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It’s been days since she’s eaten. Prey is coming few and far between lately. She doesn’t know why, cannot grasp the intricacies of the ecosystem and political climate that rain horrid consequences upon her little head. All she knows is she is hungry, and she must eat.
And so she walks, padding through the dark night. She does not stumble, though. Her eyes are made, through thousands of years of biological evolution, to see in the darkness just as well as under the sun. Perhaps better, even.
She brushes against the leaves and bark that give her an advantage. Her coat mimics the colors and patterns. It makes her difficult to pick out among the landscape, especially under the cover of the inky black night.
She sniffs the air, whiskers twitching against the slight breeze that brings her good news: meat. It’s alive, warm, and fresh. She smells sweat and dirt. A little bit of dried blood clinging to the remnants of a gaping wound recently healed shut. There’s also the sting of smoke from a long extinguished fire. It sticks around, mixing with the stringent and unnatural aromas wafting from her prize. Herbal, floral, caustic.
Her ears perk up as she triangulates and discerns where they are. She jumps over a fallen log, bypasses a strange creature without scent that pays her no mind in turn, and finally beholds the creatures walking by on two legs.
These animals are dangerous; she very well knows it. Every living beast in these woods knows only to approach ones such as these if you are absolutely sure you can win. Or if you are desperate.
She is the latter.
And so, she begins to stalk, following their path. One limps, sore from his wound. One appears to be gripped by the beginnings of severe fatigue. If she can manage to isolate the smallest one from the rest, scare the others further into the woods, she just may eat tonight.
She settles in front of their path. Her plan is finalized, ready to enact. She blinks, and realizes far too late, that her greatest asset is also her most dire weakness.
They see her.
Panic grips her heart. Her prey is now aware, and will either strike first or flee. She hasn’t a single moment to spare.
With the mightiest roar her feline throat can manage, she releases a torrent of energy into the night air. It crackles to life, moving and shifting at her will. Nature has been summoned, and now nature abides its contract. Lightning strikes at her prey.
She lunges at the largest one in the hopes he will startle and flee. But it is a hope that is quickly dashed. The creatures begin to change, grow larger, obtain extra limbs. The smallest one cracks his own lighting. It soars past her, grazing her whiskers in the form of small rocks, and it takes every toned reflex and calculation in her instincts to dodge them.
They are yelling at each other, making their herd calls, working together to thwart her attacks.
Perhaps she misjudged the pecking order in this group. She assumed, from years of experience, that the smallest one would be the weakest. But he continues to rain lightning down with ear splitting cracks.
So, she changes direction. The tall and slim one will do. She lunges for him, but he too can manipulate the air around him. He created a branch from nothing and slices it down in front of her, stopping her in her tracks.
Just as she finds her opening, readies herself with teeth bared to once more pounce-
Fire.
Pain like fire sears up her spine, across her back, into her neck, and pounds in her ears. She screeches out a sound she did not know she was capable of making. All of her pain, anguish, disappointment, and fear lashes out in one lasting note. All residents of the woods know now. They know.
They know what she wishes she knew.
She retreats, worse off than ever before. She stumbles and falls, incapable of balancing as she drags herself over fallen logs and cold rocks. Bright eyes watch her with confusion. This proud huntress has been felled, defeated. She joins the ranks of every beast before her who followed their instincts and failed.
She wasn’t supposed to fail.
How did she fail?
She crawls into a den. It isn’t hers, she hasn’t had one to call her own in many cycles. This one belongs to something small and edible, and thus will not give her grief.
She collapses and assesses her state. After a brief foray with her tongue, she sees it: her tail is red. No, not red. The red trailing behind her is something else. Something horrid. Something that hits her nose in a wave of sickening familiarity.
Her tail is simply gone. Her head falls to the cold earth below. She’s dizzy, tired, so so so tired. Even with her perfectly attuned senses, her vision is beginning to fail her. The world is blurry, like looking directly into the sun.
She breathes heavily and thinks of her mother. She left her mother a long time ago, in search of a home and a mate. She never found the latter, and the former was difficult to maintain. Nothing really wound up how she wished. She returned to the place she was birthed, and found her mother had met her own end at the tusk of a large creature who refused to become a meal.
And now, she thinks, she’ll finally see her mother once again.
Except, she doesn’t. She does not follow that bright light in the dark to where it beckons. Instead, that bright light comes to her. It comes closer and closer, burning hot and violent. Two pairs of red eyes greet her in the middle. They blink slowly, acknowledging her presence and introducing itself as nothing to be afraid of.
She trusts it. The eyes come closer until they are practically in contact with her own. And there, they close again, and she feels a gentle pressure against her head.
And then.
And then she knows. She knows it all. She understands all of it. War, blood, dreams, violence, language, music, perfume, blades, guns, ink, fire, bullets, poetry, cold, pain, food, smoke, sleep, demons, stars, scars, roses, water, heat, nightmares, bones, bombs, wine, poison, glass, sport, birds, pain, death, death, death, death
Revenge
“You know, now,” the red eyes say.
She does.
“Then go,” it continues. “And take back what is yours.”
