by Sarah Chorn
He pinched the bridge of his nose. His entire body was shaking. He felt like the earth was trembling around him, but no, it was just him. He squeezed his eyes shut, a headache stabbing him behind the eyes. Water surged inside of him, a great pool of it collecting, gathering strength, turning from a stream into rapids, from rapids to a tidal wave. It was sucking him under, pulling him down. His skin felt too tight. His body ached. His hands were glowing. No, his eyes were glowing, casting a watery blue light wherever he looked. His body was beaded with droplets of dew that had come from everywhere, just appeared like they had always been there. His clothes were soaked through, his hair clinging to his face.
What the fuck was going on?
Water roared through him, and in his heightened anxiety, with all of his worry, he was losing the battle for control. He was losing himself.
He hadn’t seen Seraphina move, just felt her hand in his, strong and firm, her fire surging through their touch, pushing against his water, forcing it down. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her nose crinkled up. She was still asleep but even then, somehow, she’d felt his struggle; knew he needed her and offered herself to his aid. He held her hand in his, let her fire burn him up, turn his water into steam and beat it back, felt the balance of her touch, felt himself sink into his own skin again.
What was he turning into? What were they becoming? And why?
“Neryan,” Seraphina whispered. Her voice sounded like a prayer, like heaven, like a dream.
“Seraphina?” he whispered, kneeling beside the bed, willing her to open her eyes. Instead, she just let out a contented sigh and sank deeper into the covers, her body relaxing. She had spoken, though. She had said his name, and that meant something. That was important. Some part of her knew she was safe, with him. Now he just had to wait patiently for her to wake up.
Mouse
She felt him coming long before she saw him. She tasted his fear and worry in the air, that unique flavor that was all Neryan. That’s what she’d been wanting, to suck up all the anxiety he was dropping and turn it into a meal made just for her, to savor just a bit of that twisted up soul. She’d been trying, for a week now, to force food into her body in the hope that some of it would stick. But the more she tried, the hungrier she got. And here he came, walking toward her like a feast and she wasn’t sure she was strong enough not to devour him right then and there.
She wasn’t oblivious to the danger she was becoming. She stayed outside, away from the cabin and that stew of hot, heady emotions, the souls simmering, waiting for her to suck them up like the banquet they were. She’d stayed out in the forest, picking at the trees, eyeing the eastern horizon as though it would tell her its secrets. As though it would reveal what was calling to her. Soon—very, very soon—she’d have to leave. Absolutely nothing good could come of her staying here.
She was isolated, on her own, effectively cut off from everyone she knew and loved, afraid for them, afraid of herself, and lonely. She’d been alone before, but being lonely was fairly new to her. There was something cold and cutting about being outside, looking in.
She was balanced on the edge of something huge. Eventually something, anything, would push her, and she’d fall. She wanted to fall somewhere else, somewhere far away from these people who meant so much to her.
“Mouse?” Neryan asked. His voice was gentle. He came around the bend, appearing between two large, dry oaks like an apparition. Above them, the sapphire sky was gradually turning to bruised apricot; the sun, a drop of honey hovering at the tree line, waited to fall. Obsidian and wine spilled like ink, marring the drama of twilight. The moon was a pearl ushering in the darkness. Stars began to wink into life here and there, adorning the heavens with diamonds and wishes.
She should probably think it was beautiful, but she couldn’t eat beauty, and she was so incredibly empty. Not even hungry anymore, just… empty.
“Mouse, are you okay?” he asked, drawing nearer. Something had happened in the cabin. She could smell it on him, both the easing of his worry, and the heightening of his fear. He reached for her shoulder and she lurched away like his fingers were on fire.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, and he flinched as though he’d been slapped. Hurt filled his eyes, and she hated herself for putting it there.
“I’m sorry.” He put his hands in the air, surrendering, taking a step back. “I’m just worried, Mouse. You look… well, you look terrible. Vadden is worried about you, too. I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you. I’m sorry I’ve been so distracted. If you’re sick then—”
“I’m not sick,” she whispered. “I don’t need a hedge witch.”
