Belly of the Beast
It’s Saturday night, and the beast has swallowed my cousin. One minute he was there, the next, gone—just a shout, half smothered, as the creature engulfed him. I didn’t see the actual swallowing. I arrived seconds later, in time to see the wolfish thing licking its jowls. It’s not like anything you’ve ever seen: Eyes small and black like papaya seeds. Hispid hair covering its limbs. Claws like small sickles. Tongue: long and leathery. I would have attacked it, grabbed a fire iron or my cousin’s re-enactment sword if I had been feeling heroic, but there was something about the way the creature sighed, tired after its work consuming him, that made me pause and watch. It sank onto the bed, where my cousin had been lying only moments before, whimpered like something lost, and seemed to take no notice of me.
I became so terrified of the occurrence since I was the only one left with the scary beast. Several thoughts rang in my mind but couldn’t act as fast as possible to save my cousin since fear took a significant part of me as I watched the beast become more tired and sleepy. After thirty minutes of struggles, the beast sank into sleep with one of its eyes open. I thought of creeping slowly to get out of the house, but due to the intense flow of adrenaline, I could not make it to the door because I thought the ugly, fierce animal was playing games with me. Due to the fear I had piled in me, I felt that making the mistake of trying to open the door would make me the second victim. I watched the animal’s behavior keenly for fifteen minutes, and I saw it close the open eye. I stayed put for another ten minutes to be rest assured that the spine-chilling beast was deep asleep. Having confirmed this from the change of the animal’s snoring sound, I thought of calling one of my friends to inform them of what has happened since my parents were not around home. They had traveled to Spain to celebrate my brother at his wedding. I disbanded the idea of calling my friends because I would alert the beast if I did so. I, therefore, sent text messages to two of my neighbors to seek their help. Fortunately, one of them replied, telling me to stay calm and never bother the animal because it was such a dangerous creature when confronted.
The following day very early in the morning, the animal walked out of the room through the window; it accessed the house the previous night. This was a relief to me; however, the night’s memory and my cousin’s loss were still tormenting me. At around six minutes to five am, I saw a text message on my phone. This was Donald, the other friend I had sent a text message at night. Donald had had the same experience with the beast when it gobbled his nephew alive, but fortunately, they rescued him. The message contained a raft of instructions of what I could do to save myself and my cousin if in case he was never hurt by the sharp claws and teeth of the frightening beast. He noted that if he was still alive if he was never hurt; however, he struggled to breathe from inside with the little supply of oxygen in the animal. I failed to understand how this could be after a whole night in the stomach of the beast. After reading the message, I called him to come and help me rescue my cousin.
The beast inhabited the forest around our home, and I had seen it walk heading to the usual place we usually see it. The creature could walk but with hardship due to the bulging stomach. We never knew the beast was such a lousy prey because it sometimes visited our fishpond to drink water but had never done such a heinous act. It might have been very hungry. Twenty minutes to six o’clock in the morning, the friend who sent me a text to be calm and never move arrived armed with a machete and an axe. Two minutes later, Donald, too, arrived armed with a spear and three long strings. We mobilized all our neighbors, including some of the passers-by. Because Donald had some experience dealing with the dangerous creature, he directed us on the steps we would take to slay the animal and get back my cousin. We were to use the strings to strangle the beast or to bar it from escaping by holding them cleverly as we move around the creature. He directed us to use the spear to slay the beast from far when it became so wild. The axe and the machete were specifically for disorienting the dangerous creature baying for blood.
After the directions, we were all set to face the precarious animal. Donald encouraged us that this was the best time to combat the animal because it was still struggling to contain the strange load it had, buying time to suffocate my cousin. Fortunately, we saw the beast from far lazily asleep deep into the forest. On seeing the animal, we stealthily approached the animal from different directions. Surprisingly we could see something protruding from its mouth. This was my cousin’s hand; he must have been struggling to get out of the beast. We had to make our calculations right lest we be engulfed by the fiery, scary, and muscled creature. As Donald had informed us, we could not attack it at the stomach lest we kill my cousin. We were, therefore, to make our first attack on the legs and the head. None was willing to go first. With his machete and an axe Donald, jumped forward first and hit the animal at the head. The others responded so quickly before the animal could respond. In a few minutes struggle, the beast was overwhelmed by the profuse bleeding at the head and legs hence died. We pulled my cousin out carefully through the beast’s mouth. He was helpless, unconscious, and slippery. We immediately rushed him using our neighbor’s vehicle to the nearby hospital, where he was admitted for treatment. His condition was so awful. The doctors immediately took him to the intensive care unit, where he was put on oxygen to activate his deflated lungs as they administer medication to him. The doctors we found were hospitable and dedicated to their noble service of meeting their mission of relieving humanity from pain and sustaining life. They kept administering him drugs and the required injections for the better part of the first day and the second day as they monitored his condition. He stayed in the coma for two days and started responding well to the treatment on the third day. He recuperated through the fourth day, and after a week in the hospital, he regained his health and was discharged. My parents were already home at this time. To thank my friends and everyone who salvaged my cousin from the verge of death, my parents organized a party to express gratitude to everyone. Indeed this was the time I affirmed our founding father; John Dickson’s saying that United we stand, divided we fall.