Beneath The Open Sky I

	The trees bent along the mountaintop, a whispering gasp of a moan as the wooden giants bent under the storm. Thunder and lightning shattered the sky overhead, pouring out the glass of rain over your precariously bent tent. You’d hiked up to the mountains, fleeing the stress and fast pace of the city life for a well needed rest. The hike had been going well for the first hours, miles of progress made deep into the untouched woods of the state. You left the trail behind as soon as you entered the forest, the hard packed dirt giving way to soft moss and old growth.
	The storm came quickly, a deep cloud on the horizon that moved with the rapid clip of the wind. Within five minutes the torrential 	downpour had stopped you in your tracks, forcing you to set up the small tent you carried on your back. You and your belongings had become thoroughly soaked, the small fire you tried to start quickly quenched by the rain. Though it was only late afternoon you could mistake the dark clouds for the dead of night.
	You sat in your tent now, trying to salvage what was left from your day pack which had apparently not been as watertight as advertised. Though most of the food was okay your supplies and maps were water damaged. Your knowledge of the area was sound, but it was never the brightest idea to wander without cause. Thankfully, though covered in water your phone seemed no worse for wear. A slight flicker in the screen but surely it would last you the trip. Frustrated with the bad start you kicked back into the sleeping roll, trying to keep your spirits up for the journey. A rainstorm wouldn’t stop you from a well deserved rest, nor a little water damaged supplies.
	The minutes ticked by, the watch on your hand slowly guiding time into hours. The scent of petrichor in the air tickled your nose, the rains soaking deep into the bone dry woods. Under the white noise of rainfall you could pick out the noise of birds in the branches flitting about, and the gentle crack of twigs under the soft foot of woodland creatures. A branch snapped in the distance, much louder now than the rest. It sounded like a gunshot, a tree splintering under immense weight. Perhaps a bear had come through the wood, meandering to your tent to take stock of the newcomer.
	You grasped the worn wooden stock of your rifle, a Mauser passed to you from your grandfather. The bolt cycled smooth, chambering the dull brass round of a 7.92x57mm round. You carefully shouldered the rifle, moving as quiet as you could under the silence of the rainstorm. The worn safety slid over smoothly, the trigger tense under your finger as the low light around you cast shadows over the tent. You could see now, the hunched shape that cast its bulk over the thin fabric of your tent. Tracking the figure with the muzzle you held your breath, the deep bass of thunder shattering the heavens.
	You winced as your body tensed from the scare, the rifle blinding you momentarily as the gun fired from your negligence. The shot ripped through your tent, flying high above the shape nearby that roared out in feral fear. The bear fled quickly, crashing through the undergrowth and back into the dark of the woods. The ringing in your ears drowned out the rain that had slowly tapered off, the storm moving past to carry its rage further. Around you, slowly the forest came back to drown out the silence.

You tried to drive the adrenaline from your veins, calming the shaking as you peered at the ragged hole in your tent. You cycled the rifle, the spent brass flying off into the corner of your small home. The smell of spent gunpowder was thick, the dull haze of smoke hanging in the air around you. Snapping the weapon back on safe you crawled out from your tent, thick shafts of sunlight breaking through the haze of fog left by the fresh rain. The smell of wet pine and moss tickled your nose, as you glanced about the clearing. The bullet hole was fresh, the round bored deep into the trunk of a tree some feet away, far higher than it should have fired if not for your wincing.
	A thick bead of sap ran from the wound, white flesh of the tree peeking from under the shattered bark. Pulling your eyes from the hole you looked to the soft moss, depressed where the bear had stood. Though you had never seen a bear with feet like that. The mark was shallower than a bear would have left, three toes instead of four and a final fourth spur off the back of the heel. The spur dug deep, reminding you of some sort of dinosaur of old. You followed the trail, a sense of strangeness and dread creeping into your mind to dig its dark claws into the back of your brain.
	The trail of strange markings went deeper into the woods, and you soon found the source of the breaking wood you heard during the storm. One of the older pines had been shattered in half, as if gripped like a plastic bottle. You could see the marks, deep gouges that split away the bark and crushed the wood. Even at six feet tall the markings were over three feet above you. You could make out imprints, almost like elongated fingers tipped with long pointed nails. Pushing back the fear that threatened to overwhelm you, you turned and headed back to your tent, ignoring the feeling of being watched.

