On a mat against cold wood, a young girl laid curled in on her herself. The moonlight fell across her pale legs as she tossed and turned. Chirping crickets and cold wind blowing against the thin walls were interrupted by groaning. She pulled at the chained iron collar on her neck. The key to the lock was on the floor across the room. Grabbing the chain, she ripped it free from its buckle on the wall and walked to her pantry.
The pantry was filled with meat. Twelve steaks, nineteen sausages, three pounds of reddish purple flesh, and a couple pounds of fish that looked past fresh and had turned a deeper shade of green than it was originally. She three steaks from the pantry and a pound of fish. Pulling raw pieces off of them slowly at first, but she began to eat faster and faster. Drops of blood speckled her white hair. Once they were finished, she took a deep breath and returned to her bedroom.
Picking up the key, the girl opened a drawer and pulled out a chain with an iron collar like the one she had just broken. She fastened it to the buckle on the wall above the mat, locked the collar shut, and threw the key across the room, laying back in bed. Minutes later, her stomach began to growl.
Again, she portioned out the meat and tore off pieces one by one. But after eating the last chunk of sausage, she returned to the pantry for more. She ate and ate until the only thing left was a small iron box hidden far back on the shelf. Hopping to reach it, she grabbed the box and tore it apart with her hands. Inside it, a severed human hand. Attached to one finger, tied against a ring, there was a price tag. The girl sat on the floor against the wall and eagerly took bites, chewing around the bones, until the skeleton and a silver ring were all that remained.
For a long time the girl sat on the floor and held her head tightly between her knees. Finally, she stood up. Taking her bright red cloak from the hook on the wall and placing a bell over her neck, she pushed the heavy stone door to her home open and with clenched teeth, stepped onto the stone path that led to Raven's Crest.
In a small room, wood crackled and popped in the fireplace. Across from it, in a heap of blankets, a child was sleeping against her mother in a bed just big enough for two. The woman's muscular arm rested underneath her head, and her bushy red hair tickled the girl's cheeks. Carefully, she freed her arm and stepped over her daughter. She pulled the mess of quilts and furs over her and put out the fire. Her hand lingered on the door knob, and she turned to watch her daughter sleep for a moment longer. Stepping outside in a long leather overcoat, she started on the blackstone path through the woods.
The woods around the city were quiet. In an older age, they had burned and never grown back. The woman walked through them whistling a tune and occasionally feeling the scar under her eye. At the end of the path was a cliff. Halfway off the edge, built in the shape of a raven's head, was a bar, Perch. The woman kissed the stone raven sitting on the porch railing before climbing the rickety steps and heading inside.
The woman stayed in the bar for hours past the darkest time of night. When she came out, she was drunk enough to make every step look impressive. If she hadn't made the walk many times before, then it would have seemed impossible that she could ever find her way home. In this manner, she walked down the steps and towards her home, repeatedly tripping and catching herself. But it had rained the night before and the stone was wet in places. On the edge of town, her right foot touched the stone and didn't find it again. Myka fell on her right side, and her temple caught the small curb, knocking her unconscious.
Blood ran down her face and dripped down the gutter. Her chest was the only thing that moved, slowly pushing in and out against the stone. A bell rang in the distance.
Red turned off the path, onto the stone road where the woods turned black. Saliva ran down the sides of her mouth and dripped off of her chin. The bell chimed with each step she took. Sometimes, for a moment or two, she would hold the pin inside it so that it was very difficult to hear her move at all.
She was barefoot, the nails on her toes had become long and sharp. The corners of her mouth stretched from where they had been earlier. As if she had opened her mouth too wide and split the corners apart. Her jaw opened wider and farther. Fresh teeth lined the new space in her jaw. The whites of her eyes had turned pure black. Below the corners, there were new, smaller eyes like a spider's. And her skin was covered in very short, silky, white fur. Her ears, were fluffy and long like a fox's. But her hair was still pure white, shining in the moonlight.
When she spotted Myka far in the distance, she froze like an animal. For twenty minutes, she watched, drooling in puddles on the ground. Setting her bell against the dirt, she walked carefully over to her. Crouched down over Myka, she held the bare skin of her neck in her mouth. Feeling the pulse against behind her jaw with her tongue and slowly putting pressure on the soft skin with her teeth until the surface of it broke against her sharp canines.
Red's jaws were strong and the bones in Myka's neck and arms snapped very easily under the pressure. She chewed through the soft muscle and tissue. The fluids melted on her tongue. She took Myka's skull in her teeth and flexed the masseters in her jaw until the bone split open like a walnut and the warm goo slid down her throat like a raw oyster. Red ate her eyes and the tongue out of her mouth. She ate the muscle between the bones in her hand and splintered the ribs between her teeth. She ate and ate and ate, like nothing else in the world existed.
A cold breeze ran across the back of her neck. Time came back to Red after over an hour of eating. The stars were slowly disappearing from the sky and it was turning pale blue. She turned to look at Myka, There was nothing left of the upper half of her body. The bottom of her spinal cord stuck out of the cross section above her pelvis. Now there were just her hips and a pair of legs, limp against the road.
The light brown pants Myka wore were spotted darkly where blood had sprayed. Not moving anywhere or doing anything in particular, Red moved frantically and her eyes darted wildly. She awkwardly shifted the legs and tried to pull them, but her strength wasn't there. The sound of wheels on stone echoed in the distance. Red sat completely still with eyes of glass, looking down at the blood that had pooled in the gutter. By the time the wagon came into view, she was nowhere to be seen.
Eyes overflowing with tears, she ran down the road, past the path that turned to her home and through the burnt trees, to the cliff where Perch nested. She took a seat over the edge of the cliff, her legs dangling over the shattered rocks far below. The sun was coming up now, over the horizon and the sky was a beautiful shade of pink and blue. Warm light painted Red's face. She looked quietly at her hands. Myka's blood covered them and stuck under her fingernails. The tears that ran down Red's face splashed against her hands, and stained them crimson. Clenching her fist tightly, she closed her eyes and placed her fingers over the edge.
written by me, zombi c: