Page 8 of Monster’s Obsessive Hunger
THORRIN
H er laughter is the color of a sunrise I can no longer remember.
It is a bright, warm yellow that cuts through the oppressive gray of my existence, and when the sound fills the clearing, the light in my own chest flares in response.
She is telling me another story tonight, something about a clumsy attempt to bake a pie for a village festival that ended with more flour on her than in the bowl.
Her face is animated, her eyes sparkling in the lantern light, and the joy radiating from her is a flavor so potent, so pure, that it makes my ancient, hollow bones ache with a forgotten kind of want.
For weeks, I have been hoarding the sound of her laughter.
I collect each note, each breathless giggle, each full-throated peal of amusement.
In the oppressive stillness of my lair, I practice.
I replay the sounds, shaping my own vocal cords, which have produced nothing but growls and stolen whispers for centuries, to match her perfect, living melody.
It is a secret, obsessive art. A way for me to hold onto the warmth of her presence long after she has retreated to the safety of her village.
Tonight, as her story concludes and another genuine, unburdened laugh escapes her, I do something I have not dared before. I give the sound back to her.
The laughter that rumbles from my chest is not my own gravelly rasp. It is hers. A perfect, note-for-note mimicry, infused with the echo of her own joy. The sound is uncanny, a beautiful, impossible flower blooming from the throat of a monster.
The effect on her is immediate and devastating.
The smile vanishes from her face, replaced by a look of profound shock that quickly curdles into something like violation.
She freezes, her body going rigid, her eyes wide with a new kind of fear.
This is not the simple terror of a predator revealed; this is the horror of seeing a piece of her own soul reflected in the empty eyes of the abyss.
The warmth in the clearing evaporates, leaving a sudden, chilling cold.
I feel a strange, unfamiliar pang. Regret.
The mimicry was an act of selfish desperation, an attempt to feel the joy she projects so effortlessly.
I wanted to taste it, to hold it inside myself for just a moment.
But in doing so, I have stolen it from her.
I have reminded her that every beautiful thing she offers me, I can only ever twist into a monstrous echo.
The yellow light sputters, dimming to a confused, anxious green.
The silence that falls between us is heavier, more profound, than any that has come before.
She stares at me for a long time, her face a pale mask in the moonlight.
The fear is there, but beneath it, I see the flicker of the same defiant curiosity that brought her back here night after night.
She is processing, analyzing, trying to understand the impossible thing that just happened.
When she finally speaks, her voice is a strained whisper.
“Why?” The word is small, but it carries the weight of a thousand unspoken questions. Why the mimicry? Why the obsession? Why me?
I owe her an answer, though I am not sure I have the words for it.
The concepts are alien to me, emotions I can only understand as flavors, not feelings.
“Your voice…” I begin, my own true voice a rough counterpoint to the memory of her laughter.
“It has… life. More than any other I have tasted.” I see her flinch at the word ‘tasted,’ but I have no other language for this.
I try again, struggling to articulate the vast, ancient emptiness that is the core of my being.
“Before you, there was only the hunger. A gray, silent void inside me that could only be filled for a few brief, bloody moments. The voices of my prey, their fear, their pain—they were fleeting tastes that only made the silence deeper when they were gone.”
I take a step closer, a risk, but I need her to see as much as hear.
I need her to look at the glow and understand.
“I remember nothing of what I was before the curse. Nothing of the elf I might have been. My existence is a long, unbroken stretch of gray. But your stories, your voice… they are the first color I have known in centuries.” I pause, the confession a raw, vulnerable thing.
“Because your voice makes me feel… less hollow.”
This is the heart of my obsession. She is not just prey, not just a source of novel sensation.
She is a cure for an ailment I didn’t even know had a name.
She is the antidote to my own nothingness.
The memories she shares are starting to stir something within me, phantom sensations of sunlight on skin, the echo of a forgotten name, the ghost of a feeling that might have once been love.
They are faint, fleeting, but they are more than I have had for longer than her entire civilization has existed.
Lyssa is silent, her mind clearly struggling to comprehend the monstrous, pathetic truth I have laid at her feet.
I am a parasite, feeding not on her blood but on her soul, her memories, the very essence of her life.
I see the pity in her eyes, and it is a far sharper wound than her fear ever was.
She takes a half-step back, a small, instinctive retreat that feels painful to witness.
Her expression is a storm of conflicting emotions—revulsion, fascination, and a deep, aching empathy that she has no reason to feel for a creature like me.
She turns without a word and walks away, her form swallowed by the darkness of the woods. She does not run this time. Her departure is a quiet, deliberate act of retreat, leaving me alone in the clearing with the weight of my own confession. The silence she leaves behind is absolute.
I stare at the spot where she stood, the scent of her fading on the cold night air.
The warmth her presence brought is already leaching away, the familiar gray chill seeping back into my bones.
The glow in my chest, which had flared so brightly with her stories, now dims to a low, anxious green, pulsing with uncertainty.
Is this dangerous? The question surfaces from the deepest part of my consciousness.
This new hunger, this addiction to her voice, is becoming a need as fundamental as the curse itself.
The satisfaction it brings is a thousand times more profound than that of a kill, but the craving it leaves in its absence is a thousand times more acute.
What will I do if she decides not to return?
The thought sends a spike of cold, possessive fear through me, a feeling so sharp it is almost indistinguishable from the physical hunger for flesh.
The two cravings are beginning to merge, to twist together into a single, all-consuming obsession.
I know this path is perilous. This strange, fragile connection to a human is a weakness, a vulnerability that could be exploited.
It could unravel me, destroy the cold, simple purpose that has allowed me to survive for centuries.
But as I stand alone in the silent, empty clearing, I am forced to admit a terrifying truth to myself.
I don’t want to stop. I can’t stop. The thought of returning to the gray, silent void of my former existence is now more terrifying than any physical threat.
I have tasted color, and I will do anything to keep from being plunged back into the dark.