The Huntress: Becoming a Huntress

by Mihaela Gheorghe

  Kyrya’s question is rhetorical. The smell is becoming stronger, increasingly more poignantly.

  “Get her out of here!”

  His tone is mechanical, masterful. Kyrya pulls my hand.

  “No!” I shout, trying to get rid of her grip. “ I shall stick with you!”

  But I can't escape. More forcefully, Kyrya is dragging me to the basement. There, she opens a thick, lead door. She fanned me inside. Before I could stand and go out, she locked the door. I start to hit the heavy door with my fists. The thick and heavy metal bend sometimes here and there, but it remains as it was, looked. I no longer perceive any smell. But I can still hear her voice.

  “Whatever you hear, you do not to get out of here!” she says. “You will not leave from here, until this door will be open from this side!”

  “Kyrya,” I scream at her, “let me come up, with you! I will handle it! It's my fault that they’re coming hither, right?”

  “Don’t you ever think of it now!” she says it in a firm tone. “Nothing that is going to happen is your fault! It's just our fault!”

  I hear a fizzle from top to bottom. I realize that Kyrya let herself slide the door until she got to sit. I hear her voice, with those tender accents, as only a mother could have for her child.

  “It's entirely our fault, my precious, my sweetheart, my darling little girl. We, me and Dom, we wanted to give you a life as normal as possible, forgetting that we ought to get you ready for what you are now in fact; forgetting that you're no longer a human Maybe we were afraid of a real and radical change inside you, fear that the change could alter your feelings for us. We were more than happy with you. After the hopelessness we were after the death of our daughter, you have rendered us joy and light.”

  No! Why did she speak in the past tense? Why is she expressing herself as if it will follow a particular end?

  “Shut up!” I yell at her. ”You shut up! Let me come up!”

  “Don't you worry, sweetheart!” she says as gently. “We will deal with them. And then, we will come to get you out of here, and go somewhere else, and we'll be just as happy. Do you remember all those dances... And the clubs... And all the fun...?”

  Can’t she just see that she adds burning fire in my chest, which is supposed to make me out torrents of tears just as hot. But I no longer have this ability to weep. My eyes burn and they are dry. I hear from upstairs how Dom is moving the heavy furniture. He probably wants to prevent as much as he can the invasion.

  “I gotta go.” Kyrya says

  “No!” I scream again.

  “Please,” she says, “please, remember to stay silent, motionless, and breathless, if you can. No matter what you hear, you stay here. We're going to come after you...”

  There is a moment of silence, then a short sound, as if she'd stood up.

  “Wait!” I say then “Please, stay a little longer!”

  “I must be near Dom.” she says. “You just remember what I told you!” she insists. “Will you do as I said?”

  “I can not... No… I can’t...

  “You swear!” she forces me with her tone.”Swear that you will do as I asked you! Let me and Dom be easeful, so that we can focus better. Will you do so?”

  And because I am still quiet, she calls me by my name.

  “Patricia!”

  If by swearing I might raise the little chance they have to win this, then I shall swear.

  “Yes! Yes, I swear that I will not make any sound, I will not make the slightest movement!”

  Then, there is again another moment of silence.

  “Kyrya?” I ask, afraid that she’s gone.

  “We love you, Patricia, with our whole being, forever!”

  And then nothing. I knew that I remained all alone. I knew that she joined Dom in trying to fix my error.

  For a while, I have not heard anything. Either because nobody was really doing anything, either because I was too busy to pray. And then, suddenly, a deafening uproar began. I heard the sounds of broken bones, cries of pain, agonizing cries, and screams of anger. As if I was hearing wild animals fighting each other. I could hear even the rattles. But I was focused to distinguish the noises that Dom and Kyrya made. But it was hard to tell who was who. Then I heard steps on the stairs leading to the basement where I am. My heart leaped for joy. I was about to scream, but I remembered the promise I made to Kyrya. She will now see that I have kept my promise, that I have not violated the oath I took. But the steps are not turning to me. Then, I hear several steps. And more. Seeking. Searching. Speaking. Swearing. Noisily sniffing. Then a sound coming to the lead door. I kept my breath. I stopped even blinking. I perfectly hear how the door is sniffed. Someone, something... tries to open it. A cuss. And then nothing.

