"The Other Side" Chapter 1- New Arrival

Following his last statement was a roar; a reverberating, bone-shaking sound similar to that of a lion. He froze, fear squeezing his heart in an icy grip. He scrambled to his feet as his adrenaline kicked into overdrive. He turned, and was greeted with the most horrifying thing he had witnessed in the last ten seconds; a charging manticore.

The man calmly reacted in the following manner, "Fuckwhatthetitsgetthefuckawayfrommeyoudamnfreakofnature!" with all the muscle power he could muster, he ran in the opposite direction of the hungry, angry, massive, bloodthirsty carnivore barreling towards him. His bare feet kicked up clouds of dirt as he weaved between densely-packed trees. He could hear the flapping of wings behind him. Shit! It can fly?! He thought that as he vaulted over a cluster of roots that had blocked his path. The man's rapid and ragged breathing was drowned out by another furious roar which shook the forest violently. He ran in no particular manner, simply seeking to get as far away as possible from his pursuer.

The forest seemed to stretch on forever in all directions, and the canopy seemed to block out most of the light streaming down from the sun. In an alien, unknown world, the only option the man thought prudent was to run. Run, and run, and run until that he made it out of the forest. There was nothing but death behind him; Roaring, thrashing, clawing death. The thought of stopping never crossed his mind, until he heard something even more chilling and terrifying than the thing trying to eat him alive; A scream... A female scream.

All the fear seemed to melt away, and what replaced it was a burning, seething rage. He wheeled to face the thing, and saw that it had a small form pinned underneath its claws. With a roar of his own, he ran directly towards the giant, scorpion-tailed, winged manticore. His feet pounded the dirt as he ran, his legs trying to keep up with the force of his rage. Naked, unarmed, bruised and battered, he charged the monster, all because of the simple fact that the life of someone other than himself was at stake. A wordless snarl seemed to rip itself out of his throat as he charged at the thing head-on.

He brought his fist hammering into the thing's face with enough force to punch through concrete. Apparently manticores are tougher than concrete. It stumbled backwards, but pressed turned to its attacker, swinging a mass of jagged claws at the man's face. It was utterly intent to tear his head from his shoulders.
He ducked under the vicious knifelike blades aimed at his skull and responded by throwing a hook punch at the side of its feline face. A hearty thump sounded out as his fist connected with the manticore's temple. The manticore was frothing with anger now, flailing wildly at him. The man was even more enraged, almost to the point of mindlessness; the manticore was fighting for food, and the man for an innocent life.
If there was one thing he hated more than anything else, it was someone or something that would take advantage of something weaker than itself. Even as claws raked across his bare skin, his pain was ignored due to the righteous furor burning in his mind. Quickly realizing that he needed a weapon, he struck out with a kick to the manticore's chin. Normally, the man would have worn heavy boots, but his rage was more than enough to put vicious force into his attack. It swayed from side to side for a moment as the man scurried in the dirt looking for a weapon. Anything would do, as fists and feet were only so effective against something the size of what he was fighting. He saw what he was looking for; A rock around the size of a baseball. It sat lodged in the soil at the base of a large tree, half covered in earth. He quickly snatched it up and turned back to his opponent, who whipped its tail forwards at the man with a snap. The sound of the tail being stabbed towards him sounded almost exactly like a whipcrack. The man couldn't move fast enough to dodge the spear of coal colored carapace.

The black barb of chitin speared into his flesh, red blood seeping out of the wound as if it was crying tears. The man grunted in pain, feeling the sharp point digging into the flesh and muscle of his abdomen. With a victorious roar, the manticore raised his head and prepared to close its many-toothed jaws upon its prey. Although the poison coursed virulently through his veins, the man fought on even harder than before, grabbing the manticore's tail, still jutting out of the wound in his guts. Shrieking an animalistic war cry, he raised his arm high above his head, and then brought the stone slamming to a halt down on the scorpion-like tail with a hollow crunching noise. Greenish yellow ichor dripped from the broken segments of chitin, staining the ground with their foul color and stench. As the manticore wailed in pain at its now broken tail, the man swung the stone again, this time sending it crashing downwards into its blunt-faced skull. He repeated this many multiple times in quick succession, shattering its left eye socket. The crunch of bone resounded in the air. Blood sprayed out of the rupture in the manticore's face, coating the human's visage in dark red blood. He looked even more terrifying than the fifteen-foot monster in front of him; His eyes were bloodshot and filled with a feral light; his jaws opened wide, a bellow of savagery passing between his lips. With a final roar, the manticore's life was ended as its own tail spike was brutally rammed through its remaining eye and into its brain. It collapsed with a heavy thump. Its eye- pierced by its own weapon- was leaking red liquid and pink sludge like a broken faucet.