	Having packed up your tent and removing any sign of your passing, you headed deeper into the woods. Though the storm had robbed you of good time, the evening light still burned low at the horizon. Clear cut and replanted pines turned to old growth, hanging vines and deep watery moss of a temperate swamp. The willows swayed over head, tickling at the nape of your neck as you passed under them, your rifle held in your hands. You couldn’t shake the fear of being followed, the sound of branches breaking in the distance a steady assurance of your companion whatever it may be.
	You tightened your grip, the well oiled wood firm under your grasp. The earlier rains had raised the already humid summer air to a sweltering heat that dripped over your face and into your vision. Sweat burned at your eyes as you pushed through the overgrown ferns and swamp moss hanging from the trees. The muddy water underfoot sucked at your boots as you trudged forward. Around you, the sounds of frogs and insects buzzing filled your ears, very nearly covering the noise of snapping branches behind you. You checked the Mauser again out of habit, trying to ignore the growing presence that seemed to stalk your every step.
	You knew a clearing further ahead that lead to a small cave, which would allow you to sleep a bit more peacefully with only one entrance you could block with a fire. Much as you tried to keep your wits sharp, the exhaustion of adrenaline leaving your body was compounded by the low set sun, shafts of light beginning to be blocked out by the trees around you. The sounds of tree frogs coming out from the hiding places heralded the coming dark. Lost in thought and the serenade of the forest you barely noticed the sound of snapping branches fall quiet as you pressed forward. Slowly the muck underfoot gave way to loose gravel and hard packed earth as the ground began to pitch upward slowly.

The trees changed once more, from low hanging willows bent with age to towering pines once more. By now, you were flanked on either side by the sun and moon. With only an hour at best to set up your camp you hurried forwards into the open space ahead. Dull gray of the small rock formation beckoned you forward, a wide cleft in the center eating the light cast upon it. The lack of crunching and eyes boring into you from behind had lifted your spirits, hopeful now for a good night’s rest below the open sky.
	At the mouth of the cave you set your pack down, hurrying about the clearing to gather wood. The bundle of small twigs grows into a pile of various sizes, an assurance that the fire will last through the night to at least embers. You enter the cave with your pack in hand. The cleft is only ten feet deep at most, weathered stone walls worn smooth over time. The back of the cave is near pitch black, jagged and bumpy stones forming strange shapes in the shadows that make you rather uneasy. You shove the uncertainty to the bottom of your mind, opening your pack and laying out the sleeping bag you’ll use for the night.
	For the first time since the storm you lay your Mauser on the wall, the crackling roar of the fire touching deep into the primal parts of your brain and calming you. The smell of wood smoke crept into the cave, mixing with the damp leaf mold and petrichor. It was a heady combination and you breathed deep of it, filling your lungs with the beautiful air. At the back of the cave a steady dripping noise helped to lull you into a stupor, the flames dancing before your eyes in exotic shapes. Darkness had come fast, the twinkling of millions stars visible outside the cave mouth.

Lazily you stand, moving to your bag and wrenching it open. Your clothes were mud stained and stiff, and you’d rather not dirty the inside of your bag on the first night of camping. Cool air danced over your fire warmed skin, now having stripped naked. The Mauser on the wall was a comfort you hoped you wouldn’t need as you laid yourself into the warmth of the bag. You closed your eyes, your senses focused on the smells and sounds. The crackling of the fire mixed with the steady dripping, an alluring lullaby that heavied your eyelids. Wood smoke tickled your nose, along with that underlying scent of decaying leaves and petrichor, and a hint of wet bark.
	Odd that the cave still smelled of the storm, the outside gravel was dry as was the floor. Besides that the dripping noise had grown steadily louder as if landing amongst a puddle that surely would have been dried by the heat of the fire that warmed the rock walls and floor. Petrichor shouldn’t last that long either, nor was there a tree inside to smell of wet bark. A rising paranoia forced you from the clutches of sleep, your eyes shooting open just as the sound of popping bones filled the cavern.
	You saw it, hunched in the corner now as it had slowly crept closer to you while your eyes had been closed. The monstrous creature that had stalked you since the onset of the storm, had played you like a fiddle. How long had it waited in the cavern for you, waiting for you to fall comfortable and defenseless. Glimmering eyes played back the dancing of the flames, dark sockets set into a cattle skull face adorned with massive deer antlers on either side. It’s skin was the mottled brown of rich dirt, and the black of night. A perfectly camouflaged hunter that must have been curled up in the darkness pretending to be a rock. The obscene cattle skull unhinged it’s lower jaw, an inky black tongue lolling over the razor sharp row of teeth that cut a jagged smile. Thick ropes of slaver spattered against the ground as it moved yet closer.