  I don't know how much time has passed. But I have not breathed. I didn't flinch. I hadn't moved. I stood like a statue. Like I was made of stone. Then, my heart began to beat frantically when the door was opened. But, when an unknown silhouette was profiled in front of my eyes, even the last hope died inside me. I knew then for sure that Kyrya will not dance with me ever. I knew as sure that I shall never see or hear Dom. I have not paid the slightest attention to the person who immobilized me and who took me… I don't know where. I haven't paid any attention to anything. I was so petrified.... This hard pain...

  How to explain something that can't be explained? How to weep, when I no longer have tears? How to scream, when I no longer have a voice because of such suffering? How to say ‘Farewell’ to someone for an eternity? How to stand this pain that is not killing me, but it doesn't let me live either? I cannot be as those who admit to suffering by virtue of the happiness which they had formerly known. If I know that I would dream up indefinitely, I'd prefer to sleep, dreaming that I am for an eternity with them. But I can't do this. Because I'm scared of that, at some point, I'll have to wake up and come back to the reality that I don't accept, that I don’t receive. I realize that I am again the poorest creature on the Earth's surface. Because all the money cannot help me to buy back my past. Are we created only to be trampled? Only to be eaten by suffering, and allowed to rot in it? I know that nobody dies due to suffering, but Gosh, how I wish that this can happen! Where was I when they perished? Oh, how I wish I can get my heart out of my chest! But if I remove it, in that place where it will remain nothing, would still be the pain. It will still remain this feeling of nothingness, of a desolate inner suffering. The

  suffering I feel cuts my breathing. It's too much of it. It's too deep. It's too painful... My teeth are starting to bite in my own skin, in my own flesh. With my claws, I start cutting myself, my body, as a self-flagellation. My forearms and my arms are raw, so I can see the bones. And let me assure you that it does hurt. I’d prefer a thousand times this suffering, every second, for the rest of my existence, instead of this inner sensation that I have. I'd prefer to infinity, in every moment, for an eternity, any physical purgatory if Kyrya and Dom would be still next to me.

  I don't know how much time has passed since I am locked in here. The wounds that I cause to myself heal, and then I cause them again. This sharp and repeated physical pain helps me somewhat to stand the awareness of Kyrya’s and Dom’s end. Time goes by, wounding myself me over and over again. Physically, mentally and emotionally. Even I don't care where I am and why I am here. So long, long time passed by. Enough to almost drown myself in my venom. The hunger I feel is deep enough to literally begin to eat me. Enough that my teeth, my canines to get longer, more sharp and more biting than ever; so sharp, so biting, that hurt my lips, indefinitely. Enough to turn my nails into claws that I dig into my own chest with, timeless. My own blood splashes me. Flesh of my flesh jumps in all parts. My body can burn. My throat burns. All of my organs are as if in flames. So much that, at one point, my clothes is starting to smell like burned and smoke. So much so that I am close to burn alive. And let me tell you that, with all this pain, nothing surpassed, or at least equaled the grief I still feel for losing my friends, for los
ing the people who I used to call my parents, who were indeed my parents and my creators.

  But when the clothes started to be on fire on me, when the flames started to burn my flesh and the smell of my flesh burned my nostrils and throat, the anger and the hatred that invaded me have defined my existence. I am burning alive. My flesh burns, and the pain, the heat are unbearable. I sit on my knees just a flame which I hope to kill me, because, with that, to end as well the painful agony in my soul. I enjoy being alone in this nearly unbearable pain.

