In the haunted forest (solo)

His final leap landed him deep within the wooded area. He figured he had put more than enough distance between himself and whatever had spooked him. The trees stretched high above him and weaved a thick canopy blocking what little light the moon could muster. Upon his descent most of the birds had exited the trees, and a few land bound creatures had scurried away. The other vermin cowered in their holes, waiting for him to leave the area. They wouldn’t be so lucky, he decided to rest, and further consider his position. He knew he had died, the vivid feeling of the flames consuming sent a shiver down his spine. And now he stood as some kind muscled superhuman. Well not human, no human had gray skin and huge claws on their hands and feet. This couldn’t be a reward for burning himself alive, and if it was punishment it wasn’t much of one. As he pondered there came a rustling of leaves and a snap of a twig. The tickle he had felt earlier returned and he jumped up from sitting on a nearby tree log.
“Now you sense me.” A throaty voice within the shadows spoke. “You really must be a new one.” The speaker came into view from the trees. What appeared wasn’t human; a snake’s body instead of legs with a human’s torso. The arms of the monster had three fingers, each ending in hooked claws. His eyes adjusting somewhat he could see the speaker’s face was covered in a white mask shaped like a half circle with three horns coming from the top flat side. On the round edge of the mask were two tusks poking from the bottom jaw of the creature. The beast stopped moving
“Can you speak?” It asked. As it spoke he noticed a hole in it’s neck similar to the one in his chest. He was slightly disappointed he wasn’t the only one, but happy to have someone to talk to. Still something in his mind made him wary of the visitor.
“I can speak.” He began “Who or what are you?
The creature began to laugh, it like a hissing sound. The creature entered the clearing completely. It’s tail came into view; it looked like a stegosaurus tail. Four large spikes rose from the end of the serpent like tail.
“Names aren’t my thing, but they do like to call me Pike.” His tail swishes back and forth. “The real question is; do you have a name kid? Do you know who you are?”
He looked at Pike in silence, he had him there. He remembered dying, flashes and fragments of memories, but nothing concrete. Since this creature had a name connected to his appearance, he should come up with something similar.
“Stratus.” He uttered after a moment. He recalled his gray appearance and his aerial flight.
“Stratus is it? Now for what you are; you’re dead.” Pike moved closer, and Stratus took a step back. He stopped advancing as Stratus spoke.
“I know I’m dead. I was human, but now I’m something else.” His clawed feet gripped the earth beneath him and his legs twitched.
“You transcended death.” Pike’s tail cuts the air beside him, making a whistling sound. “Your will to live even after death is what made you what you are. The spirit to grows, twists, and changes.” He holds up his own clawed hand and looks at it. He looks at Stratus again as if for the first time. “We’re Hollow.” His hand points at the hole in his neck straight through his body.

The spoke till the late that night, Pike finally leaves right before dawn. As the light of the sun came through the tree tops Stratus sat motionless replaying the conversation.

"Hollow?" He had asked.
"That's what Shinigami call us, some of our naughtier brethren are given names and titles." was Pike's reply.
"And what are these Shinigami?"
"Like all things we must feed to survive." Pike begins. At the word 'feed' Stratus recalls the bloody mess before he came to the forest. "Shinigami are the people that hunt us down to protect the cattle." The blank sockets that would hold eyes fix on Stratus. It's hard to read someone with you can't see their eyes. "When a lion eats an antelope, you don't see people cry. When a person eats a steak they don't shed a tear as if fries on the grill. We feed upon them, as plentiful as they are, one or two won't be missed." the reptilian creature licks his lips showing rows of fangs.
"Cattle indeed." Is Stratus only reply. "But are these Shinigami really a threat to us?" He looks at his clawed hand.
The creature makes it's hissing laugh again. "Don't underestimate them, they have swords. Swords that can cut our flesh, break our masks, and send us away." The spiked tail slams into the ground at some unwanted memory. Stratus doesn’t ask where ‘away’ is. He sighs. "This is my territory, but I'll let you stay here till tomorrow, kid." Pike starts to slither away, but then stops. The tail flies out and rips tree in half the splinters fly everywhere. "But don't touch any humans that enter this wood. They are my prey."