“You look sick. You’re yellow and wasting away, but you’re eating everything in sight. We don’t have much food, but we have enough for—”
“I’m not sick, Neryan,” she hissed, pulling back her lips, exposing her teeth. “I’m… I need to go.”
“Go where? Mouse, what are you talking about?”
“I’m hungry!” she bellowed suddenly, frustration and anxiety boiling over, spilling everywhere. “I’m so hungry! Nothing fills me up. Whatever this is, whatever is happening to me, I can’t stay here. Nothing is touching that big empty pit inside of me. I have to go and find something to feed on, something that will satisfy me, or I’ll start to hurt myself, maybe hurt you and—”
She cut off her rambling, pacing back and forth in a tight line, the words tumbling all over each other in an effort to find their way out of her mouth. It took her a minute before she realized she’d said ‘feed’ rather than ‘eat’, like she was an animal to be fed and not a human who consumed.
Neryan’s big hands landed on her shoulders, stopping her in her tracks, his kind eyes on hers. She must look mad to him, mad and wasting away. Who was she becoming? What was tearing her up like this? “Mouse, you and I, we’re family. If you feel like something is wrong, then we’ll figure it out together. As a family. I just ask that you give us some time, okay? Let Seraphina wake up. Let us all just catch our breaths. Can you do that?”
No. “Yes.”
“In the meantime, I want you to eat some actual food and I want you to stay warm in that cabin.” He paused. “Mousumi, I don’t want anything to happen to you, my heart. The two of us, we belong together. Where you go, I go. Remember?”
She’d hollered those words at him that first year together. He’d tried so hard to lose her, and she’d find him over and over again, shouting that very sentence at him. It almost made her smile to remember.
“Okay,” she said.
It wasn’t okay.
She let him lead her into the cabin, her eyes skipping over the sleeping body of his sister. Seraphina was terrified even in her dreams and it smelled amazing, sweetening up the air like a cloud of sugar. All she had to do was inhale to take it all in, but what else would she be consuming? She couldn’t do that to Neryan. Seraphina’s soul would stay where it was, unless Mouse stole it, and she had no intention of doing that, no matter how much it hurt her.
The night drew on. Vadden was gone. He’d stomped into the forest hours ago wrapped up in anger and defeat, and Neryan looked exhausted, completely drained. He made sure Mouse had a blanket covering her before he curled up next to his sister on that tiny bed. Soon he was snoring.
She gave him an hour. One hour of being exquisitely tortured, of smelling all that soul, and not being able to drink up any of it.
Then she got up, and walked out.
She couldn’t stay there anymore, not the way she was, not with something this dark and empty trying to claw its way out of her. She didn’t know what was happening, but she loved Neryan too much to put him in danger, and that’s what she was becoming: a danger. She was a string pulled tight. Soon, she’d snap.
She thought of the people in the Reach and she trudged out into the trees. They’d tasted so good. She’d inhaled them until they were ghosts and felt so satisfied after. If she squinted just right, she thought she could still see them, hovering around
her, echoes of the past, lives undone by a breath. Her breath. She couldn’t do that to her family. It was different with people she knew. She didn’t want them to become food in her belly, fuel for her flesh. Souls in her belly. There was no time left. She had to find something to eat or she’d become an unsheathed blade, slicing until the world bled.
She slipped into the night like a thief. Hunger lifted her head and demanded her due. The longer she avoided answering, the more she hurt. She was tired of hurting, and she was tired of trying to fill a void that couldn’t be filled.
She left the cabin without a backward glance, and stuffed her squeezed-heart feeling down deep. She hated lying to Neryan, but there was no other option. She was starting to scare herself, to scare others. She felt like she was fading, like the people she’d breathed in; and that black chasm inside of her was yawning wider and wider, yearning to be filled by something she wouldn’t feed on here. She had to go find something. She needed to eat. No. She needed to feed. She wanted to roam the world, to lope along its spine like a wolf. She longed to howl at the moon, and drink souls like water.