  Before I carbonify myself, the door that held me prisoner, opens. I suffer in body as much as inside. No matter who this man is, no matter what this man wants, he's too late. Even to kill me it would be too late. Because of this took care my own instincts, my own hunger, my own lusts, my own desires after all.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The unbearable feeling of emptiness makes me understand that I'm not dead. Although more naked, nor do I care about this issue. Maybe it's hard to understand for somehow, after a loss which no one can accept, that I cannot adapt to, and that I cannot survive with, I’m going into a sensation of numbness, and other feelings, such as shame, almost completely disappear. My hair, which reaches the back of my knees covers me quite a bit.

  “So she's the anomaly.”

  The voice I hear does not impress me at all. I know that he talks about me. I do not care.

  “It Is the creation of Kyrya and Dom’s.”

  They talk about me by referring at me as me being an ‘it’. However, hearing these last two names, I react. I take mu fists in my mouth, and I and bite myself very hard. My blood gushes. The pain I feel manages to make me stop the groan that has no relation to physical suffering, but also with the hopelessness of my inner. Someone takes my hand and hold it by force. But I no longer react. I feel the scents, something between rain and dust, mixed with lilaceous. Is the scent of the pure hunters.

  “It might be their creation, but it is still an anomaly. The mixture of blood in her veins makes of it an ally or an enemy?”

  “It didn’t show so far that it would be an enemy of our race.” the other voice says.

  “It didn’t’ reveal anything so far.” The other hunter cuts him short.

  “That's because you kept it locked. So what would you have it wanted to show, apart from the fact that it suffers after the loss of its creators?”

  That voice sounds like the he would scold. I can't even focus on this fact. Once, because I am apathetic, and second, because I'm starving. Enough to begin to tremble and to react as every time: the venom slavers on my sharp and large canines, and my claws start to cut off the man’s flesh, the same man that holds my hands. He suddenly releases me, the injuries I involuntary cause, starting already to heal.

  “Look at it!” I hear again the voice that seems to take my side. “It reacts as any of us when starve, isn’t that enough of a proof?”

  “As if we can know what other reactions it might have!”

  It follows a tense silence.

  “Then you give it to me to train it! I'll observe it with attention throughout the preparatory training period and I will tell you if it is a danger to our race or not.”

  My brute snarl that leaves my neck shows me that, beyond the inner suffering, there is also something else: hunger, anger, hate, instinct. Only the thought that I’d have before my eyes a vampire fills my mouth with even more venom, fills my heart with more hatred and anger. My eyes start to burn. I would be able to break in half a vampire, and I’d enjoy with his flesh, with his heart.

  “It’s hungry to starve.” A voice says again.

  I started to burn. This means that I can no longer survive.

  “So what are you going to do with it?”

  After a few seconds, the answer comes.

  “Have it your way! Take it, feed it, prepare it. We'll see, in the end, if I just took the right decision, or not.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that, at the end of its training, we will see if we made out of it the best Hunter ever, thanks to its superior skills, or the most feared weapon against us.”

  Under the impact of the hot and spasmodic tremor, I find it impossible to say what further is going on. I am dragged into a room whose smell fills my thrilled nostrils. Once I entered there, what I am, permanently takes control over me, starts to possess me. I release myself from his grip, and I throw myself like a wild animal on the food here. Raw, bloody meat, still quivering organs, blood… galore.... I eat with an exaggerated, ravenously hunger, covering my body in blood and dirt. You can't imagine the satisfaction I’m eating with! I don’t find repugnant the fact that I eat a being. On the contrary, now, I do it with pleasure, gladly. The idea that maybe one of the creatures I consume could have been one of my parents ' killer, fills me with a delight neighboring pathology. Only after I quench my hunger, I can take control over myself again. Then, I realize what's going on around me, I am aware of the other hunter. We look at each other. Him, curiously. Me, senselessness.

  “I'm Nikos.” He says.

  That doesn’t interest me. Even if my rags more reveal my body than covering it, I don't get off from his gaze. I remain quiet. What does he want from me?

  “How do you call yourself?” he further asks me.

  I still don't speak. When he makes a step towards me, I make a jump back, and I increase the distance between us.

  “I’m not going to do you any harm.” he calmly stated.

  “What do you want?”

