“Now, how do I get you off?” Akira said, his gaze narrowing as it captured the head that was still biting down on his shoulder.

  The boy’s snowy gray eyes drifted towards the sky, a serene canvas of countless glowing stars, some smaller while others bigger. The moon, high in the sky, bathed him in its pale light, but its gentle glow felt like nothing more than a mockery.

  Akira let out a sigh. “Well, I can try to break or cut the head away from the jaw and then take the teeth out of my skin slowly.” But he was tired from the near death experience despite his previous nap, the lighting he had was too dim for him to do something that required a lot of precision and he was soaking wet, not to mention the breeze that was making him feel even worse.

  A shiver went down his spine, but he couldn't even tell if it was from the cold or the pain at this point.

  He gripped the back of the head of the monster and tried to move it a little again, however, it ended with the same result as his first attempt.

  “AAAAGHHH!!!” Even the slight movement made Akira feel as his shredded flesh was slowly getting torn by the fangs of the dead monster.

  Akira’s thoughts shuffled, he knew he wouldn't make it past sunrise if he couldn’t get the head off and somehow treat his wound, but the pain of trying to remove the head was too much to bear.

  Even if he carefully cut all the muscles in the jaw to loosen it, he knew the teeth would serrate his flesh further at the smallest of movement, increasing the pain and maybe even cutting something important.

  His eyes flicked back to the sharp stone he had used earlier, now tucked into his ‘belt’. He pulled it free, its jagged edge glinting faintly in the pale light. If precision wasn’t an option, maybe brute force was.

  Akira sucked in a shaky breath. “Alright... I can do this. It’s just pain.” He said, trying to steady his nerves. “Just a little bit of… pain.”

  Positioning the stone in his hand, he turned his focus to the joint of the creature's jaw. If he could cut it there, he might be able to pry the head loose without causing more damage to his flesh.

  He pressed the sharp edge of the stone against the hinge of the jaw, it was a pretty uncomfortable angle, and the jaw was exceptionally wide.

  Taking another deep breath before starting to slowly saw at the muscle, but… “Shit, I need to break through its skin first, weak cuts won’t do.”

  A miscalculation in his plan, he needed to break through its scales before getting to the soft muscle underneath, and that meant a heavy blow was needed.

  His grip on the stone changed into a more solid one. Grabbing the stone with strength instead of finesse, he placed his other hand over it as well and took a deep breath.

  Hesitation hung in the air, a blow too strong and it might pierce not only the monster’s jaws, but his own flesh, a misdirected blow and he would severely cut himself. I’m dead either way, so I might as well give it a shot.

  Despite his brave words, his hands shook, his body yelling at him not to do it, his brain frozen without a clear solution.

  Yet, what other choice did he have? Wait for death? A slow and painful death bleeding to his demise, or even worse, an infection?

  The stone hovered over the joint of the monster’s jaw, the faint glow of its bioluminescent blood illuminating the jagged edge. Akira’s heart pounded against his ribcage like a war drum, the sound deafening in his ears.

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  He brought it down with all the strength he could muster, aiming directly at the weakest part of the jaw’s hinge. The impact was jarring, a loud crack echoing into the night as the stone met resistance.

  Pain flared in his shoulder, excruciating and immediate, as the creature’s fangs seemed to retaliate even after its death.

  “SHIT!” Akira shouted, his voice hoarse from both exhaustion and frustration. He shook his head, pushing through the tears that welled in his eyes. He could feel the stone had penetrated the scales, the surface of the jaw weakening slightly.

  His breaths came in shallow gasps, but he had done it, he managed to break through the scales, now he could carefully cut at the muscle.

  Akira adjusted his grip on the stone, his fingers slick with the monster’s blood and his own sweat.

  His shoulder throbbed, the teeth lodged in his flesh acting like cruel barbs, but he forced himself to focus. The stone's edge glinted faintly in the moonlight as he pressed it into the soft tissue now exposed beneath the shattered scales.

  His hands trembled as he began to saw at the fibrous muscles of the jaw. The motion was painstakingly slow, each drag of the stone sending jolts of pain through his body as the jaws shifted ever so slightly.

  Beads of sweat mixed with river water trickled down his brow. The monster’s blood, the vivid, bioluminescent green, coated his hands, glowing faintly in the dark like some ghastly war paint.

  The muscles of the jaw began to give way, but every twitch and shift of the teeth embedded in his shoulder. His breathing grew shallow, his vision swimming with every pulse of pain, but he pressed on.

  The monster's head now hung looser, its jaw slackening slightly as more tendons snapped under the relentless scraping of his makeshift blade.

  Akira's lips curled into a snarl, his exhaustion giving way to a primal determination. He refused to let the creature, even in death, claim victory over him.

  Finally, with a nauseating snap, the last of the jaw's hinge gave way. The tension in the creature’s bite released with a grotesque squelch, and the teeth embedded in Akira’s shoulder loosened.

  He gasped, a mixture of relief and pain coursing through him, as he pried the monstrous head away. The sensation of the fangs dragging out of his flesh was torturous, but at last they were gone, or at least most of them were.

  Akira tossed the severed head aside with all the strength he could muster, watching as it rolled into the shadows like a discarded relic of his ordeal. He slumped backward onto the riverbank, his body screaming.

  Blood oozed from the deep punctures in his shoulder, dark red mixing with the glowing green smears left behind by the monster. The edges of his vision blurred again, his body heavy as the adrenaline that had fueled him began to wane.

  But that wasn’t the end, there were still a few teeth embedded in his flesh.

  “You’re one insistent bastard, aren’t you? I bet you weren’t very popular with the ladies… Or were you a lady?” Akira shook his head. “I’ve been talking to myself too much, I feel like I’m going insane.”

  Gripping the base of one of the teeth with trembling fingers, he tugged gently. Another sharp jolt of pain shot through his shoulder, and he hissed through clenched teeth, his free hand reflexively clawing at the dirt beneath him.

  The tooth wouldn’t budge.

  “Damn it, of course you wouldn’t make this easy.” Akira growled. He took a deep breath, then shifted his grip, bracing his hand against the wound as he pulled again, harder this time. The jagged edge of the tooth scraped against his flesh as it came free, and he bit down on his lip to keep from screaming.

  A small spurt of blood followed, Akira dropped the tooth into the dirt beside him, glaring at it as if it were a personal enemy. One down, three more to go.

  …

  Akira pulled out the last of the teeth that were lodged into him and let out a sigh of relief.

  He got up and walked to the river, kneeling in the shallow part of the water. Cupping in his hand a bit of water, he moved it up to his shoulder and let it cascade over the wound, letting the blood, the monster’s and his own, wash down.

  His gaze shifted down into the river, the crystals were somewhere down there, but for now he was too injured and weak to go fetch them. He didn’t even know how deep it went or if the monster he had killed was the only horror that was in the water.

  Turning to look at the creature’s headless corpse, a sinister thought crept up into his head. I wonder if it tastes good?

  The base of its body was basically like a fish and its upper body only shared the similarities of shapes to that of a human body, so it wouldn’t be the worst thing he had eaten.