Page 10 of Monster's Obsessive Hunger
My own hand rises, a mirror of his motion, and I place my palm flat against my own chest, over my heart. “There?” I whisper, the word barely audible.
He gives a single, jerky nod. As he does, the light in his ribs flares with an intensity that is terrifying and beautiful all at once. It is not red with hunger or yellow with contentment. Itis a brilliant, blinding white—the color of a star being born, the color of a soul being ripped apart. It burns for a single, searing moment, so bright it seems to suck all the other light from the clearing, and then it gutters, dimming back to a turbulent, sick-looking mix of red and green.
The display of raw, unfiltered emotion is too much. It is too intimate. To feel joy so intensely that it becomes an agony he cannot bear… I feel a sob rise in my own throat, a mixture of awe and a terrible, aching pity. I have touched something ancient and broken inside him, and I don't know if I have the strength to bear witness to it.
I can’t stay here. Not tonight. The connection between us has become too raw, too dangerous. I stand up on trembling legs, my own heart aching with a confusing sympathy for the monster who finds my happiness a torment. He doesn’t turn as I back away. He remains frozen, his hand over his heart, a statue of ancient grief silhouetted against the moonlight.
I turn and walk away from the clearing without another word, my own soul shaken. I don’t run. It feels, somehow, like a betrayal. I walk back to the village, leaving him alone with the echoes of a little girl’s laughter and a pain so profound it can turn a monster to stone.
15
THORRIN
The clearing is empty, but the echo of her laughter remains. It is a phantom sound that vibrates in my bones, a painful, beautiful memory that leaves me raw and disoriented. She left without a word, her departure a quiet, swift retreat from the overwhelming emotion I showed her. I stand frozen where she left me, my claws still buried deep in the flesh of the pine tree, the rough bark a grounding pain against my palms. The white-hot light has receded, leaving behind a turbulent, aching void. I feel hollowed out, scoured clean by a feeling so intense it has no name.
The physical hunger, which had been a distant ache, now reasserts itself with a vengeance. It is a familiar, gnawing pain in my gut, a demand for blood and flesh that has been the driving rhythm of my existence for centuries. I know I need to hunt. I need to kill something, to feel the warmth of fresh blood on my tongue, to remind myself of the simple, brutal creature I am. The complex, agonizing dance of emotion I share with Lyssa is unsustainable. I need to ground myself in the old ways, in the certainty of the kill.
I pull my claws from the tree, splinters of wood clinging to the talons, and stalk into the forest. My movements are silent, born of ancient instinct. My senses, sharpened by a hunger that is now both physical and spiritual, scan the surrounding darkness. The forest, which has become a backdrop for my meetings with her, now reverts to its true form: a hunting ground. A landscape of predator and prey. I fall into the familiar patterns of the stalk, my body remembering the lethal grace my mind has begun to forget. I find a trail easily, the scent ofdaeheavy on the cold night air. They are close. A small herd, judging by the tracks. I follow, the hunger a low, crimson burn in my chest. This is what I am. This is what I do.
I find the dae limping close to a ravine, separated from its herd. One of its hind legs is injured, leaving a faint drag line in the snow. It is young, its scent a mixture of fresh greenery and the clean, intoxicating perfume of fear. It is the perfect prey: weak, isolated, and unaware of the true predator that stalks it from the shadows. The hunt should be a simple, satisfying affair. A return to the natural order of things.
I corner it against the rock face of the ravine, cutting off its escape. It turns to face me, its large, dark eyes wide with terror. Its body trembles, a fine, violent shudder that I can see even in the dim moonlight. This is the moment I usually savor—the final, beautiful surrender of prey to its inevitable fate. The scent of its fear should be an exquisite appetizer, a promise of the satisfaction to come.
I raise a clawed hand, the talons gleaming, and prepare for the killing blow. My muscles tense, every predatory instinct I possess screaming at me to strike, to feed, to silence my want, my need.
But I hesitate.
I look at the terrified creature, at its trembling form and wide, pleading eyes, and I feel… nothing. The anticipated surgeof predatory satisfaction does not come. The thought of its blood, which should be a siren’s call to the curse, is bland, unappealing. It is not what I want. It is not what Ineed. The craving for Lyssa—for the impossible, agonizing beauty of her laughter, for the simple, world-altering warmth of her presence—is so absolute, so all-consuming, that it has rendered all other forms of sustenance tasteless. Killing this creature would be a hollow, mechanical act, as satisfying as eating dust.
