Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s the pain of the weight of an entire car driving over you, the feeling of the tire treads etching their pattern into your skin, that shocks that bestial part of your mind into releasing its hold. You’re human again, human as you scream and snarl and half-lunge, half-scramble your way into the woods, as far away from the car as your mangled body can carry you.

You find it surprising that any part of you can still be considered that word: ‘human.’ It’s certainly not your body: your limbs are long and splayed, your claws digging desperately into the earth, your mouth frothing with the blood of the fresh kills you must have made tonight. But there’s a sort of calm that’s descended upon you. You can notice things, make connections, like the way the sun’s sending its first faint rays of light through the trees to dapple the ground ahead and the way your mind’s racing with just one thought: Not long now. Not long now.

They’re hot on your trail, the hunters in the car. You can sense it, sense them, the churned earth and blood you’ve left in your wake appearing to them like a beacon in the dying night, but you doubt they’d even need your guidance to begin with. Is it really that much of a mystery as to where you’ll run to? Is there really anywhere else you can go?

As if in answer, you reach the rusted frame of your cage. It seems to tower over you even now, despite your height, the skeleton of some ruined beast creaking in the wind. No, it says, you foolish boy. They’ll never understand, now will they? But I do. You’ll always be welcome here. Rest a while, my love. You’re always welcome.

You lay down in the familiarity of cruelty, of disillusionment and acceptance. You’d heard those words before, years ago, from her. Of course the thought of her would come to you now, and your chest tightens in response. She’s been so many things throughout your life - Eliza, Mother, Captor - but, in the end, hadn’t she been right? What else had the last six years done besides reinforce the oppressive weight of isolation? You’d done well, you felt, keeping the beast within you restrained. But how long could you suffer that weight alone before it overpowered every other part of you? Before you became a monster forever, stalking and killing night after night, your brutality surfacing independently from the phases of the moon?

In the end, she’d been right. Even as you ran away, ran from the burning tents, the destruction of the only life, only love, you’d ever known, deep into the wilderness to escape from it all, you knew her words were true. You’d become a recluse - not only from people, for the animals avoided you, too, having sensed what you really were - but, through it all, she was there. You’d go to the river and see her reflection at the water’s edge, her eyes dancing in the ripples of the water - was she happy to see you? Or making some sort of cruel mockery of your fate? Sometimes in the evening, as you sat and watched the setting sun, the birds would rise out of the trees, and you thought you could hear her voice, or her sigh, in the rustling leaves.

You were convinced she had cursed you. A curse of love or a curse of hate, it mattered little. You only wanted to have her there, or have her gone - none of these tricks of the mind, the uncertainty of this in-between state. You wanted, above everything, to be free.

But you could never truly be that, could you? The cage says, and you give in, as you always do. No, you couldn't, and it’s why you came back, worried that the loneliness would break you once and for all, knowing that Mother was the only one who had ever understood.

Hush. They come closer.

You hear them, the three hunters. Their footsteps are muddled due to the growing ringing in your ears - you know what’s happening, that the lucidity you’ve felt is disappearing fast; they should get out if they know what’s good for them - but the cage is urging you to calm your thoughts; I’ll protect you, it’s saying over and over, and there’s a wailing, too, maybe from the cage, or from Mother herself, and one of the hunters is screaming now - SHOOT YOU STUPID GIRL - and you curse your body as you feel your labored breathing quicken and smell the blood coursing through their veins, urging yourself to stop as you begin to twist and rise from the ground, but you can’t, you can’t control it, you’ve never been able to and it’s the repetition of these movements that has haunted you all your life -

The gun fires, the silver bullet splitting open your side.

It would’ve been so easy, you think, to kill them all. The huntress had hesitated, just for a moment. The cage agrees. You could have done it, it says.

Maybe you could have. But maybe you’ve only delayed the inevitable for six long years. Maybe this world is as cruel and dismissive as Mother said it would be. Maybe you’re simply too tired to keep running from it all.

And maybe there’s another world, far away from this one, where people understand; where the word ‘loneliness’ holds no power, has no meaning.

You hope, as your surroundings fade into darkness, that you'll awaken to see the light in a way you've never known it before.