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The air inside of the cabin is stuffy and stale, stifling despite the cracked windows and the loosened floorboards. The stream of sunlight that sneaks through the windowpane catches the dust particles in the air as they float like snowflakes, hovering and dancing. His shotgun sits leaned against the wall next to him, a constant companion of countless years, and the sole one he allows this close. His arms, wrapped around his knees, offer a makeshift pillow for him to rest his head against, wheat blonde hair coarsely tickling the pale glimpses of wrist that peek from under his coat.
The room is empty save for him, his gun, and the chunk of half butchered meat that sits on the table. A few flies seem interested in the fresh blood leaking from the flank of cow, but none approach it, more distracted by the desiccated bones of a deer that are piled just outside the door, slowly being bleached by the clouded sun. It’s early in the evening, the dimming light still inching out of the way of its pale sister, but despite the light the shadow that haunts the cabin is absent. His only evidence of existence is the bloody knife on the table and the worn look of the mattress in the corner.
Noah exhales slowly, watching a fly flit around the room, mind stuck between a fear of return and a fear of eternal departure, but all triumphed by their consideration of circumstances. It’s been days since they were able to leave the woods. It’s beneficial, in some ways, as he had already been preparing his leave from the inn of the town he had found himself at, so he’s certain he’s already a distant memory of those bustling streets. But it’s also unfortunate. He’s not meant to be in one spot for this long. Even his body knows this, a restless energy he can feel in his veins. They’re meant to be far away from here. More importantly, they’re meant to be alone.
His thoughts summon the man he couldn’t determine if he wanted to return or stay gone. Omen steps through the cracked door, bare feet avoiding the sharp edges of one of the deer’s brittle bones, actively wiping water off his hands with the hem of his overalls. When its eyes settle on Noah, deep and indiscernible pits of darkness, it merely blinks and inclines its head. A smile pulls at freckled cheeks in a way that feels wrong, but it slots into place on his face familiarly as Noah raises a hand in greeting.
“There you are,” they say. “Everything alright?”
Omen nods. He gestures towards the chunk of meat on the table, and then to his arms, water droplets flying off of the dark hair that crosses his forearms. Noah hums, raising his eyebrows. “Are you finished carving it up already?”
The other only points to the deer outside. Now that it has, Noah notices the way the skull has been separated from the pile, hung up on a railing of the stairs leading to the cabin porch. Noah gives them another smile as he unfurls himself from his tucked up position, stretching his arms in front of him until he can feel a tangible pull of his muscles. “Ah, I see. Well, thank you for rinsing your hands before handling our food.”
The other man merely nods as they pick up the knife from the table. They get back to work, blade digging into the red muscle, carving away various sized pucks of meat. It makes something curdle in Noah’s stomach, which doesn’t seem right. He’s well acquainted with hunting. Maybe it’s not the blood as much as it is the man doing it, dark eyes inscrutable. If Noah focused, he could paint a malicious glee in those empty pools. Or a morbid curiosity. Perhaps both.
Instead of looking closer, he stands, hooking his gun over his shoulder with the strap. “Shall I check the fields again? Perhaps we’ve missed something.”
Omen pauses in its sure, concise movements, looking over to him. There’s a long pause as the wild haired man only stares at him. Eventually, he tilts his head, and the question the movement poses is so audible he may as well have spoken it. It makes something catch in Noah’s throat.
Everything alright?
A repeat of his own question. Noah swallows, hands easily fitting into his pockets. If they do it casually enough, the trembling of their knuckles won’t betray them. It’s with thick and deliberate obliviousness that he answers, voice light and unbothered. “I’ll just have a look around. It won’t be long. Back before sundown, I promise.” His smile doesn’t reach the green of his pupils. “Do be careful with that knife, yeah? I don’t want you getting hurt.”
Omen’s eyes don’t break from his own, dark seed pits in the flesh of his face. There’s a knowing glint in the unknowable stare that has Noah’s breath threatening something reedy. Finally, the other nods and looks back down to the cow flank, knife slipping smoothly between the elastic flesh and the loosened strings of muscle. The roiling nausea in Noah’s stomach breaches the back of his throat at the metallic scent of blood. At the confident movements of Omen’s hands, how easily they dwarf the handle of the knife, how easily they could carve into Noah just the same as that cow.