You forced the cold grip of fear from your muscles, moving as fast you had ever moved in your life in a desperate bid to grab the Mauser leaning against the wall. As fast you were, it moved far quicker. The Mauser was snatched from your grasp and forced against your chest, pinning you to the rock floor with incredible strength. Surely this thing would crack your ribs like twigs if it pressed but a bit harder. With one hand the beast forced the hard rifle onto your chest, the elongated bone fingers of its right hand cupping your cheek. Each digit was the length of two and a half middle fingers, at least six joints that ended in a razor sharp nail that pricked at your skin. In your terror you didn’t even realize how soft the bone was, and strangely warm. The creature dragged itself up to you, hanging face to face.
	What you first thought to be eyes black as pitch turned out to be a deep black flecked with every color on the earth. It was like staring into a supernova, one that seemed to twist and explode inside the gaping sockets of the cattle skull. The stench of blood and sweet rot was breathed into your face as the creature opened its mouth again, a tongue as long as a garter snake and twice as thick dropping lazily onto your face. Thick slaver coated your skin as it seemed to taste your entire face inquisitively.You wretched once, twice, holding back bile as the cloying scent of gore and decay invaded your face again with each breath. The monster's curiosity satisfied, it sat back in all its terrible glory. Not an it, very clearly a she. You had guessed her height right, an easy nine feet that was now bent inhumanly atop you. Thick spurs of her spine peeked out from the mottled skin, an off colored white that matched the shoulder blades peeking out from beneath epidermis stretched like a tanned hide. You’d call her gangly, built like a comical scarecrow if not for the thick muscle that added a sizable amount of weight. Her breasts were unnaturally perky, perfect globes set upon her chest that hung ever so slightly with gravity, each tipped with a moss green nipple.
  Each tip of her rib poked out of the cage, small white nubs that trailed down into an incredibly tight waist. Wide set hips trailed to thighs as big around as your head, and by the weight that had settled against your pelvis a buttocks as cushy as the moss you had walked on for hours. The skin on her legs grew taught halfway down the calves, quite literally stretched and nailed in place at the ankles, skeletal feet tipped with three elongated claws and a fourth spike coming off the heel.
	Arms covered in rippling muscle and her beautifully mottled skin held you down, nailed at the wrists with jagged spikes of steel just the same as at her ankles. Your breathing had quickened to near hyperventilation as you looked the creature over, your heart pounding so hard it hurt. It was then the creature laughed, her jaw completely unlocking to hang limp as obscenely powerful vocal cords let loose something akin to a hyena mixed with a cougar.

Your ears rang with the staccato exaltation as loud as a your Mauser, her tongue dancing in the fire colored air and throwing thick saliva in every direction. That strange combination of scents filled your nose again, the leaf mold most prevalently. You realized now that your sleeping bag had become soaked where she sat. The creature followed your gaze in a highly unsettling manner, a mocking skull grin plastered over her “face”. As if understanding your morbid curiosity she pulled herself to a low crouch, thick slimy ribbons of female arousal sticking to your bag and the fire hot slit between her legs. It was physically the same as a human female, dark green almost black labia that just barely peaked from the sides of her puffy womanhood. At the top a small green nub a bit larger than a pebble glistened in the low light. Half horrific half erotic was the way she splayed it open under your gaze with two bone fingers, a literal torrent of fluids dropping out to make a puddle on your sleeping bag that quickly spread its oozing warmth to your pelvis. The inner walls were a bright soft green, akin to pond scum.
	The weight of the rifle on your chest was lifted, as the weapon clattered uselessly across the room with a petulant toss from the she beast. You tried to scramble away, only for the vice strength of a hand to grasp your left shoulder and haul you out of the bag in a smooth motion. Cold night air met your skin, tickling the goosebumps raised in fear. The fire meant to protect you from anything coming inside now blocked you in, and the creature knew it. A high laugh emanated from the skull, reverberating through the twisting nasal cavities and empty sinuses that sent the sound careening over the rock walls. The ink black tongue licked over her face, and to your horror one of the bone eye sockets actually closed like an eyelid as the thick muscle ran over it.

