Bouda

You are traveling with your family in the grass field in the dead of night as the moon shines a silver light on you. So far everything has been calm, however, you keep an eye on everything around you just in case. You are accustomed to the fact that things tend to go violent in your neighborhood. So far, however, it seems like a perfect night for a feast, and so, you engage in your favorite meal, an all-green salad.

As you eat to your heart's content, there’s a shift in the air, you feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand, you

cautiously look around and there’s nothing there.

Back to the meal it is.

You resume your meal when suddenly you hear a familiar noise beyond the bushes, giggling.

You’ve heard a similar giggling noise many times throughout your life, but nothing like this one. You wonder if it sounds different because you’ve never heard it from such a close distance before. No, that’s not it. It’s a different kind of giggling… It’s deeper, more nasal.

You become weary of the giggling as it grows closer, in a moment’s notice you no longer feel safe. You’re slowly making your way towards a tightening group of your relatives.

Everyone is visibly uneasy.

The atmosphere grows heavy around you as you remain fixated on the source of the disturbing noise.

A hyena emerges from the bushes, and then another one and another.

You’ve seen hyenas before, but nothing like those three; they are large, muscular and have a weird gait. Their heads are enormous even by hyena standards. You feel your heartbeat quicken. Something about them isn’t right. As you feel the muscles around your body tighten, you see one predator steadily lift its front legs off the ground, its front feet appearing strangely misshapen with five long black claws attached to them.

The beast stands on its hind legs much to your shock; it appears to be a massive mass of muscle and murderous intent with a powerful jaw to match its wants.

It snarls at you with emitting a high-pitched sound before giving chase.

You are at a loss, and you know you have to run, along with the rest of your terrified family.

All three beasts are now chasing after you and your relatives, you shoot a glance at them only to see how they are running only on their hind legs with incredible speed. Fear consumes your mind, forcing grim thoughts of dismemberment and mutilation to flood your psyche. You cannot stop running, you will end up as Hyena food if you do.

Minutes pass, but the pursuers won’t give up, they are still on your tail, you can hear their demonic giggling none stop. Your muscles burn with exhaustion at this point and you think about stopping just for a moment, opting to use your own incredible power to throw them off, just so you could cease running.

You want to stop running just for a second…

Just as you’re about to hit the brakes, the giggling grows distant; you run for a few more minutes before finally stopping. Now the beasts seem lagging behind. You allow yourself to feel relieved. You know from experience that Hyenas don’t always get their prey. You think you’ve beaten the strange beasts.

Once you’ve finally allowed yourself to calm down a bit, the giggling resumes. Now, however, it’s everywhere, there is a giggling sound coming from all over you.

That’s when the realization sinks in.

They were just testing you and your family, looking for the weak link.

You run once more when you see an army of these gigantic malformed hyenas running towards you again, there’s more of them now, they are everywhere.

Panic sets in.

Everything is spinning around you.

Your heart is about to burst through your chest.

For generations, your family has believed that numbers are the best type of defense and so you run into a tightly packed circle of your relatives.

You cannot feel safe just yet, the hyenas are still chasing your relatives and not everyone has made it to the safety of the numbers. You worry about the children, but seen none running around, you turn around, they're all behind you and the other adults.

Oddly enough, the beast weren't interested in easy pickings, uncharacteristic of hyenas, to the best of your knowledge.

You look around only to notice that your older sister hasn’t made it; she is still being chased around by the monsters. She’s old and not as strong as she used to be. They are closing in on her, nibbling at her ankles and clawing at her with their front legs.

You think she’s done for.

That’s when a young man steps in to save her, he runs towards the beasts, charging at them with his newly sharpened weapon. He hits one, or so you think. The beast that seemingly got hit flies into the air before gracefully maneuvering itself back to the ground.

It frightens you even more, what are these things, you wonder as you realize the beast evaded the blow and propelled itself into the air.

The young man is now being chased off by the monsters.

Terror grips at your internal organs, clutching at your being even harder forcing you to empty your bladder on the spot.

Nothing can stop these things.

Now all you can do is watch as these animals tackle your elder sister to the ground before proceeding to clasp their jaws at her belly. You stand there consumed by your inability to do anything about them tearing your sister apart without even properly killing her beforehand. It kills you inside at this point.

You know they want her to suffer, and it disgusts you.

They catch you staring at their malevolent dining ceremony.

Now they’re doing something you never expected to see in your life, they are dragging your sister’s body towards you and your family.

She escapes their grips for a moment, but you can see her blood-red guts and stomach hanging outside her belly.

The strange beasts chase her again, but she is fighting back, she tries to escape her tormentors, but you can see the agony in her eyes. In a confusing reaction, they seem to let her go, and you stand there on the sidelines watching as they slowly follow her while she walks herself to death in front of your eyes.

Once she has collapsed from the exhaustion and pain on the ground the beasts lunge at her exposed organs and begin tear her apart while the life slowly escapes her body with each pained groan she releases into the surrounding air.

Their feast fills the night’s sky with whooping, giggling and growling as they engage themselves in the meat of your sister.

You want to look away, but you cannot, something about the way these mutated freaks tear the flesh from within your sister’s still living carcass is so mesmerizing you cannot tear your eyes away from the macabre spectacle.

They know you’re watching and shoot mocking glances at you, staring back as chunks of your beloved sister hang from their putrid maws. The sight of their gore-stained elongated muzzles makes you want to gag. It’s nightmare fuel, but you cannot tear your gaze away, no matter how hard it is to watch.

Your sister only seems to stop moving once the beasts had eaten about half way through her body.

You and your family just stand there, in complete terror and awe until the beasts have finished their feast, and all but disappeared into the thin night air.

You are finally snapped out of your fear-induced trance once the ruckus dies down. Slowly making your way towards what reminds of your sisters; unsurprisingly, you find only a few pieces of bone and a blood-stained horn.

You knew this was what they do all along, all you can do now is just you wish to never come across these things again.

As the sun rises you and your family restart your march towards a better pasture, it’s all quiet and peaceful again until you hear a painfully familiar giggling sound in the distance.

An odd type of giggling, one that sends shock waves of terror down your spine.