And then, he turns, silently stepping out of the cabin. The fields surrounding the beaten down house splay in front of them, open and deceptively boundless. The wall of forest that encircles the clearing, the very trees that grew overnight and have been there for centuries, taunt him in the distance. They set their jaw, steely, and begin to trek through the brown fields of overgrown grass and wheat, wildflowers carefully stepped over and weeds crushed beneath the sole of their boot.
He isn’t looking for anything in particular, despite his innate desire to resolve this scenario the two have become involved in. He knows there will be no answers in the placid sheets of growth that allow the cabin to rest gently on the mild slopes, the sole spot of human interference to be seen for miles. If there is something to be done, to be fixed, it will be hidden deep in those woods, guarded by a bestial force or carved runes. It will be something beatable. He knows this, because any other option is too terrifying.
Truly, he just needed to be out of that room, the damp air overbearing in his lungs and dark eyes settled on him as if they were burrowing beneath his skin. Omen does that, sometimes, though they can’t hazard a guess as to if it’s on purpose. All they really know is that sometimes the shadows bend around the other man as if cocooning him, preparing him for a metamorphosis. When that happens, the light strikes it wrong, eyes glinting out of sync and sharp teeth gleaming when he cranes his jaw wide to bite down on a chunk of meat.
They have watched a moth cocoon hatch deep in the forest a few towns over, silken threads dissolving beneath those horned projections of the insect. He’s watched wings stretch and take off, a beautiful, cyclical life. Noah doesn’t want to see the end result of this hatching.
But, he thinks, hands brushing past a flower that’s grown far past the rest of the weeds, perhaps there is nothing. They haven’t lost their mind entirely yet. He remains aware that it could all be in his mind. Omen has made no move to harm him. He’s been entirely docile towards the traveler, in fact, his glimpses of ferality saved for the way he butchers and eats. At times, it’s even been endearing- small crinkles of its nose and the way it tilts its head in confusion.
That thought, though, is sidestepped like one of the wildflowers in his path. Affection is dangerous. He refuses the feeling that attempts to bloom in his chest when the other man takes care to offer him cuts of meat he enjoys, or keeps his eyes solid on the ground to track any possible dangers Noah walks towards. Affection means acknowledging Omen’s own. And he refuses to do that. He says, with his whole chest, that it’s because he thinks there is something deeper within the other man, something decidedly wrong. He believes, in a weaker whimper, that he simply cannot be cared for like that. It will make him remembered. It will make him known.
The sun is starting to dip below the horizon, oranges in the sky turning darker and darker. Noah looks up to the sky, where the stars cannot be seen, and then out across the fields of wheat and corn, staring at the trees that reach for him. A solid, inescapable loop, surrounding the cabin and collapsing into itself. There has to be a way out. So that’s why.
Omen cannot care for him, because he will leave. Omen cannot care for him, because he cannot trust it to be human.
The moon chases him back before any further conclusion can be reached in his mind, and he is loath to do anything but follow her direction, steps trodding back towards the looming cabin without hesitation. The floorboards creak under his feet as he shoulders his way inside. They almost expect a shadow. A beast. The metamorphosis, completed.
Instead, Omen raises his head, hand wrapped around the hind leg of a deer’s back half— the rest of the one sitting on the porch. It raises a hand in a wave, before it holds the flank steady as it pulls the leg from the rest of the body in one swift movement, cracking and tearing. It’s not violent, really, the body long drained and his movements practiced. The leg comes off without any tugging or tearing. It still inspires something in Noah that pushes up against his ribcage in a soft inhale. That hand, calloused and rough, can wrap around his arm with equal nonchalance. They smile weakly.
“What happened to the cow?” he asks. “Did you get hungry?”
They can’t tell if the joke landed. Omen seems unaware there was a joke at all, because it just shakes its head, pointing towards the icebox in the corner and then the hooks hung from the ceiling. Strips of meat dangle from them, drying out in the sun. Noah’s voice catches.
“Jerky?” they manage. It’s a familiar meal, easy to carry in his travels. “That takes a bit of time to make, doesn’t it?”