“Are you scared soft one, are you trembling? Does the fear eat at you from the inside, threatening to burst? I’ve never had a hunt like this, never had a chance to see one of you close.”

	The thing spoke to you, actually spoke. The voice was high pitched and clearly feminine, though tinged with low moans of arousal. Each syllable was whispered three times in a cannonade, overlapping in a manner fit to drive you mad. This creature was going to kill you, and was sexually excited to do it.
	You spotted the Mauser, the glint of the barrel as the fire light just barely reached it in the dark corners of the cave. Going down without a fight wasn’t in your way, and you steeled yourself for a gruesome end. Your muscles tensed, and so too did the monstrous female in preparation for whatever move you had planned. Time seemed to stop as you willed yourself to move against the cold clutch of terror.
	As you jolted forward in a wild attempt for your rifle the beast dove sideways, bone fingers and toes digging themselves into the rock like climbing pegs with a crack. The Mauser was nearly in your reach, perhaps you just might have been fast enough. Cracking like a whip the creature’s tongue shot from her skull, wrapping around your ankle and pulling your foot from under you. Stars exploded over your vision as you hit the ground hard, fingertips brushing over the weapon just out of reach. The rock underneath scuffed and bruised you as the creature dragged you backwards and then upwards with only the thick muscle of her tongue.
	Your fingers danced wildly just above the stony surface of the floor, searching for a chance at purchase in vain. Despair clutched at your heart, realization that even if you managed to grab hold of something the strength of the creature would simply tear you in half.

“Bold of yoush, fighting to the end. The shimple wood creatures die sho easily, sho weakly. Struggle little child. Struggle for the Wood Mother.”

	Her speech was slightly impaired by the outstretched tongue, the perverse cannonade pricking the edges of your mind. Flail as you might the creature held you just high enough, mockingly laughing at your futile attempts. Mustering your strength you curled up, swinging at the grisly skull face. Your fist connected with as much force as you could muster, and to your surprise the tongue holding your ankle dropped you unceremoniously to the rocky floor. The creature roared now, clawing at the crack you had put in the eye socket.
	You scrambled for the Mauser, reaching the battered weapon and taking it into your hands. Dropping to your knees you spun and aimed down the sights at the monster. She was far closer than you had expected, crawling towards you at a rapid speed as you had reached the weapon. The skull was pressed against the barrel of the weapon, condensation forming on the cold steel where the thing exhaled onto it. In a mocking grin the mouth opened, her tongue lazily wrapping over the length of the barrel and yanking it into her gullet in a perverse mockery of fellatio. Her teeth ground over the barrel, leaving scores along the blued metal as gobs of slaver dripped to the floor. “Go ahead soft one”

	A wet gagging came from her throat as the tongue curled farther over the weapon pulling it deeper into her wet throat, her voice seemingly unaffected by the length in her mouth.

“Shoot it inside me”