She wanted to be full.
Hunger, you bitch, you’ve won, haven’t you?
“Where are you going?” Vadden asked. He’d been standing in the shadows, and she’d been so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t even seen him. She jumped and then shrugged.
“To feed,” she said. The words popped out of her in a sibilant rasp, more snake than woman.
He looked at her, eyes wide, obviously shocked, but kept his voice even, as though he was afraid of spooking her. As though she was wild and untamed. “And Neryan?”
“He’s asleep.” She paused, gathered herself together. “I’ll be back before he wakes.”
For a moment, Vadden didn’t speak. He turned his face to the sky, closed his eyes, and breathed deep. He’d lost all his anger and now was covered in a thick, smothering sorrow. “I don’t like this, Mouse. You shouldn’t run off alone, at night, with all that’s going on right now. But that won’t stop you, will it?”
“No. I have to do this,” she answered truthfully. And then whispered, “I don’t know what I am turning into.”
This was, perhaps, her first moment of honesty in days. She stood, rubbing her arms as though she was cold. She should be standing in several inches of snow. Now, she didn’t even need to wear a coat. The world felt as off kilter as she did. She was breaking. The world was already broken. Suddenly she wasn’t a starved, devouring force, but a lonely, terrified teenager. She flung her arms around Vadden, surprising them both with the gesture. The dam in her soul broke, and heavy tears rolled down her cheeks, falling on his shoulder. He patted her hair with his hand and pulled back to study her.
“You need to come back inside, little Mouse,” he said.
“I can’t.”
She couldn’t. She couldn’t go back in there again, not with this hunger churning inside of her. None of them would survive the night, and then she wouldn’t survive the next day knowing what she’d done to them.
“Mou—”
“No!” she shrieked.
She forcefully pulled herself out of his grip, heard him shout as she spun on her heel and ran, tree limbs slapping her face, roots tripping her up, the forest speeding by, a blur of dark with darker shapes mixed in chaotically. She heard Vadden follow her for a while, until she gained speed and lost him.
She ran until the forest spit her out, and she stood in the center of a whole lot of nothing. No villages, no people. She’d never realized how big everything was until she was standing in the middle of all that untamed emptiness. She was immersed in a sea of tall grass. Their slender stalks reached up to touch the onyx darkness above. Far away on the horizon, the earth kissed the sky. Perhaps someday she’d get to stand with her toes poking out over the edge of the world. She’d see what was out there, past everything that mattered so much, beyond all the things that seemed so damn important, and she’d know what it was to feel small. She wondered if the stars made music, and if she’d be able to hear it at the point where the heavens and land met and became one.
She was one tiny spark surrounded by so much fire.
She inhaled deep, letting that part of her, that instinct that was unfurling like a fresh spring daisy, work its magic. Inhaled again, and caught the smell of it—souls, to the east, not much further, just over that little hump. They were there, tucked away in their cabin nice and tight, four of them, if her senses were leading her true. Those people were like fine, ripened grapes; soft skin, hard and juicy underneath, and just the perfect mixture of bitter and sweet.
That’s when the string that held her together snapped. She stopped being Mouse and became Hunger. She thought she felt the earth tremble under her feet. The stars suddenly seemed brighter.
She felt Mouse receding until something else took her place. It hurt. It was incredible. Something primal and powerful. Hungry. So very, very hungry. Intoxicatingly hungry.
She realized that there was beauty in her pain, in that slicing knife’s edge that glittered as though it were covered with tears after the sky finished weeping. Blood like rubies pumped through her veins, and her soul was in such agony it sang. This was why the sun died every day, for the artistry of the inferno. The watercolors of gloaming. The luster of transition. She gloried in her molten center that burned like lava barely held in check by the fragile crust of her skin.
She was muscle memory, and emotion made flesh. Action and reaction bumping off each other until they made the slow slide into the warm waters of instinct.