Omen only nods. It’s as if they don’t know what it implies. Or maybe he doesn’t care. Noah’s palms feel slick and nervous staring at those strips of meat, the physical notion of how long the man behind the butcher's table expects them to be there. But Noah should be gone long before the sun can finish her work. They have to be.
The laugh he lets out feels fake, even to his own ears. Omen doesn’t notice. “Seems like a good idea,” they lie, familiar to their ears. It’s a necessary evil of their life, lying. Truth is too close to the bone. “It’d hold us over in the woods, at least.”
Omen nods again. It’s hard to tell, considering his mouth doesn’t move, but he looks a little pleased that Noah approves. The emotion in his ribcage threatens mutation. He forces himself to focus on the movements of the other man with a desperation he can’t put a name to.
It’s still unsettling, the way Omen goes about his butchering. Bare hands and sharp knives. Harsh rips at skin and smooth slicing against fibers. It’s like it must do the initial desire of ripping and tearing like a wild wolf shaped to a man, and only then can it handle the blade. Noah thinks, again, of the bestial force guarding the answers in the woods. Omen’s knife lifts into the air, and his muscles all tense as if preparing for a blow.
Instead, they hold it out towards Noah with bloodied hands, head tilted in curiosity. His laugh is thin and shaking. “Ah, me? I’ve got a little knowledge, sure, but it’s a little more…”
Omen blinks at him cluelessly. It’s cute, in a canid sort of way. “...Clean.”
The other man looks down at his bloodsoaked forearms, lifting his shirt towards him like he’s only now noticing the stains that slipped through the shield of his overalls. The laugh that escapes Noah is steadier, this time, warm at the edges. “Well, if you’re tired, I can take over for a bit. It’ll be less, ah, experienced, but passable.”
The look Omen gives him communicates without words how little it cares about passable cuts of meat. They set the knife down, stepping back, and gesturing back to the table. Noah slips his coat off and rolls up the sleeves of his sweater, gingerly picking up the bloody knife.
The movements of butchering are familiar, though he’s not trained. The knife cuts into the tenderloin, carving away at the meat. Deer’s usually aged for much longer, but much prefers cow regardless, so it’s not something to concern himself with. It’s not bloodied anymore, at least, the only evidence remaining the stains left in the letting bucket. He suspects the mess present on Omen’s hands and arms was painted by the cow flank, with little care taken for washing between the two cuts of meat— unusual, given they had just rinsed their hands for the same purpose.
His cuts don’t slow even as his mind wanders. No, not unusual. That’s the wrong term. That implies a usual. There is no usual between the two. He is a helpful stranger, and Omen is…
Omen is an unknown. He won’t be learned. He won’t be thought of, after this is all over. Their cute motions and sincere care, pushed from Noah’s mind as he follows the road to a new town. His paradoxical wrongness, the unnatural curve of his body, that too will be forgotten. Emptiness in Noah’s memory. And in return, there will be nothing in Omen’s mind where a wheat haired man once stood. A drop with no ripples.
There’s a sudden noise like a leaking pipe, catching his attention. He glances over, nose brushing against Omen’s own where the man suddenly stands, leaned close into Noah’s space, dark gaze imploring. Its breath is warm where it caresses his cheek.
Noah startles, knife slipping and blade catching the palm of his hand. Pain radiates through his body with a yelp, knife clattering to the table as he instinctually grabs at his wrist, arm twisting to look at the damage.
A moderate cut against the pale flesh of his palm. His surface veins seep blood onto his hand, scarlet red quickly painting the skin. It’s not deep or wide, thankfully, the knife having been pulled away fast enough to avoid anything serious, but he clenches his fist and drags his gaze away.
“I apologize,” he murmurs, eyes still glancing around the cabin. There’s a small droplet of blood under the hanging strips of meat- the culprit of the noise. Ridiculous. “I was distracted. Where are the bandages?”
Omen stares at him, hands raised in concern, blank. It reaches forward, taking his blood soaked hand in its own, gently unfurling it to see the cut for himself. Anxiety makes his blood feel hot under his skin, having eyes on something as vulnerable as an injury.
“I-it’s a small cut,” he tries quietly. “Nothing I can’t handle. I just need something to put on it.”
