scratched up then when he had died, his claws unsheathed as if he was getting ready to swipe at your maw, his eyes which you swear were looking at right at you. He hated you, even more now than ever before you were sure of it. You decided to leave him with his precious dagger as it had no monetary value to you and turned away. You carried the bloodied objects in your mouth all the way back to your cave on the far side of the valley and sat down on a bed of different animal pelts. Not once did you look back, not once did you feel sympathy for the young lion you had stolen from. You didn’t even bother to bury him again, leaving his body to be torn apart by squabbling scavengers. You sick bastard.
