Page 9

He hated the delay, and how it clutched him all the way to his bones. He’d scream, writhing beneath the water until his gills took over and offered him salvation.

Rather than subjecting himself to such agony, he coiled around the woman he’d... saved. He’d never intended to reveal himself to her when she’d been drinking from his pond, but he’d leapt from it at her loud screams. The high pitch of them, the utter terror in them... He’d been unable to deny their beckoning call. It didn’t instil hunger within, but panic.

He groaned as he absorbed her heat, relieved when it seeped beneath his flesh.

Why did I save her?

He had no reason to, nor did he care for her wellbeing whatsoever.

Creating enough space to wedge his arm forward, he clutched at the side of his skull when voices wailed within his consciousness. Women and men of all different ages pleaded for help, for mercy, for someone to save them from the Demons that tore at their flesh. They made his blood run colder. The perception of their wounds infected his own, making them ache and throb tenfold.

Make it stop.His heat source let out a quiet gasp, and he forced himself to soften around her.

“Please, stop,”a woman cried within his mind. “I’m scared.”

They were always scared at their deaths. They felt like the world had abandoned them as they suffered as prey. A man roared, twisting as he tried to crawl away, and a tanned hand became his own when nails dug at dirt to escape.

The memories twisted into something else, thankfully more pleasant.

A blanket was put over him as he stared at a fireplace, before a mug of brown steaming liquid was placed in his hands.“Thank you. I feel much better now,”a young teenage boy said, as he smiled up at a red-haired woman who suddenly became Nathair’s parent.

Nathair huddled around his own living fireplace desperately, waiting for the chill of night to fade.

Ruminative fragments of memories slipped into the front of his mind. Some pleasant, most not. He wanted to sleep, to rest, but resting out in the open never allowed him peace.

A Demon crawled on top of him.

He ignored it, since it wasn’t attacking him, and it eventually left. Many of the Demons throughout the night had eaten dirt just for a speck of human blood or flesh, but they ensured it lessened the scent for Nathair and gave him slips of lucidity.

His wounds helped, centring him in the shitty reality he found himself in.

The question remained, why did he save this human?

Perhaps a part of him thought if he protected one, it may stop the many voices that pleaded throughout his conscience. It didn’t, but he was tired of hearing their call and being powerless to stop them, to save them.

Although he couldn’t care less about the female he held onto, he’d watched her from his pond. He’d wondered why she’dchosen to fall asleep out in the open, alone, considering most of the humans in his memories never left their towns alone.

Why did she not want to go with those humans?Her scream had been ear piercing, even when muted through the water.

She’d kicked and fought, which had slapped a rather harrowing memory into the forefront of his mind. One in which he was a victim at the hands of human men.

Perhaps that is why he leapt to her aid. He’d suffered through a mere fragment of terror and assault in comparison, and he’d panicked, thinking that was her fate. Just a taste of it, and he knew the action was repulsive and cruel.

If given the opportunity, he’d eradicate all such disgusting perpetrators from the world. Alas, he was a Mavka, and his justifiable desire to neuter would likely see all humans within his vicinity eaten.

I no longer desire to eat the humans.Or any creature.

He just wanted to rest, to cope with the chaos of his ill mind, so why the fuck had he gotten involved? Now he was in pain, freezing, and felt unwell from his rage and the males he’d just eaten, as if their flesh had been rotten.

Now that the Demons were gone, and it was safe, Nathair leapt forward when his gut twisted further. Keeping the female covered, he supported himself on straightened arms as he hacked. Drool flooded his mouth. When he retched for the third time, ethereal tears floated as tiny white specks around his eyeholes.

With all the flesh he’d eaten already fully absorbed, nothing physical came out, no matter how hard he tried to vomit.

Get out,he pleaded, whimpered, anything to remove what he held onto. His entire body quaked in repulsion as he hacked again, and again, until something came up his throat.

It burned on its way out, hot and painful. When it was in his maw, he spat out one of the souls he’d been carrying. The whiteflame, the evidence of a dead soul he couldn’t fully consume, and therefore, couldn’t bind to himself, was saturated in drool when it splattered against the ground.

Within seconds, it floated, before disappearing to whatever would tie it to this world. He’d once wondered if the souls he’d been expelling would later become Ghosts, unable to go over to an afterlife, as he wouldn’t ferry them. As much as he wanted to carry them to Weldir’s black mist like he was supposed to, as both his son and servant... he couldn’t.