	The tongue curled over your first hand, then to your trigger finger. It wiggled against your skin, coating it with the viscous saliva and mucus that was now covering the floor between you. You tensed, her blatant disregard for looming death raising severe doubts the Mauser would do anything to her. The grasp of her bone hands on your shoulders forced your muscles to move, and the trigger fired the round you had kept loaded in the weapon.
	The skull quite literally exploded, shards of bone peppering the walls as the antlers fell to either side of where her head used to be and clattered to the rock floor. Cotton set itself into your ears, deafened by the gunfire in such an enclosed space. There was no blood, just a spreading pool of that thick mucus like saliva that burbled from the remains of her neck. The nails that pinned the skin to the bone around her wrists and ankles were set into the base of her neck as well, forming the crude mockery of a collar.
	You exhaled deeply, falling to your rear on the cold stone as a cold sweat ran over your skin. The corpse twitched rhythmically, for a few moments before it fell still. Somehow you had done it, killed whatever horror it was that called itself Wood Mother. You heard crazed laughter, and for a moment thought the worst until you realized that you were the one laughing. You clutched at your stomach, tears welling in your eyes as you laughed and cried at the same time.
	It was only when a second set of laughter joined yours that you fell silent, a deep despair and worry setting in as the familiar cougar-hyena cross filled the cavern from every direction. The body on the ground was still, but the shards of skull bouncing over the floor seemed to dance to the tune that gripped your mind. Before your eyes the shattered bone began to reform, joining itself together with a strange magic. The antlers skid over the rock loudly, snapping into place on either side of the broken skull as it became whole once more. The laughing grew louder, filling your brain and leaving you no room to think. Before your eyes the creature snaps upwards, the cattle skull head now fully back together.

	“I like you soft one, nothing has ever stood to the Wood Mother.”

	The bolt cycled as fast as you could manage, but not near quick enough. Just as you nearly closed it the monster was on you. With an incredibly loud snap you were covered in splintered wood and sharp shards of metal as the Mauser in your hands was turned to scrap under the monstrous grip. Hands raised you managed to cover your eyes as your only defense was pulled from you. Before you could lower your arms the bone grip was around your wrists, raising your arms above you and lifting you from the floor once more.
	The Wood Mother slowly raised her eyes to yours, hairline cracks in the skull filling in before your eyes as she stares into the depths of you.

	“No more toys. No more running. You’ve proven yourself to me now, and I shall have you as my own.”

	The reverberating voice dulled your vision, the supernovae in her eyes your sole focus as her face slowly lowered from view. She took your wrists in one hand, holding you in the air as her other hand locked around your throat and forced your vision to keep her out of sight. You could follow her head by the hot steam of her breath that trails down your chest and stomach. Horrific castrations run through your head as the wet air tickles your glans, and you prepared for the worst. Even in the face of overwhelming despair and fear your body reacted to the sensation, a growing heat in your pelvis.
	You heard a wicked clicking, the same as when her jaw unlocked before. You winced as the breath drew near and readied yourself for the pain. Kaleidoscopes of colors burst into your eyes as she took your quickly hardening length into first her mouth and then her impossibly tight throat. The mucus coated your manhood instantly, forming a thick slime of heat that the muscles in her mouth massaged rhythmically. A groan escaped your lips as her wicked tongue encircled your base and coiled over your cock. You could feel the light pricking of her teeth on your crotch from her upper jaw, suction to rival a vacuum straining against your length as the creature noisily slurped down on you.
	Unable to see her ministrations you were forced to endure the lewd torment with eyes half lidded in the fire light. The thick musculature of her tongue pumped your entire length from base to tip into her waiting throat, and you struggled to hold against such a voracious fellatio.“More delicious than any freshly hunted kill, give me a treat worthy of your strength human”

	The fact your cock was halfway down her bulging throat made her request even more depraved, the inhuman echoing speech laced with desire and want. Breathy moans filled the air, yours and hers as she hungrily slurped down your body. The tip of her tongue bounced your balls as they tensed, and with a final powerful suck she unhinged her lower jaw even more to thrust the tip of your length to the very bottom of her throat. The colors in your eyes turned to a blinding white as you spasmed inside her waiting gullet, dumping thick strands into her eager maw. She didn't speak, rather moaned deeply around your length sending incredible vibrations that tingled your spine.

	“A wonderful first, a taste I can already feel myself addicted to. Mine.”