She was Hunger, and Hunger ran.
She came at them like a curse, ran straight to that house she felt just over the rise, that tiny one-room cabin full of people starving to death, ashes in the fire cold, a pot sitting on them full of nothing but hopelessness. Four sets of listless eyes studied her, devoid of any feeling but surrender, too weak to fight.
It didn’t matter. Surrender tasted just as good as anything else. She inhaled, and they faded. Her void, her dark companion, her empty pit filled a little, just enough, and Hunger felt satisfied for the first time in months. Years. Their bodies disappeared until they were nothing but memories, nothing but ghosts trailing after her. Empty places where people used to be.
Where there was one house, there had to be more. She spent the night chasing the moon, running from cabin to cabin. Some were full of the dead, others of those straddling the line. It didn’t matter either way. She put an end to all those unfinished sentences and filled her belly with their lives.
She glutted herself on the almost-dead, and the trying-to-survive, taking their choices and chances from them as surely as Eyad had, turning them into ghosts, adding them to the long line following her. With each soul, she shucked off a bit more of her humanity, stepped free of her mortal coil, and changed.
This was who she was becoming. Wild. Like a wolf, she howled at the moon.
She was full. Gloriously, completely, blissfully full. Finally, after so long. All she’d had to do was breathe, and now her belly was sticking out, and her heart was beating fast. Her skin was back to its normal color and her mind wasn’t so fogged. She was so drunk on the feeling, she barely noticed the ground around the houses and cabins had gone black. Black as pitch. Black as night. Not just dry and barren, but dead. Spots of unmade earth everywhere she’d been, and it was her that had unmade it.
It didn’t matter.
She came back to herself, became Mouse again, when the eastern sky was brightening to a gray, and then a soft plum, promising morning. Full almost to sickness, with a hangover as though she’d drank too much ale, she rubbed her temples and looked around. She had no idea where she was, or how she’d gotten there. There was no one around, and no fires from any of the houses she could see. Panic started to fill her until…
There was the forest. And that was the rise she’d run over.
Relief surged through her. She ran back to the cabin, back to her family, like hell itself was on her hee
ls. It took her longer than she expected to get back, and she got lost twice in the forest. By the time she saw the cabin in the clearing, she was feeling more herself than she’d felt in months. She felt no danger, no anxiety, and no hunger. Finally, she was blissfully full.
She slipped into the house. Neryan and Seraphina were still asleep. Vadden had made a pallet on the floor and was curled up like a cat. The small room smelled like exhaustion and bodies. It smelled like family. People she could rely on. Humans that she needed to keep her human.
She wasn’t tired. She felt like she’d never need to sleep again but still, appearances mattered. She lay on the pallet that Neryan had made for her and closed her eyes.
It didn’t take long for the house to wake up. Neryan woke first. He whispered something, shifted on the bed, checked his sister, and then got up and knelt beside Mouse. She felt his hand resting on her cheek, cold and damp.
“You’re looking much better,” he said. “Healthy.”
She smiled and looked up at him. “I just needed sleep.”
His soul wasn’t tugging at her anymore. Seraphina was still terrified, but that terror wasn’t making her hungry, wasn’t making her want to devour. Vadden’s sorrow had died down to a muted roar, an ocean of sadness banked by rocks of determination.
“I’m glad,” Neryan said, pressing his lips to her temple. He stood then, and she noticed the lines of worry easing around his eyes and mouth. Vadden yawned and stretched, seemed to reach for something, or someone, and then caught himself.
“Seraphina?” he asked, his voice hoarse from sleep.
“She sleeps still,” Neryan replied. “But she moved a few times through the night. She’s coming back to herself, Vadden. Slowly, but she is.”
“Good,” Vadden said. “Because we can’t stay here much longer.”
Mouse thought of the countryside, of all those empty houses, and all those souls she’d taken into herself. She thought of the ghosts she was dragging around with her, and all that black, black earth.
