Before I could see what followed us, I was able to smell it.
The beast smelled like dead fish and sweat, strong enough to even cover the light blood smell of our burrow entirely.
The steps of the heavy lizard-creature now sent tremors through the ground.
Each step was followed by the heavy dragging noise the creature produced when it dragged its inflated abdomen over the leaf littered ground.
The first thing that appeared before us was the monstrosities head.
The head looked like a trammpled lizard head, just that only the head was already the size of a dog.
The eyes were entirely black, they gave the impression, that the beast was already dead, and didnt seem to be looking at anything in paricular.
The dazzling dark blue scales of the creatures slid past and revealed the reptiles middle part.
It had two more pairs of legs, that it pushed deep into the ground to stem its heavy body forward.
The legs were each quite long and bony, especially the front legs, something that didn't seem optimal for that much weight.
It had a high sail of flesh and peaky thin bones on its back, reaching high and cutting through the leaf canopy above us.
The beast was still dragging itself forward.
'It can't smell us? Maybe the scent of the burrow is strong enough to cover ours.'
Had the light smell of blood from the burrow really entirely superimposed ours?
Or was there still something left?
The scaly creature had stopped.
My heart was now racing.
It produced those weird sniffing and hissing sounds again.
'It smelled something, it surely did, it knows we are here, it knows!'
Something touched my shoulder. I had to pull myself together to not flinch.
It was the girls hand.
She was starring at me.
Just now I noticed my breath going faster again. I tried calming down, forced my breath calm and steady.
The creature was still sniffing.
What happened next was somewhat unexplainable.
The monster raised the entire front half of its body into the air, weirdly pulling its sail together.
I could even from our cover see, that the beasts stomach was cut open, or so it looked.
The ribs were standing out on the sides and I was not able to see what was behind them, but wether or not I wanted to see that, I was not sure.
Now the reptile sunk back to all six of its long legs and started pushing itself forward once again.
It felt, as if the entire creatures weight had fell off of my shoulders just now.
It hadn't noticed us.
A long, almost snake-like tail was now slithering past the small burrow.
The creature moved on. Just a couple of minutes later, every sign of it had dissapeared.
Air burst from my lungs in a ragged exhale.
My eyes darted over to the strange girl next to me again.
Her expression was cold and calculating and she radiated that sense as though she had not just witnessed a beast of at least 3 tons drag its heavy frame past us, mere centimeters infront of our hiding space.
Her gaze finally broke away from the hole in the tall grass that the monster had left behind, and she looked at me.
It first looked as if she was disgusted by me, but a moment later she put on quite a convincing smile.
"Hi, I'm Thessa! What your name?"
"Uhm. Somnius."
Her smile shifted into a perplexed look:
"What a strange name. Im going to call you Som for now. Is that okay?"
"Can we please get out of this dirt hole, first, please?"
She started crawling out of our little niche again and after a few minutes, we sat on a low branch on a tree nearby.
"I'm sorry for bringing that...thing straight towards you. That could've ended really bad."
I remembered the glistening scales pass by our little hide out.
"Something was off about it, dont you think?", she continued.
I thought about it, but I could not find anything particularly weird about the creature, except the part where it was as big as a carriage.
"No? It was just a regular giant lizard I think."
She sighed and rolled her eyes, I grinned.
"I meant its head. Remember when it hissed?"
I thought back.
The dead expression on the beasts face, not a single movement as it hissed and...
"Now that you mention it. Where did the hissing come from?"
Her eyes told me, that I had nailed it.
"Exactly. Amd when it sniffed, there was no head movement either. I bet it has a second face somewhere else on its body."
An idea cam to my mind:
"The ribs! It had exposed ribs, so maybe it has a face where its organs should be!"
"But if that's the case, how could it have seen..."
"Who said it did? Maybe it orients itself only using its semse of smell!"
She nodded lost in thought.
After a few moments, she asked:
"But how does it turn other beings into stone?"
"Hmmm, beats me. But it seems like the lizard lost our trail anyways. Im pretty tired, so I'm going to sleep for now."
She stretched and yawned: "Yeah, you're right."
And with that, she curled together next to me on the branch and her breath slowed down.
She had already fell asleep.