Back in the present, Stratus finally gets up from his seat. He makes several mental notes; Avoid shinigami was on the top of his list. He can only guess that's what he felt after his first meal and had run by instinct. Feed on humans. The city was further away than expected, but there would be plenty of people there. Protect his mask; it seemed important that his mask not be destroyed. It seemed unfair to have such a huge weakness. His final note was simple; familiarize himself with his new form. He had claws, but all the good it would do if he can't use them properly. His jumping ability was a great means of moving quickly, but useless in a fight. He started to stretch his limbs, if there were a passerby it looked like he was in a gym. He spun his wrist and wiggled his clawed fingers. He pulled back his arm and struck a nearby tree, his hand ripped the trunk apart. He had done something similar with the car on the street. Pike's warning seemed alot less scary. He then stood with is legs slightly parted. He inched them further apart until he sat on the ground his legs in a perfect chinese split position. There was no pain. He turned his hips and shifted his legs into an american split position both to the left and right. “Very good.” He thought, and returned the chinese splits. He placed his palms in front on the ground in front of his split legs and pushed himself off the ground slightly. His legs held inches of the ground still split. He pushed again and pulled his legs upward putting himself into a handstand. He spun himself in place using his hands, first to the right and then to the left. He split his legs and continued to spin, then came to a full stop. A final push with his arms and he sent himself off the ground. In mid-air he shifts his body and pointed his legs downward flipping. He landed gracefully on his feet in the soft earth. He looks at a tree limb above his head. He pushes off gently with his legs, his arms out reaching as he jumps upwards. His claws sink into the wood, and he spins his body up and over it. He sits on the branch in a squat, the limb groans. He’s much too heavy for it. He leaps to another branch a short distance away. This time he only catches it with one hand and swings to another quickly without losing momentum. He swings deftly through the trees, the birds scatter with his approach. He comes to a stop on a fairly large tree, sitting in a squat like before. He looks at down at the forest below. Not much to see. Instead he takes a sudden interest in his toes. As a human has five toes, he seems to only have four clawed toes. Wait, something is wrong. He braces his arms and pulls one of his feet in front of him. He hadn’t noticed before but he does have a fifth toe. It’s on the heel of his foot and it seems almost like a thumb. He wiggles it experimentally, and an idea hits him. He tucks the foot back under himself and releases his hands. He shifts and falls forward off the branch. Just as he’s about to drop, he grabs with his feet. He finds himself staring at the ground, while hanging by his feet. It feels a bit awkward using his fifth toe. Stratus begins swinging with his legs, and tries to toss himself at another branch. It seems he had pushed his luck; he flips through the air. He is completely disorientated and slams into the tree and falls to the ground below. The fall and impact had barely hurt him; he lies on the ground slightly dazed from it all. He laughs, and more birds scatter. It was still early; he had plenty of time to work on it.

The sun had set several hours ago, but Stratus continued his training. Jumping and flipping from tree to tree. He would catch the branches with his hands and feet with relative ease and swing to the next location. The tree now had marks where his claws had dug in for grip. It wasn’t an instant success, he had a few scraped from his collision with the trees and ground. He has spent much of the day getting the timing to land after the flips and spinning. The excitement of his pseudo flight never got old, the air against his bone face and whipping his white hair behind him. Defying earth’s grasp but for a moment was so liberating. To the creatures watching from the deepening shadows it looked like he was just moving without purpose. Truthfully he was looking for Pike. He planned to leave the forest, but wanted to see Pike before he left. He was moving through the area looking for him, trying to feel his presence like he had done the night before. It was difficult, like using a part of the brain that had never been used before. Finally he found it, a faint trail, and followed it to the source. A final leap and he breached the foliage roof and hurtled through the night sky. Back through the branches and down to the earth below. He landed and small cloud of dust puffed up and the ground crunched beneath him.
“Guess you learned a trick or two.” Pike spoke trying to suppress the surprise in his voice. He turned to greet the smaller hollow.
“A few tricks, but not nearly enough.” Stratus stood, and looked around. This area looked like the rest of the forest, but there were bleached human bones lying on the ground. This was his feeding ground it seems. He felt a small hunger pang, but ignored it. “I’m going to head for the city; I wanted to thank you for your generosity.”
Pike hissed laughing “Generosity? I did nothing, kid.”
“True, but you didn’t kill and eat me when I first arrived. For that I’m thankful enough.”
The comment only gained more laughter from serpent. “Hollows eat human and souls. We’ve no reason to eat each other.”
Stratus joins him in the laugher. “Good to know.” He steps closer to the other hollow and extends his right hand to shake. “I wish you well Pike, again thanks.” Pike looks at the offered hand for a moment then slithers forward and extends his own in acceptance. They shake hands, “Good luck kid.”

