SO MANY WAYS TO SEE THE SUNRISE.

Dirt had been set loose in the desert for two days now, left to find his way home, left to survive, to prove himself. The heat and the sand were no more bearable than previously, at this point. It was still... not a pleasant experience. Gruelling. He panted heavily, his teeth setting into a cactus to tear its flesh and drink the juice within, ignoring the shooting pain of spines embedded in his gums, the blood that mixed with the nectar.

He had not yet found anything to eat that wasn't covered in spines, but he wasn't worried. Surely, there would be some dumb goat out in the heat for too long, easy pickings. He salivated, imagining the taste of that hot flesh over his tongue.


It was night, when he saw them. An anxious, hurried thing, freezing, desperate to find The Pitt, wanting a home, sickly. Starving, desperate. Weak. Eyes rheumy and unfocused, after he bowled the coyote over, its head bashing into a rock. Blood vessel burst in its eyes, as he laid one of his large paws on the top of its head, pressing the pathetic life into the sand. Forcing it to breathe and swallow the grit beneath them, smothering them within the desert they had roamed, weak and aching for shelter.

This soul would not make the trip, it seemed, as it squirmed and coughed and sputtered, screaming and snarling over the hills, before its throat rattled and blood seeped from its mouth and nose, lungs bleeding as it screamed and vomited. He sunk his teeth into still living flesh, his paw pushing down ever harder, pinning it beneath his massive weight, forcing it deeper into the sand. He moved, standing on its back, one paw on its bleeding head. The weak, tender body caved, crushing all those delicate organs within its ribcage, and its eyes went blank, empty, sand at the corners. The coyote's stuffed throat foaming and gurgling as it finally died.

It was enough to survive on, the poor thing had been skin and bones. He'd stripped every inch of it of flesh, and  had separated the skull from it spine, and the lower jaw from the skull. He'd lapped up the blood that had pooled in it's cracked skull, dipping his tongue into the cracks to lap at the brain, his hungry, forceful tongue turning the delicate organ to mush. It wasn't long, before he had cleaned it entirely. His prize.

Days later, Dirt had found his way home, covered in grit and sand, saliva oozing from his lips. His maw and lips were full of cactus spines, and he gently held the cleaned skull within his jaws, triumphant.

code by spacexual