The ground now looked like the floor of a slaughterhouse, so slick with blood it was. The human breathed once before his knees gave out, the exhaustion, pain, shock and deadly poison flooding through his body like a tsunami. He simply landed face first in the dirt, falling to the earth like a discarded ragdoll. His eyes drooped slowly shut as he lay there. He faintly noticed a pink and yellow blur moving slowly towards him before he sunk into unconsciousness, then all turned to black. As the man slumped into the muck, a dark, demonic mind thought out a single sentence: Great, the thing has a fucking conscience... but at least he gave a great demonstration of his... talents... The mind let out a laugh of pleasure and triumph before it grew still once more.

The man awoke, his eyes cracking open slowly. He noticed rather abruptly that the whole of his body felt like it was on fire. His insides felt as if they were melting under his skin. He suppressed a scream of agony, shuddering violently and jerking upwards instead. He had never felt this much pain before. Frantically, he looked around. He was in a small, clean room. The acidic smell of the room led him to believe it had been wiped down with cleaning alcohol, which immediately made him think of a hospital. This seemed correct, as there was a gurney with a polished metal tray resting on it next to his bed. On the tray was a pair of forceps, a scalpel, scissors, a syringe filled with a murky blue liquid, along with various other pieces of medical equipment. Further taking in his surroundings, he noticed that the room had a window. The window's curtains were partway drawn, letting in a small sliver of bright yellow sunlight. Taking a moment to look through the window, he could tell that he was above ground level, which made stronger his assumptions that this was indeed, a hospital. He pushed his arms down on the bed, swinging his legs to the side. He eased his feet slowly to the floor, touching them down on the linoleum. Definitely a hospital, his mind thought through the pain. He noticed that he was covered in bandages, where he had either been clawed at or impaled by the manticore, or where branches had whipped his sensitive flesh. As he stood up, he heard the sound of muffled voices.

"He's... bad... poison should... killed... quickly... have to act fast... critical... end his suffering..." the voice was muffled, and he could only pick out small snatches of words, but it was definitely male. The words sent him into shock, bringing nausea rocketing up from the depths of his stomach. A voice in his head seemed to scream: Run! He's going to kill you! Get away!

The voice was not his, but he was too terrified to notice, and he probably wouldn't have cared if he did. His vision shot around the room, looking for a plan of escape. He noticed that door appeared to open inwardly, as the hinges were on the inside of the room. Hurriedly, he moved the bed, wedging it between the door and the wall. The bed's metal legs scraped and whined as he moved it into place. The scraping noise was followed by a series of loud bumps as he shoved the bed roughly into position.

"What was that?" a mid-pitched female voice said.

"I Dunno, Twi', sounded like it came from his room." replied a drawling, lower-pitched female voice.

"Doctor, we should see what's going on in there, don't you think?" this time, a refined, mid-Atlantic female voice spoke.

"Hey, is he awake? Is he, is he, is he?! I can't wait to give him his present; I worked so hard on it! I just can't wait, the tension's killing me!" said a high-pitched, energetic voice, also female.

He heard the handle of the door being turned, and the thump of the bed hitting the wall.

"Hey! The bucking door is stuck! Doc, help me!” this time, a raspy, tomboyish voice, frustrated and angry.

"I hope he's not too uncomfortable... I really want to stop his pain..." said a quiet, delicate female voice.

After he had used the bed to block the door, the man had bolted to the window and looked down. What he saw was the ground, but, as he expected, he was on the second floor. At the base of the building were a thick cluster of bushes. In the distance, he could see a town, made up of buildings with thatched roofs. After looking out the window, he looked at his hands and feet, quickly realizing he was still completely naked, save his bandages. He grabbed hold of the curtains and pulled vigorously. The fabric ripped easily. He covered his hands and feet in parts of the curtains after tearing them to pieces.

"He's destroying the curtains!" screamed the mid-Atlantic voice.

"Open... the... door!" yelled the male voice, between the thumping noises of bodies crashing into the makeshift barricade the man had made. He was breathing like a jackrabbit, short machine-gun breaths escaping his lips every second. Seizing the gurney with both hands, he dumped the tray and tools to the floor with a clatter.

"My tools! He's destroying the hospital! No! No! No! No! NO! Get this door open!" the voice was practically in a rage.

Readjusting his grip on the metal trolley, the man bent his legs, braced and watched the window, his breathing slowing down. He closed his eyes, then opened them and looked back just in time to see a group of garishly colored ponies with gigantic eyes burst into the room.

"Get him!" the tomboy voice, coming from a blue, rainbow-maned winged pony, screamed. The man screamed back in unimaginable horror at the talking animals now trying to get at him. He ran at top speed towards the window, throwing the trolley through the air. The sound of shattering glass drowned out all the other noise as he leaped out of the open window.