  I note with surprise, that my voice is very hoarse. It is a very long time since I have not articulated sounds. More than likely, my voice will remain his way. With a thicker and a more hoarse ring. He smiles reassuringly.

  “I’d better let you take care of yourself a little, and we'll talk after that.”

  So I took care of myself. I am washed, dressed, and most importantly, the wounds caused by myself, and the burns caused by my hunger, are healed. So now I am face to face with the Hunter. We both sit on the chairs and we are separated by a simple desk. Nothing in the decoration of this room does not fit in with the trend, which has to do with technology and holograms, with robots. The décor is more likely one really old, like when I was attending high school. This surprises me, but not unpleasantly. I look at him in his eyes, studying him. He has dark hair, curly olive skin, firm nose. I can see his foreign origins, just like Kyrya’s and Dom’s. So of course he has very dark eyes. I can’t make any distinction between his pupils and his iris. Tiny glitters gold shine in their depths. I already saw that he is very tall and solid, just like Dom.

  “As I already said, I'm Nikos. Who are you?”

  I hesitate for a few moments, but I don't see why I would not say my name.

  “Patricia.”

  “Very well, Patricia. Do you want me to put you in touch with everything that happens, right?”

  I do not respond to his question. It is already obvious.

  “Unfortunately and very regrettably, we’ve lost Kyrya and Dom.”

  He doesn’t know what regrettable means. He does not know what it really means to feel bad, what does it mean to feel guilty. Specifically, guilty. Because I know that I'm guilty for their deaths. So as I said, he doesn't know what 'regrettable' means. I get angry.

  “Shut Up! Don’t you talk about them as if you'd known them, as if you’ re really sorry for them!”

  My tone is edgy. But he just stared at me without making any comment. After a short moment of silence, Nikos starts talking again.

  “Honestly, I don't know exactly how much time has passed since the… incident, until my people have found you. But I can tell you that you have been here for three years. No one has been able to withstand without having to feed, like you did. You have an extraordinary strength.”

  To me, these particulars are unimportant. I shrug. It's much less important than the fact that I can't relieve the pain of Dom’s and Kyrya’s death, even after so long. But when you have an eternity just to suffer, this is aga
in, extremely low proportions. This awareness makes me shiver. To be sure, his eyes are not missing anything. He looks at me more closely.

  “Yes.” he concludes. “I can't imagine what their death means to you now, because I've never gone through anything like this. I've known not my parents and so...

  “What makes you think that I would like to know the story of your life?”

  My tough question stops him. I know I'm being rude. I do not care. I'll never be the same. Slowly, but surely, I become what I was very long ago. Do you remember that I said that 'the tide turns?’ And so, again, I do not care about others, and more, I don’t care about what they say or what they feel. Apparently, he's embarrassed. The ability to read in people's eyes, which I had ever since I was a mere human, now turned into a second nature for me

  “Yes, I suppose you don't care.” he says at the end.

  “What am I doing here? What do you want from me?” I ask him again.

  His features are easily getting harsher. It probably ought to be grateful. But positive emotions no longer have place in me.

  “I Just got you rid of extermination.” he says in a tone of reproach.

  I smile. In fact, it is much said. I grin.

  “And again, I ask you, why do you think you did a necessarily good thing?”

  His voice is rough and tough when he speaks.

  “At least, I gave you the opportunity to get your revenge.”

  My head twitches toward him. The thrill I feel is an anticipated pleasure. How wonderful this word sounds! ‘Revenge!’ The hatred and anger overflow inside me against this race, who destroyed for ever my happiness, against this race who became my death enemy, an enemy I shall fight against for the rest of my whole existence, until I ‘ll make sure that it’s not going to remain a single monster, a single vampire. The thought makes my mouth watery with venom. My eyes start to burn in their orbits, with golden flames in their depths.

  “I see you enjoy what I am saying.” Nikos says further.

  I shrug. I'm not hiding, but after I spent plenty of time all alone, all by myself, I no longer see the need to say anything I can think of. Moments of silence fallow again. I'm the one that breaks the silence this time.