Ren wanted nothing more than to meet that person right now, and so he ran — tried to at least. His injury was preventing him from doing so, it was more like a rushed skip, as he barely put any pressure on his right side.
Although not as fast as a run, it was still much quicker than his walking pace. It hurt like hell but finding another person would solve all his problems. Food, water, and maybe even more bandages. That's what Ren needed right now.
If he had to guess, the fire was probably 10-20 miles away. Hopefully he could make it there before whoever made it left.
Ren didn't realize it, but by now he must've been walking for over eight hours. Just as he started to run, the sun rose bringing unwanted heat. Now that Ren wasn't as dehydrated as before he could sweat. Now a new problem emerged. As the sun drew higher, it got progressively hotter drenching him in his sweat. It was making Ren waste water he was trying to retain in his body. It got so bad he entertained the thought of stopping for a bit so he could preserve some of it, but quickly shut the thought down.
Ren didn't know if he would get another chance at finding someone, and he wasn't going to risk it.
His limping continued until he could see the fire a little more clearly. Now that it was almost day, the sunrise limited Ren from seeing the flickering light, but it did grant him the ability to see the smoke coming off it. And so he followed the fumes, pinpointing the location where they came from.
Ren couldn't help but get his hopes up. As far as he could tell, the fire hadn't move since he first spotted it, and he was drawing near. Yet, Ren still didn't know what was the source of the smoke. It was too far for him to see.
What must've been hours passed and the sun rose higher as Ren skipped forward. The fire drew near. By now he could even smell the fire. Ren didn't realize it yet, but that smell wasn't of wood burning.
It wasn't until he was only a couple miles away did he finally see. Giant flames flew into the air.
'That's way too big.'
Flames reached into the sky. They must've been over fifty feet tall, yet the width of them only seemed to be a couple feet. It was like a highly concentrated torch.
Seeing it put Ren's body on edge. It was unnatural, not that he could remember what a fire should've looked like.
Should he turn back now? Should I continue? Those two questions popped into his mind.
Ren was no longer certain that it was a human, but if not a human than what? He honestly didn't want to find out. But on the off chance that it was a person... they could save his life.
If it weren't though, his death would be certain.
Ren was going to die regardless if he stayed back, so in the end he decided to continue.
A couple minutes passed. Ren was too tired to continue to try to run so he went back to his usual pace. The fire grew bigger, the scent became overpowering, and the smoke clouded his vision.
Ren now knew there was no chance this was a human. Even within a mile radius, he found it hard to breath. His eyes were watering from the smog constantly attacking them. Ren could no longer even see the ground, everything went to grey, but now that he was so close he could also see the source of the flame. It was so bright it even pushed through the smoke.
"What the fuck!"
Ren couldn't help to blurt out some words a lot louder than he should've.
What he saw shouldn't have been possible. Immediately, Ren turned around and went back to his running pace.
He now had a general idea of why the landscape was so baren. What Ren just saw shocked him to his bones. The source of the flames... was a monster.
Ren didn't even know what to say. How the hell could something like that exist?
If things weren't bad enough, his words seemed to have some repercussions. Ren turned his head to see the source of the flames starting to move. Before it seemed to be laying down, but now it had its head up looking for whatever just shouted.
Ren wasn't sure if it was even capable of seeing him considering the smoke and also that it didn't even have eyes. Regardless, he wasn't too keen on finding out. If that thing did see him, he would without a doubt die.
With his injury screaming at him, Ren picked up the pace again struggling into a jog. He was going to go as far as possible as fast as possible.
Unfortunately, it didn't seem like Ren would have the chance. The world around him shook as a flaming centipede rose to it's feet. Ren turned around to see it staring directly at him, making sweat fall down his back.
The thing looking at him defied all logic. It had no tissue, only bones. In the middle of it was a giant core that seemed brighter than the sun. That must've been what caused the fire. It was also massive as far as centipedes go, it was taller than even Ren.
And it was coming towards him... fast.