She stands, the pain and fire still burning her to the core. But she stands a changed creature. Her spine lifts her, bone by bone cracking and snapping against tendon and nerves, up onto her hind paws, twisted and broken and grown, barely able to balance as she stumbles forward into the night.
The sky runs red, no stars to greet her above. She walks past easy prey and wonders where it was not moments ago, when she could have chased a simple rabbit in place of her tormentors. It is of no matter, now. Once she is complete, she won’t need to eat ever again.
She catches the scent of the monsters on the air and follows the trail like before. They reek of cologne and gunpowder. They revel in their violence, in their prowess as masters of her woods. But they have trespassed one time too many times.
The woods will use her to punish them. She happily gives her body for the pleasure.
The trail becomes heavier, thick with the smell of garlic and herbs roasting on open fire. She follows it until there is nothing but a large, wooden wall in front of her eyes.
A door. She knows this now. And she knows what she must do next.
She slams her body against the wood, once, twice, and hears the sound of the monsters inside. They know they are being hunted. Yet they do not flee. They argue over what to do next.
A deep, desperate pain fills her and crawls its way up her throat and through her mouth, wrenching from her sharp teeth in the form of a song on the breeze:
“GIVE IT BACK” She can smell it. It’s here, she knows.
Their noises continue. She slams the door again, and lets her pain manifest once more.
“GIVE IT BACK” She knows she knows she knows!
It’s too much. The pain is just too much. She doubles over, falls to the ground, and pants. She reaches out her front paws and grabs onto the wood, pulls herself away and leaves deep grooves in her wake.
From the shadows she watches as the door opens, and those terrible monsters look out. They will not find her. Not so easily.
Perhaps if she can separate them, this time, they will make for much easier prey.
She drags herself back up on her hind legs, ignoring the searing pain down her spine, and stumbles to the back of the building. She scrapes her claws in the loudest section of the architecture, and marvels at how loudly her intention echoes around her.
The large one pads to her on a heavy gait. This is the one who took her tail. She is delighted. She closes her eyes and lets her ears and whiskers tell her everything.
He stops not two paces in front of her. His breath comes heavy. It smells like fear, spice, and…
Her eyes open and the large one moves, too late, as her claws make easy work of his neck.
He collapses into the dirt, sharing the fate of many other creatures he happily put there himself. His hand grips his own throat, trying to stop the bleeding. His mouth opens and closes in a sad attempt to warn his herd.
He will be no factor now.
She makes her way back to the door, ready to lure another one to her knives. The smallest one greets her, as does the scent she is so desperately tracking. With a loud call, he shuts the door in her face.
“MY TAIL”
It’s there, she knows it’s in there!
“GIVE IT BACK”
They could end this hunt so easily, end her pain, if they would just…
“GIVE ME BACK MY TAIL”
She growls, low and quiet. She must find another way.
She throws herself against the glass window, shattering it. It brings her more pain. How!? How does she have more pain yet to give?
Her ears twitch. They follow the sound of lighter footsteps leading up into the sky. Then, another window opens, and the one who trapped her before attempts to do so once more.
He will not find her so easily broken this time. She jumps up and through the window, letting the shards of glass tear into her flesh.
The creature looks astonished, unable to grasp what she is. He smells like oil and truffles and…
She opens her jaws, wide, snapping through the polearm in one easy bite.
He screams.
She tastes his blood. This one passes much faster. It is an easier end than any of them deserve. It will have to do.
In the darkness, she sees the smaller two stumble up towards her. How foolish. How lucky.
The door kicks open and she leaps, landing the one with a blade flat on his back. He strikes at her and takes first blood, but she has the advantage. She tears into the soft underbelly and relishes in the taste of fresh meat again. This was all she wanted. This is all she ever asked for. Why was it too much? Why was she punished for this simple joy? His blood tastes like magic and fire and…
She snarls, anger gripping her thoughts. They took it. It’s here, she knows, and they took it! And they won’t “GIVE IT BACK”
There’s only one left: the smallest. The one she chased after and somehow ended up here. How humorous that he is the last in his herd to stand. Not for long.
He wavers, unable to pull the trigger, and she lands on him with ease.
“GIVE ME BACK MY TAIL”
It is his only chance. His only salvation. He whimpers and cries and bleats out some terrified shout. He smells like gunpowder and leather and…
“I CAN SMELL IT” He will not get away with this. “YOU HAVE IT AND I WANT IT BACK”
He trembles, useless. She bares her fangs, and chooses to end this pathetic creature’s simpering existence with one…mighty…bite.
She twitches, her whiskers crushed against the cold ground, and wakes up with a start. She does not know what a dream is, but she knows sometimes she goes places and does things that are not true.
This was one of those moments. She stands on her four paws and stretches, delighting in the feeling of her intact tail stretched taut behind her.
Her stomach grumbles True or not, she is still hungry. She looks ahead to the billowing smoke, turning into clouds in the night sky. There is prey there. Fresh, meaty prey. But they have fire, and magic. This she can sense. So, she turns, and chooses to find another way.
As she pads back into the woods, she is greeted by an old friend. Four red lights blink slowly at her. She carefully blinks back.
They have an understanding. One day she will need those four lights. One dark, dreary day.
But not yet. She walks on, chasing the scent of a rabbit, tail swaying lazily behind her as she goes.