9

What might've been a man can't smell the one running anymore. Not a whiff. Not since something else; others unlike whatever else introduced and intruded upon whiffs and obsessed about something like thoughts about whiffs. Those different whiffs are bulbous, furry frenzies. Big hands. Small hands. Dull, long teeth. Hair and skin. Vicious primate war cries.

They bite and pull and dislocate. Dismembering limbs like disruption. Torsos lay helpless and are assimilated into bellies and the belly-less alike. Heads roll like the eyes of God, fearing and trembling before the mountain of Abraham's will.

Not for long. Too many come from the city. They're overtaken. All are in a trap of numbers. The horde engulfs the primates, one by one until extinction.

What might've been a man crosses the borderline of city whiff and whatever the new whiff means. The fallen bars of a gate trip but don't collapse what might've been.

The four legged beasts that have been following and eating smell like whatever. One beast is beginning to smell like what might've been. One beast in particular. A big beast with a big back hunch. That particular beast walks toward and in front of what might've been a man.

It smiles and pants. Does the beast laugh? What is laughter? What might've been can't feel vibration in the ears. That part might never have been there. What might've been a man may have only ever known watching and whiffing. Maybe. Not sure. Memories aren't memories.

The smiling, strong tooth beast walks up and bangs into what might've been a man. Hard. Rabid. They both fall over. The beast doesn't get up. What might've been a man crawls onto it and bites into its furry belly. Wrenching and pulling open. Grasping intestines. Chewing and swallowing. Wretches to swallow again. Lipless teeth gnaw on the tip of a rib.

The beast twitches. Raises its head. Smiles. They meet gravity to gravity. Eye to eye. The beast stands and what might've been a man slides off the sallow, crimson fur. It walks away with its rot bulging entrails dragging behind. What might've been a man holds fingers through intestines and is slowly towed behind the hyena.

They inchmeal past a group of what might've been who're gutting and flaying. Shitting and swallowing seconds and thirds of what might've been a giant ape.