	The last word is spoke with such a force you’re sure it’s that which sends you to your back and not her dropping you to the floor gently. Finally visible to you again, her face is horrifically enticing. Her lower jaw seems to have locked again, strands of thick mucus-y slaver dripping from all of her lower teeth. She hovered over you, the unnatural eyes looking at you as though you were prey. Her right hand came to your face, pressing it down against the rock as the bones wrapped completely around your skull.
	She spoke in a tongue unknown to you, one that tingled your teeth with static as the horrible utterances fill the cave with static of old magic. You found yourself painfully hard, bucking into the air as whatever curse she cast upon you took hold as a knot in your balls. Through the shapes of her fingers obscuring your vision you could see her crouch over you, breasts hanging and swaying with a tantalizing circulature that left the afterimage of green nipples in your eyes. Obscured by the shadows of the night you feel rather than see the thick gobs of her arousal dropping onto the head of your length as she positioned the furnace of heat from her cunt over you.
	The soft palm of bone over your mouth stifles your cry as she plunges your rod to her deepest depths in a single movement. No hand covers her mouth however as she howls so loudly you fear your eardrums may pop, and all you can do is moan weakly as you realize her passage twists and turns with a mind of its own. The scent of hers fills your nostrils, a thick aroma that pulls itself into your sinuses.
	She sat atop you, unmoving as her jaw clicked against itself repeatedly. Despite her stock still figure, the vice between her legs was still twisting and sucking at you with wild abandon. The bone fingers unwrapped from your skull and placed themselves on your chest with her other hand, leaving you face to face with the abomination currently speared onto your cock. The cattle skull drew close, a hair's breadth from your own face. The sweet tang of blood and rot drove away the lovely scent of leaf mold, wet bark, and fresh rain as she spoke.

“Impregnate me, fuck me, impale me on your weapon human. Lest you choke.”

	You opened your mouth in protest, only for her tongue to invade your mouth and curl into your throat as she pressed the soft bone of her face against your lips, a french kiss so deep you could feel the tip of her tongue deep in your throat curling and uncurling. The taste of sweet meat filled your mouth, the thick saliva sweet and mildly intoxicating. Already the edges of your vision blurred from lack of oxygen, as you struggled against the overpowering force.

“I said. FUCK!”

	The Wood Mother screamed at you through the kiss, directly into your mind as she bounced on you once with enough force to bruise your pelvis. With no other choice you grasped against the skin of her hips. Tight muscle coiled and uncoiled under your grip, thousands of tightly wound cords writhing along her bones. Millions of tiny soft hairs coated the skin, and you dug your hands against her. Though weak as your consciousness fades, you wildly fucked into the sucking pussy that grasped painfully tight around you. Her passage was covered in bumps and bristles, each stroke driving you to the edge that never comes.
	Pleased with your abandoning of reason the Wood Mother retracted her tongue from your throat and set the heavy muscle in your mouth, dancing with your tongue. You greedily sucked in as deep a breath as you could, and in an instant her tongue forced its way down your esophagus again. Nearly unconscious, the pleasures of her flesh were heightened to an absurd degree, her thick juices having formed a sucking mess of female cum between your joined hips.
The crackling of the fire was drowned out by the wet sucking and slapping of yourself and the monster. With each thrust into her coiling passage and to the hard wall of her cervix she screamed out. The earlier moans were gone, replaced with the screams of the damned and dying. She sounded like your cock was killing her, each thrust pushing her to death.

“YES. YES. FUCK YOUR GOD. SLAY YOUR MONSTER.”

	The creature reared up over you, arching her back as she threw back her head to the sky and screamed out that horrific language. Your eyes rolled back, the release you longed for finally overtaking your body as she clamped down on you so tightly you gasped out in a mix of pain and pleasure. Just like her mouth, her womanhood sucked against you, even stronger than her throat had. Each twitch of your length was met with an incredible force that drew your seed into her farther and farther. The scream that ripped open her throat was replaced with her thundering laughter as she wildly bounced on you, the sensitivity sending you into the throes of a second even stronger finish.
Spent, you struggled against the creeping grasp of sleep as the Wood Mother leaned down to fill your vision with her grinning skull once more.

“What a good worship you’ve given me. My first and best. Rest now human, the hunt is not over. Flee into the woods, escape me if you can. Or if you even want to.”

	The bumps and bristles slid over your still hard cock, prompting a final few twitches from you as she pulled herself up. Thick strands of her cum hung in strands still joined to your hips and crotch as the beast stood as tall as she could in the cave.

“You better fight for your life human, if you make it too easy I’ll pull your guts out and feed them to you.”

	Her tone was serious, each of the three voices that spoke dripping malice. Despite that, she grabbed your sleeping bag, carefully pulling it over you as sleep took you.

Part 1 of 5 (?? Maybe more)