With a low growl of disgust that is aimed entirely at myself, I lower my hand. Thedaestares at me, frozen in a state of terrified confusion. I have broken the fundamental rule of our world. I have shown it mercy. The act is so alien, so contrary to my own nature, that it leaves me feeling nauseous and disoriented. I turn away from the creature, and with a final, frightened bleat, it scrambles away into the underbrush, disappearing into the night. I am left alone, the scent of its lingering fear a mockery of the predator I am supposed to be. I am a hunter who has lost the will to kill.
I return to my lair, the hollowness inside me now a vast, echoing cavern. I am starving, but my hunger is no longer a simple, physical thing that can be sated with a kill. It is a complex, soul-deep craving for a single, impossible human. The silence of the cave is a physical weight, pressing in on me from all sides. It is unbearable.
I retreat to my sleeping alcove and try to fill the silence with the only sound that matters. I mimic her voice, whispering her name into the darkness. “Lyssa.” The sound is a perfect echo, but it is empty, a ghost of the real thing. It provides no comfort, only a sharper awareness of what I am missing. I try her laughter next, but the beautiful, bright sound coming from my monstrous form is a grotesque parody that makes the ache worse.
A frantic, desperate need builds within me—a need to make her presence here permanent, to anchor her to this place, to me.It is a possessive, primal urge, the instinct of a creature staking a claim. My gaze falls upon a sharpened femur from a long-ago kill, a tool I use for scraping hides. I take it in my trembling hand and move to the stone wall beside my sleeping furs, the wall she faces when she sits with me.
My claws, which can rend flesh from bone, are clumsy as I begin to carve. The scrape of bone on stone is a harsh, grating sound in the stillness. I work with a feverish intensity, my hands shaking with the force of my obsession. I etch two simple letters into the ancient rock. L. And beside it, a K. Her initials, for the family name she spoke of in one of her sad, beautiful stories. Lyssa Kaelen.
The two letters are stark and white against the dark gray stone, a permanent scar on the heart of my home. The moment I am finished, the frenzy leaves me, replaced by a wave of cold, profound regret. I stare at the carving, at the evidence of my obsession. What have I done? I have desecrated my own home with my need for her. This is no longer just a lair. It is becoming a shrine. And I am its sole, pathetic worshiper. A monster who has forgotten how to hunt, but is learning, with terrifying speed, how to love.
16
LYSSA
The scent of my father’s fish stew, a smell that has meant comfort and home for my entire life, is nauseating tonight. I sit at our small, scarred wooden table, a ghost in my own kitchen. The warm, yellow light from the tallow candles casts a cozy glow on the familiar room, but I feel no warmth. My mind is miles away, in a cold, moonlit clearing, with a monster whose pain has become my own. I push a piece of boiled burgona around my bowl with a listless fork, the simple act of lifting food to my mouth an impossible effort.
Clara and my father talk, their voices a low, familiar drone that I can’t seem to parse into words. Something about a leak in the roof of the smokehouse, a dispute between two fishermen over a prized net. Their world, with its practical, tangible problems, feels like a story being told in a foreign language. My world is one of glowing hearts and stolen voices, of a joy so pure it manifests as agony. How can I possibly bridge the gap between their reality and mine?
I keep seeing it. The way Thorrin turned from me, the sound of his growl, the raw, unadulterated pain in his voice.Don’t laugh like that. I can feel it… here.The memory is a brand on mysoul. I touched something ancient and broken in him, and the aftershocks are still trembling through me. I feel a restlessness so profound it is a physical ache in my limbs. I need to be out there. The suffocating warmth of this kitchen, the well-meaning but empty chatter of my family—it all feels like a cage. The only place I feel real anymore is in that clearing, in the vast, honest silence of his presence. My skin prickles with the need to be gone, to return to the only place where I am not just the “cursed girl,” but something more. Something seen.
“You’re not eating.”
Clara’s voice cuts through my reverie, sharp with a worry that is quickly souring into frustration. I look up from my untouched bowl to see her watching me, her brow furrowed. My father sighs, a heavy, weary sound, and pushes himself away from the table. He knows an argument is brewing, and he no longer has the strength for them.
“I’m not hungry,” I say, My voice flat and distant even to my own ears.
“You’re never hungry anymore,” Clara retorts, her hands clenching into fists on the tabletop. “You’re never anything anymore, Lyssa. You’re just… a shell. You drift through this house, you drift through the village, but you’re not here. You’re out there.” She gestures wildly toward the window, toward the oppressive darkness of the forest. “You disappear every night, chasing ghosts, and you come back looking even more haunted than when you left. What is happening to you?”
