Page 41 of Maneater

We rode day and night, through storms and sunlight alike, the ground shaking with the drum of massive limbs.

Nothing mattered but reaching the place where the darkness called.

Time slipped away and it was impossible to measure.

The world had blurred, shades of black and white smearing the line between night and day.

Still, we pressed on.

I’d expected the creature to falter, to collapse beneath the weight of exhaustion.

But it never did. It ran with a kind of unnatural endurance, tearing across the land like a beast unbound by this world.

To any onlooker, we would’ve been nothing but a stroke, a blur vanishing into the horizon.

Something was aiding us. I could feel it.

Yet, it asked of nothing in return, only pushing us forward with urgency.

Onward. Onward. Onward.

And onward we went. The land shifted beneath us, plains gave way to mountains, then to marshes, bogs, forests, and dense woods, all drawn forward by the single, unwavering call.

There was no need to stop, no hunger or thirst to slow us down.

The path took us farther from civilization, deeper into isolation.

But the closer we got to whatever waited at the end, the louder the call grew.

By then, I knew nothing could pull me away.

Not hunger, not fear, not even the past I left behind.

I knew we were close when the black and white of the world started to blur into silver.

The sky shimmered with starlight, and the air grew still.

I’d felt this before. Rarely, briefly. I’d always wrote it off as a fantasy, some imagined grandeur.

But now I understood. These were echoes. Warnings. Invitations.

This was the darkness calling me.

The same darkness that had followed me for as long as I could remember. Never too far, it gave more than it took, and stood between me and the worst the world had to offer. Whether it was a friend or something else, I had never thought to question why it was there.

The flashes of silver. The pull in my chest. The sense that I belonged. It wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t madness.

The darkness was guiding me home.

It was leading me to Torhiel.

I woke to find the creature gone.

My stomach clenched with a hunger so strong it felt like it might tear me apart. Every muscle ached, my head pounded, and pain shot through my shoulder like it had just been reopened.

Then my memory returned to the gates of Falhurst. How the darkness took me. I remembered letting it in, how it grew inside me.

Through it all, I was helpless, like a bystander watching my own life unfold as if it belonged to someone else.

The thought of the carnage made my stomach lurch, bringing a different pain settling deep inside me.

The blood, the destruction; it was overwhelming.

It wasn’t the violence that discomforted me, it was the awakening of a power.

For years, I dismissed what the darkness revealed, always brushing it off as a dream or some trick of my mind.

But now, the pieces started to click into place. Back when I was a child in Brier Len. Years ago, at the Rustwood Mill. And now, at the gates of Falhurst.

These weren’t mere coincidences. Something dark and calamitous lived within me.

Call it delusion, a rude awakening, or simply acceptance, but now, more than ever, my thoughts drifted to what little I knew of my mother.

I knew she was born in Torhiel, that this land had been her home long before Brier Len.

My earliest memories began around the age of four or five, always rooted in the outskirts I called home.

But something about this place stirred a strange familiarity.

The air felt warm, almost inviting, as if it was a homecoming.

And yet, beneath that comfort, there was an undercurrent of unease, a deeply rooted sense that danger lingered close.

I didn’t need a sign to know I was in Torhiel. And I was completely alone.

My stomach growled again, sharp and hollow, the kind of hunger that felt like your stomach was folding in on itself. I shifted, trying to sit up, and pain flared through my left shoulder like fire.

I gasped, the sound barely more than a whimper.

I switched to my right arm, my wrist mottled in deep purples and yellows from when the sentry crushed it under his boot. It throbbed, but it worked. That was enough.

My hand found the satchel still slung across my chest. I fumbled at the flap, then reached inside.

The coin pouch was still there, but my pocketknife was gone.

No chance of getting it back now. My fingers found a small bundle tucked in the corner.

I grabbed it without thinking, driven by desperation.

It felt softer than it should have, but I didn’t care.

I tore it open and let the contents fall into my hand.

Two shriveled, moldy apples dropped out, followed by the pulpy remains of something that might’ve once been an apricot .

My heart sank.

I rummaged through the satchel, searching for anything else, any bundles I might’ve overlooked. I tore into three more, unwrapping them with trembling hands.

The cheese had gone rock-hard and dry, speckled with mold.

The cured meats were stiff as old leather, and the bread was stale to the point of danger.