Omen looks back up to him, a crease in his brow. And then, carefully, they lift Noah’s arm, and a warm tongue brushes over the cut.
Noah freezes. He doesn’t move for a long, long moment, as ice crawls throughout his veins, pain continuing to radiate through his arm. When they blink, they can see the gleam of teeth, feel it digging into their palm and tearing away strips of muscle like the meat hanging by the window. His heart beats in triple time at the mess of hair that morphs in his vision, tangled fur of a great beast, bloodthirsty and wicked.
There is a flash of memory in his mind, of a wolf licking the wound of their mate. Careful and precise, done to clean and sterilize and heal. A way to protect their pack. He thinks again of a wolf with their jaws around the throat of a deer, crunching solid through bone and meat and staining fur with scarlet.
Omen lifts their head, tongue still slightly poking out, to look up at him like they’ve only just recognized this isn’t the usual move for an injury. Noah forces a thin laugh.
“Bandages,” he says, quietly. “Or cloth. I can work with either.”
Omen considers this, dark eyes boring into them, before it gently drops their arm and turns away, towards a cabinet in the corner with some old first aid. Noah’s breath escapes in a tremble, clutching their arm a little closer. Saliva is drying on the cut, stinging in the air. It hurts a bit less. It hurts a lot more.
The other man takes a roll of bandages out and offers it to him, head tilting curiously once more. Noah can feel his mouth stretch into a smile as he takes it, moving on autopilot as he firmly wraps the cut. They clench their fist, testing the give of the bandages, before dropping their hand down and turning that same smile back to Omen. “Maybe you should take over? I might be more out of practice than I thought.”
Omen nods empathetically, replacing where Noah was standing and going back in with his bare hands. Noah retreats back to the wall, leaning back and staring down at his hand, blood slowly starting to seep through the wrappings.
He feels calm, suddenly. Serene. It’s curious. When he didn’t know, when he let himself hesitate, he was so frightened. Now, it’s clear.
A bloodthirsty monster. A wild beast. The only explanation. He knows, firmly, that should he let the other leave these woods, whatever will happen is his fault. And so, just as usual, he will be the one to make the sacrifice. They will be the one to help.
Omen looks over to him, dark eyes curious. It almost manages to mimic concern, but not quite. Not human enough. Noah smiles all the same.
“I’m alright.”
You wake up the next morning with the taste of blood on your tongue from an almost raw dinner. The man splayed on the mattress next to you is unusually close. He doesn’t often allow himself to press near you while he sleeps, nor let a hand grab your arm as you begin to shift out of the makeshift bed. You freeze until it loosens, and go about your day.
The meat has been butchered, and it would be no good to search on your own, so you busy yourself with setting a few traps outside. By the time you’re back in, he’s awake, smiling serenely at you. It only takes your head inclining in a language they just barely comprehend to agree to another trek in the woods.
They stay close to you, this time. Unnaturally so. Arm brushing against yours through the woods, a soft offering of his coat, and, just once, a hand that cups your face when a branch scratches against it. No words are shared. You’re not sure what he’s thinking, but that’s always been your flaw. You can’t decipher those of your species. They speak a code you don’t understand. This man, in particular, is one of the worst. He lies as he breathes.
You don’t think it’s a malicious lie. But it’s the only explanation for the steel of his jaw and the softness of his eyes, because they cannot both exist as true. And though you feel yourself welcoming his company the longer he’s around, you can’t help the part of you that yearns for the directness of animals. The simplicity of harm being bad and help being good. Because when you help, he looks strange. Haunted.
But today, he looks bright and cheerful. They grab your hand when you walk with them and point out animal tracks, something relaxed and sure in their movements. You aren’t. You’re stiff and awkward as he pulls you back towards the cabin while the sun sets. Her beams reach for you like she wants your attention. A message, perhaps.
You can’t pin it down, but it feels like something shifted this morning. When you awoke. Something fundamental clicked out of place in the world.
By the time you realize what it could be, there’s a shotgun to your forehead and a sorrowful gaze locked on your own. You wonder why he’s teary-eyed with a detached idleness that most would call inhuman. But it’s all you can seem to focus on.
And then, nothing.
You wake up the next morning with blood on your tongue.