J. King - Onslaught

He finished it-a deep shell holding plenty of muscle and organ meat, a small head with only a pliable and toothless mouth, stubby little legs devoid of claws, and best of all, no shell across the creature's belly. Ixidor could eat the first bits raw and then build a fire to stew the rest.

He set the creature down and completed the last polygons across its shell. With these final lines, the thing went from artificiality to reality. The turtle trembled to life. It lifted its too-small head beneath the massive, pot-shaped shell. Querulous eyes stared at its creator. Then, struggling on stumpy legs, it advanced toward Ixidor. It climbed slowly up his foot until it reached an awkward angle and toppled on its back. There, it waited, head tucked submissively on its pink belly.

Ixidor wouldn't even need a knife. The skin was as tender as wet paper. He need only dig in with hungry fingers. The turtle even wanted him to; it existed only to be his meal. Ixidor ran his hand across the creature's belly. A snagged nail drew a dotted line along it. Blood welled up from the seam. The turtle trembled, as if steeling itself for the inevitable.

Ixidor spread his hand atop the turtle's stomach. The skin there hardened to a tough shell. He tweaked each leg until it was larger, more capable of bearing the weight. A touch on the mouth gave the beast teeth with which to feed. Last of all, Ixidor brushed its head, giving it a will to live.

The turtle flailed, flipped over, and rushed into the stream. It left a turbid cloud of sand in its wake.

It was bad to kill a creature that wanted to live but worse to create a creature that wanted to die. Perhaps natural forms were safer. In them the complex dynamic of predator and prey were long established.

The creator was hungry. He knelt by the riverside, and his hands dug deep into the clay. He had made one turtle, and another would be easy. It took quick shape. Its shell was flat on top like a cooking pot, but its belly was guarded. The turtle had real legs with real claws and great snapping jaws. Put simply, it had a chance. If it eluded its creator, it could live a long, long while. Ixidor stooped over it, adding knobs of flesh beneath one knee.

The snapper whirled. Its mud-flesh became true, and its impressive jaws spread and clamped. It caught Ixidor's right hand and bit.

The pain was blinding. He shrieked and yanked. With a sick crackle, his hand came away, missing the ring and little fingers. The carpal bones were shorn halfway up his palm. Blood poured from the severed spot.

Howling, Ixidor leaped after the fleeing turtle. He landed on its back, forcing it to ground, the shell slick with blood. Though the turtle withdrew legs and tail, its head still lashed out, snapping at his heel.

Ixidor struck back. His heel smashed down atop the turtle's head. The creature shook. Ixidor struck again. The brain-pan caved. Ixidor continued to kick, feeling the skull crack. He kicked for revenge. In moments, the turtle stopped moving, but still, Ixidor kept up his attack until nothing but pulp remained beneath his heel.

He climbed off the carcass and limped to the stream. Some jags of bone had stuck in his foot. He dipped it in the water, and his hand beside.

Ixidor felt dizzy but triumphant. The battle played in his head. There was no denying it now: He created realities. Not only did he create them, but he lived with them and suffered the consequence of their being. They could wound him. They could kill him…

They could feed him…

Compressing his wounded hand beneath the opposite armpit, Ixidor stood up. He was covered with blood, mud, and water. Though he had pulled the skull shards out of his ravaged heel, it deeply protested. He limped back toward the carcass, set his toes under one edge, and flipped it over.

The turtle was dead. Ixidor kicked hard, his foot landing flat on the belly plate. The shell split, and blood swelled the seam. Ixidor knelt. He gripped one edge of the cracked shell, braced a foot on the creature's leg, and yanked. The shell did not give. Ixidor set his bleeding hand on the other side of the crack and yanked again. After four vigorous pulls, tissues began to pop. Still, the shell held.

Roaring in frustration, Ixidor stood and stomped on the creature. The carapace caved. He stomped again. A red paste gushed from the edges of the shell. Voracious, Ixidor knelt and ate. The stuff was still warm from the life of the creature. Another stomp produced more of the substance. It was not the way he had planned on eating the turtle, but he was desperate, and had no time, no tools.

Survival was a messy business. Creation too. It was a business of mud, blood, and water, of shattered shells and shards of bone. Ixidor had tapped a primordial power, and was becoming a primordial creator. Even with his own bleeding hand, he greedily scooped up the flesh of the turtle and sucked it from his fingers.

It was not merely messy. It was madness-divine madness.

Capering about the fallen beast, Ixidor began to hum and chant. The words were a mystery even to him. He crouched to snatch up more of the paste and shove it into his mouth. He smeared red lines across his face-war paint from his first kill. Ixidor danced, sang, and ate.

He lay within a shallow well of sand, dug out by his own hands. Beside him rested the turtle shell, empty and clean. Reptilian flesh wormed its way through his intestines. Reptilian blood covered him from nose to knees, and gnawed bones lay nearby, bleaching in the sun.

The sun was forsaking Ixidor and his strange paradise. Palm fronds glowed iridescent green against the darkening sky. Boles draped long shadows across sand and stream, and breezes moved among the leaves without rattling them. It was the time for night birds to begin their weird songs, but Ixidor had not yet made such birds. All was silent. The desert's desolation seeped slowly into the oasis.

Ixidor was tired. His stomach was full and his mind empty. The madness was gone. Only gore and mud remained. He was done creating. Tomorrow he would fashion more beasts. His image magic would impose new things upon the world, but for now, he was done-exhausted.

Lying there in a delirium of fatigue and satiety, he saw her.

White and pure, shimmering in the midst of the darkling oasis, his muse appeared. It was unfair to call her Nivea, for Nivea had never had white wings and glowing robes. It was equally unfair to call her anything else, for the face of that glorious creature was Nivea's. She hovered above the waters, her wings unmoving in flight She stared at him.

Ixidor crawled up from the sandy hole and knelt before her.

He could not have felt more unworthy-crusted in filth and missing two fingers and part of his mind. If she were truly his muse, she would be horrified by what he had made. Crayfish, a raucous gull, and two turtles. Worse than these creatures was their creator.

"Forgive me, beautiful lady. I was hungry, and I ate."

She did not respond, but only floated before him.

Ixidor lifted his face. "Nivea, is it you?" he asked. Sand sifted from his face and made small sounds on the ground. "How I mourn you. You are my heart, absent from my chest. You are my mind, absent from my head. You are my soul absent from my body. Look at me." He spread his arms, revealing a ravaged figure. "You were all that was good in me. I am what remains."

She faded. Black boles showed through her gossamer form.

"I will create nobler things tomorrow. I will create not just beasts but ecologies. I will create marvels worthy of you."

The muse was gone. Only shadows lingered above the stream.

Ixidor bowed his head again to the sand. He clawed the ground with his three-fingered hand.

Weeping, he crawled toward the stream. Like a wounded rat, he slithered into the water. It embraced him. Currents cleansed the day's filth. The waters enlivened him, and he swam and felt new.