Suddenly Stratus’ grip tightens; he pulls on Pike’s arm, and brings his left hand down from above. The sharp claws tear through the flesh just as easily as it smashed the car’s hood. Pike’s arm is severed just below the elbow, the hollow shrieks in pain. He quickly swings his tail batting the other hollow away. Since he had been so close, the spikes didn’t hit, but the force of the blow was enough to send Stratus flying back. He landed on his feet and gripped the ground slowing himself to a stop. The severed arm in his hand he took a bite of the bleeding flesh and began chewing. He spit the meat from his mouth and tossed the arm over his shoulder.
“I guess you’re right, that tastes horrible.” Stratus wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“YOU WRETCH!!!!” Pike bellows and slides forward and tries to claw him with his left hand “I’ll eat your heart!” Stratus dodges the claw and the swipe of the tail that follows.
“I wouldn’t recommend that; if your arm tasted nasty, the heart has to be worse.” Was the hollow's coy reply as he danced out of reach of larger hollow. Pike stopped moving and calmed down considerably.
“Don’t underestimate me, kiddo” His tail went stiff and stood vertical behind him. Suddenly the spikes on the tail launched at Stratus. Quicker than expected the bone missiles were on him. He managed to dodge two, but one impaled his left shoulder while the other grazed his right rib. The force that the bolt hit his shoulder sent him spinning to the ground. He rolled and leap to his feet. Four new spikes were already growing in the place of those fired.
“That’s one nasty trick you got there.” He said between gasps, his shoulder ached.
“You’ll get to see more of it!” He yelled as he fired again. The bolts were smaller than the first ones, but Stratus had already jumped into the three and swung unto a branch. It hurt to use his left arm, but he grimaced and swung to the next branch with practiced ease. More spikes fired from below, missing him as he spun and leapt from tree to tree. It seemed he could form new bolts, but his accuracy suffered at distance. He watched from above as Pike instead of firing spun his tail and then struck a nearby tree. The tree was eviscerated and fell; he started to do the same to the other trees. He was effectively cutting of his avenues of escape. Stratus shuddered to think how his body would fair against that spinning tail strike. He hardly wanted another hole in his body. On his next swing he stopped on the branch and launched himself straight into the air and away from Pike. He knew the other could sense him, but at the same time so could he. In the air he ripped the spike from his shoulder; it was nearly three feet long. The pain that would normally make one faint instead enraged him. He began his descent from his jump; below he sensed Pike before he came into view; tail spinning ready to impale him. He came down head first in a death dive. Pike sends his tail forward to meet him before he hits the ground. Before the strike can land Stratus spins his body and kicks off from a tree trunk. The kick sends him careening towards another tree, which he kicks off of as well. He ricochets from tree to tree; Pike cannot follow the moment his tail striking his last location. His final ricochet he puts all his power into his kick off. The tree cracks and bolts at Pike, he pushed the spike he removed from his arm in front. The serpent turns his body just in time to be pierced through the chest; the momentum carries them both to crash against a tree. Pike is nailed to the trunk, and thrashes about. His tail whips blindly trying to hit, he roars in pain. So filled with pain, he doesn’t notice Stratus has stood up and walked behind the tree and plunge his hand through it and into the back of his neck. The tail stops moving and goes limp.
“Well I really must thank you Pike.” The hollow frees his bloody hand from the corpse. “I’ve learned quite a bit from you.” As he speaks the body starts break apart as if made of sand and an unseen wind blows it away. “We aren’t invincible and I should fear other hollows as much as I should be wary of these shinigami.” He looked at the dust that remained “Goodbye Pike.”

The wound in his shoulder had stopped bleeding. It looked as if it was healing as well. He suddenly felt very hungry. He had worked up quite an appetite. He leapt into the air and grabbed a branch and started swinging. Perhaps he would run into a human long the way.