Page 10 of Monster’s Obsessive Hunger

THORRIN

H er presence has become the new center of my world.

The moon’s cycle, the turning of the seasons, the ancient rhythms of predator and prey—they have all faded into the background.

My existence is now measured in the hours between her visits.

By day, I am a hunter, waiting in the smothering hush of my lair.

But when dusk falls and I sense her approach, something inside me awakens.

I am not merely a monster in the dark anymore; I am Thorrin, waiting for Lyssa.

Tonight, she tells me a story about the sea, a place I have not seen in centuries.

She describes the taste of salt on the wind and the endless blue expanse, and I can almost feel it, almost remember it.

I watch the way her hands move as she speaks, graceful arcs in the lantern light that seem to be weaving the tale into the very air around us.

I am memorizing her. Not as a predator studies the habits of its prey, but as a scholar memorizes a sacred text.

The way a single strand of dark hair falls across her cheek, the way her eyes soften when she speaks of something beautiful, the small, determined set of her jaw.

Every detail is a treasure I hoard against the coming silence.

The physical hunger is still here, of course.

It is a dull, constant ache in my gut, a low crimson burn in my chest. It is the curse I will carry for eternity.

But it is a distant thing now, a background noise to the sharper, more immediate hunger I feel for her presence.

The hollowness inside me is no longer a simple void.

It has taken on her shape. When she is here, telling her stories, the space is filled with the warm, golden light of her voice.

But I know, as the night wears on, that she will have to leave.

The thought of her departure is a cold dread that begins to build in my chest, a physical pressure that makes it hard to draw breath.

The silence she will leave behind will be more profound, more painful, than the centuries of silence that came before.

“I have to go,” she says. “My sister will notice if I’m gone too long.”

The words are a physical blow. The warmth that has filled my chest for the last hour vanishes in an instant, and the vast, crushing hollowness rushes back in. My rib sputters, colors cough replaced by the anxious green of impending loss. A raw, desperate need claws its way up my throat.

“Stay,” I say, My voice a rough, pleading growl that sounds pathetic even to my own ears. “Longer. Just one more story.”

She gives me a sad, gentle smile. “I can’t, Thorrin.

I have to be back before the sun rises.” She begins to gather her cloak around her, the simple movement an act of profound abandonment.

Panic, cold and sharp, grips me. I cannot let her go.

Not yet. The emptiness she will leave behind is too vast to contemplate.

My instincts take over. I have learned to mimic her voice to perfection, to capture its every nuance and inflection. I have used it as a tool, a lure, a way to taste her emotions. Now, I use it as a plea.

“Don’t go,” I whisper. The voice that emerges is not my own. It is hers. A perfect, heartbreaking echo of her own gentle tone, laced with a desperation that is entirely my own. “Please. Don’t leave me alone.”

She freezes, her hand halfway to the clasp of her cloak.

I watch her face in the moonlight, see the way her expression shatters.

She is shocked, shaken to her core. To hear her own voice, begging her not to go, is a violation, a cruel manipulation.

I know this. But it is the only way I can show her the sheer, terrifying depth of what I am feeling.

It is the only way to translate the alien agony of my loneliness into a language she can understand.

Her face softens, the shock giving way to a dawning, horrified empathy.

She is not looking at a monster anymore.

She is looking at a prisoner, and my cage is made of unending solitude.

She lowers her hand from her cloak, her movements slow, uncertain. She takes a hesitant step closer, her eyes fixed on the flickering, anxious light in my chest. Her own voice, when she speaks, is a fragile whisper, but it cuts through my internal chaos like a blade.

“Do you ever get lonely?”

The word is a ghost. A forgotten artifact from a language I no longer speak.

Lonely. For centuries, I have been alone.

The concepts are similar, but not the same.

To be alone is a state of being. To be lonely is to feel the pain of that state.

Before her, I was simply alone. It was the fundamental truth of my existence, as immutable as the stone of these mountains.

I did not feel it as a lack, because I had nothing to compare it to.

There was only the gray void and the hunger.

But now… now I have her. I have the memory of her voice filling the silence, the warmth of her presence pushing back the eternal cold.

Now, her absence is not just a return to the default state.

It is a loss. A tearing away of the only color I have ever known.

The silence she leaves is no longer empty; it is filled with the echo of her.

I look at this small, fragile human who has trespassed into the desolate landscape of my soul and somehow planted a single, impossible flower. She is waiting for an answer, her expression a mixture of fear and a compassion so profound it makes my chest ache. I owe her the truth.

“Only when you’re gone,” I reply.

The admission costs me more than she will ever know.

It is a confession of my own pathetic weakness, an acknowledgment of the power she now holds over me.

I watch her absorb the words, see the pity and understanding dawn in her eyes.

I should hate the pity. A predator should not be pitied by its prey.

But I don't. I crave the connection it represents, the shared moment of understanding that bridges the vast, impossible gulf between what we are.

She is the first living thing in centuries to see me as something more than just a monster.

She sees a creature that can feel loneliness.

And in her eyes, I see that this does not make me pathetic. It makes me real.