It was late afternoon, just when the first licks of orange were starting to flare up from the horizon to mark the coming sunset, when the Snatcher arrived at the town.  It had been guided dually by smell and hunger, and after coming upon a scent-laden, trampled-dirt path through the plain, it had easily been able to trace the little village.  Many of the men were just now coming in from the potato fields, and the Snatcher could smell their weariness.  It hobbled toward the buildings, the concept of stealth completely alien to it, and it managed to within range before a nearby pair of chatting people, one a young farmer and the other his mother, noticed it.  With all the ceremony of a scorpion stinging its prey, the Snatcher lined up its head with its target and released a series of taught muscles to let its literal flesh-hook fly.  The vile blade lodged in the man's back, and he crumpled, stricken.

The woman screamed and started to run, but the Snatcher was not interested in her.  It simply reeled its prey in, sedate and utterly repugnant.  When the villager realized that the Snatcher's only focus was on her son, she grabbed the spade his limp hand had dropped and rushed at the grotesque creature with wild, reckless wrath, alternating between weeping and shrieking.  She swung once, smashing the spade onto the Snatcher's head, and the thing slumped to the ground like a sack of wet dirt.  One of its hands still pawed at her, but she shook it off and pried the Snatcher's barb from her son's back, unfortunately but unavoidably spilling his blood.  The young man was alive, but unable to stand, so she dragged him to his feet and held him up, walking back toward the safety of the town from the monstrosity that had almost severed the bond between them.

[i]Shtk[/i]

Another cry as the mother felt the barb jam into her hip.  Her body went into shock, falling limply backward, and without anything to support him the young farmer toppled as well.  Slowly but surely, the tendon cord pulled her in, with her son still clinging to her in mute, until the grasping arms could transition the two into the Snatcher's ribcage prison.  The beast started to walk away, plodding somewhat woozily due to the blow delivered to it, ignoring the angry and fearful shouts building in intensity behind it.  Mother and son watched with bleary eyes as the village receded into the distance, praying with every thought they could muster that someone would come to save them—but nobody did.  After realizing that, the pair could do nothing but wait while the Snatcher carried them all the way back to the Flesh Pit, where the bond between them would remain forever unbroken.