Hall of Infinite Doors
Moving too quick to even know where you were going, you darted into the closest alcove and huddled hopefully beyond the thing's vision. You didn't know how well it could see, but you know it was sniffing the air for you, and tasting the air, and could probably find you easily and eat you. You didn't know if you could kill it or get away or if just setting foot in this thing's abode meant your instant and horrible death, but you knew you had one advantage against it: your small and unnoticeable size. So you ducked into an alcove and hid, and occasionally poked your eyes out to spot it writhing and sniffing and grumbling and growling, and saw it clawing in the dung by its feet and muttering in hunger, and being greater and more powerful than anything you could ever dream. But everything loses interest, and nothing has an attention span that's eternal. And eventually one head dropped down, followed by another, until eight of them rested again on a great pile on the thing's massive forelegs, a ninth curled alert on its back, eyes open, tongue flicking, nose sniffing, less alert than before. Evening poured in through the torn holes in the cavern, illuminating the beast as it slept, and as you fretted and resisted every sound you could make. Eventually that final head reclined in something close to sleep, but you still remained motionless as night drew on and the light drew fainter and worse.
It was only then that you spotted what was behind the creature. The scent of animal body and dung was all around you, but so was a second, sicker, worse smell, one your instincts knew and identified as decomposition. You saw that the great beast had no nest as it lay, and rested directly on the cave floor. What was behind it was the piled trees and sticks and logs that could only be its actual home, and the piled and barely-eaten carcasses of uncountable animals, massed into one great mound of death and slowly decaying into a squirming pile of putrefaction.
Even through the terror and the stench and the horror of the place, curiosity prevailed. Why would a beast like this, one which required probably countless animals simply to survive, capture all these creatures and just let them rot? It just didn't make sense, but there it was: the stench of death, the sleeping monster, the pile of animals. You pressed your lips together and thought, wondering what to do, if there was anything to do, if you shouldn't just disappear while there was even the remotest opportunity.
And then you did the bravest thing you could ever have done. You slipped from your alcove, skirting the wall. You moved slowly and anxiously, careful not to make a sound, past the bulk of the great creature. You moved past the twining heads, the snoring body, the heaped dung and sweat and bones. You used those hidden instincts, those acquired memories, and every inch of bravery you could summon, and skirted past the primordial monster to the heaped wood that was its nest.
And then you understood.
Because that nest wasn't empty. Placed lovingly amid snapped trees and torn logs were several yellow eggs, some smaller and obviously decoys, but several not only real but cracked and burst from within. Some were only chipped; others completely burst, snapped open from the internal violence of a baby creature surging towards life. This monster was a mother. All the animals, all the hunting was to feed her children.
But there was nothing moving in the nest. The babies were dead. The stink of decay and the state of the bodies showed that they had been so for some time, though you could still make out the resemblance to the mother creature. She had been bringing back animal after animal, constant food to feed her children that she didn't realize were no longer alive. All this suffering, this death... for this. You knew now. And you knew that such a stupid, powerful thing would never let it stop. Not when her children were skeletons, not when nothing was left; she would rip the trees from the forest, and no man could slay this dragon.
It was only then that you spotted what was behind the creature. The scent of animal body and dung was all around you, but so was a second, sicker, worse smell, one your instincts knew and identified as decomposition. You saw that the great beast had no nest as it lay, and rested directly on the cave floor. What was behind it was the piled trees and sticks and logs that could only be its actual home, and the piled and barely-eaten carcasses of uncountable animals, massed into one great mound of death and slowly decaying into a squirming pile of putrefaction.
Even through the terror and the stench and the horror of the place, curiosity prevailed. Why would a beast like this, one which required probably countless animals simply to survive, capture all these creatures and just let them rot? It just didn't make sense, but there it was: the stench of death, the sleeping monster, the pile of animals. You pressed your lips together and thought, wondering what to do, if there was anything to do, if you shouldn't just disappear while there was even the remotest opportunity.
And then you did the bravest thing you could ever have done. You slipped from your alcove, skirting the wall. You moved slowly and anxiously, careful not to make a sound, past the bulk of the great creature. You moved past the twining heads, the snoring body, the heaped dung and sweat and bones. You used those hidden instincts, those acquired memories, and every inch of bravery you could summon, and skirted past the primordial monster to the heaped wood that was its nest.
And then you understood.
Because that nest wasn't empty. Placed lovingly amid snapped trees and torn logs were several yellow eggs, some smaller and obviously decoys, but several not only real but cracked and burst from within. Some were only chipped; others completely burst, snapped open from the internal violence of a baby creature surging towards life. This monster was a mother. All the animals, all the hunting was to feed her children.
But there was nothing moving in the nest. The babies were dead. The stink of decay and the state of the bodies showed that they had been so for some time, though you could still make out the resemblance to the mother creature. She had been bringing back animal after animal, constant food to feed her children that she didn't realize were no longer alive. All this suffering, this death... for this. You knew now. And you knew that such a stupid, powerful thing would never let it stop. Not when her children were skeletons, not when nothing was left; she would rip the trees from the forest, and no man could slay this dragon.