Any bite from it would tear up my mouth.

The crackers had crumbled into dust, but I held the cloth to my lips and funneled what I could in, chasing every last dry grain.

They scraped down my throat, and I coughed violently as the dust hit my lungs.

After the fit passed, I reached for the meat.

It was salted, sure, but I had no idea if it was still safe.

My stomach didn’t care. I tore off a piece and chewed.

It was tough, tasting of musk and dirt. It was hardly edible, but I forced it down, my jaw aching with every grind of my teeth.

I kept going, tearing off another piece, and another, until my jaw felt like it might seize up.

But as the edge of hunger dulled, an unbearable thirst came rushing in.

It felt like I hadn’t drank in weeks. I swallowed again, and my throat rasped in protest. The dry, raw walls scraped against each other, threatening another coughing fit.

The discomfort was maddening. It was a slow, grinding torture.

I needed water. More than anything, I needed water.

Only then did I take in my surroundings. I was in a forest, at first glance, not unlike the woods of Brier Len. But the resemblance ended there.

These trees weren’t sick or rotting. They stood tall and imposing, towering high above, their trunks thick and ancient. Massive roots curled around their bases, twisted and gnarled like frozen serpents, each bend like a page in a fairytale.

They were beautiful. And they were dangerous.

While the trees of Brier Len made their venom obvious, these were more insidious.

The trees of Torhiel didn’t warn, they welcomed.

They loomed in quiet majesty, drawing you in with their grandeur.

But beneath their bark, I could sense something else.

Something darker that I needed to stay away from.

Water.

Right, water.

I needed to find it. Now.

Where there were trees, there had to be water.

I forced myself to my feet, every movement aching. My knees trembled, and pain radiated through my limbs, but I stood. My eyes flicked in every direction, searching for a clue, anything to point me toward a stream. A spring. A drop.

I sensed danger from the trees, but beyond them, the forest felt still.

Safe enough, perhaps, to wander. If there was water, I would find it.

I stilled myself, drawing in a slow, careful breath.

I let everything else fall away, every ache, every thought, and focused what little energy I had left into listening. But the silence was absolute.

No trickle of water.

No rustling leaves.

Not even the faint chirp of a bird.

The only living things in this forest were the trees and me.

The weight of that realization tightened in my chest. Panic surged suddenly.

I tried to suppress it, to hold the line as I always had, but the strength just wasn’t there anymore.

Everything that had happened, the escape, the wounds, the hunger, it was too much.

I was slipping beneath the surface, unable to stay afloat.

How long had it been since Falhurst?

And Leya. What happened to Leya?

Had they killed her after I left? I hadn’t planned to take her far, just far enough to give her a chance to start again, somewhere new.

That’s her fault, not yours , a cold, selfish voice whispered at the edge of my thoughts.

I never asked for her to become my responsibility.

Still, I couldn’t shake the image of her falling into Gadriel’s hands.

Would he torture her? Try to use her against me? Leya didn’t know anything, not really.

But she had seen what I was.

She saw the power. The darkness.

And there was no hiding it now. Not from her. Not from anyone.

I wondered if anyone had survived Falhurst at all.

The inner city might have been spared. But the outer gates, the sentries, the archers on the second wall, those who rushed to respond, they had fallen.

I saw them slain. I saw them die. The darkness had pulled me away before I could watch every last one of them fall, but I hoped none walked away from what I’d done.

Word would soon reach Gadriel. Someone had to have survived long enough to tell him what happened in Falhurst. News of the destruction I left behind would reach him eventually.

And when it did, Gadriel would know what I’d become.

I wasn’t just the woman he found on the outskirts anymore, I was something else entirely. Something wretched.

A monster.

Then, a colder thought crept in, tightening in my chest.

Was Gadriel already here? In Torhiel?

Time had unraveled since Falhurst, slipping through my grasp like water. I had no real sense of how long it had been. That city had marked the beginning of his journey, and he’d told me himself that it would take three months, at the very least, to travel from Hyrall to Torhiel.

But I recalled the creature. How we fled. How the world molded around us. The way space and time seemed to bend beneath the weight of our escape.

With the darkness pushing us forward, what should’ve taken months by carriage had passed in weeks, perhaps even less.

Gods, what was happening? What did I turn into?