Deep in the woods I found a dying man. His left leg had been bitten off at the thigh. Long claw marks ran down his arms. The tree he was sitting against had blood stains running down it, as though he'd been slammed into it and slid down to the ground. He had maybe a dozen more breaths before his life ended.
When he saw me coming he tried to call out to me. All that came out was a low wheeze, as though his insides were in worse shape than the outsides. I leaned in over him to hear what he was saying.
"Eat it, all of it," he whispered in my ear. "Or else it'll come back."
He pointed with the only finger left on his hand across the forest clearing. The thing that had killed him was also dying.
The closest thing I could compare it to was a stag. It had branching antlers that were badly broken and smeared with blood. Its snout had been smashed in, but it was still managing to take shallow breaths. Its body was vaguely shaped like a human's but it was too big and had too many arms. A few long fingers pulled at the dirt, as though the thing were trying to keep itself present.
I'd never seen a demon in person, but everyone knew the Mantra about them. We learned the Mantra before we could walk or speak. It was repeated more often than our names. "You must eat them, or they will come back."
Luckily I had my father's butcher knife with me. It was meant to help prepare the feast for that night's festival, but the festival wouldn't happen if I didn't act.
I started at one of the hands. The cleaver cut through meat and bone without protest. Yellow blood dripped off the cuts and burned the ground where it landed. I took small bites, finger by finger, until the hand was gone. Then I moved up the arms.
As I ate, a vision began to play in my mind. I saw cliffs made from jagged stone under a yellow sky. A scaly body pulled itself out of a cave with thousands of human arms, like a millipede with legs on every side, and grinned at me.
I stopped eating. The dying man tried to ask me something, but I couldn't make it out. He could only watch as I dragged the demon's body deeper into the woods with me.
Further in was where we set up for the festival. Two long wooden tables were positioned on either side of an enormous cauldron. My father had given me the task of chopping up the meat for the stew.
I started a fire under the cauldron and brought the water to a boil. Bones made for a good broth, so I started with those. Inside the monster's many stomachs was a mix of plants and meat. Those went in the cauldron too.
Once I had a decent broth I began to add the muscles. The skin stayed on since I had to eat every bit of it. After much stirring the meat was tender and juicy. I brought a bowl over and began to eat.
Spoonful by spoonful the monster began to disappear. I didn't see the vision anymore, but the meal still wasn't what anyone would consider normal. The monster was five times my size, but eating it was no problem. It should have taken me weeks to finish but I never felt full. On the contrary, the more I ate the hungrier I felt.
I wondered what it would be like to pull the monster's heart out and feel the yellow blood run down my chin. Somehow I knew the monster would taste better if I smashed it to pieces and pulled it apart with my hands and teeth. Still, I ate it one spoonful at a time, alone in the forest clearing.
The more I ate the more proud of myself I felt. This was what people did. People didn't pull their food apart and eat it raw. People cook their food and eat it with utensils.
At last I ate my final spoonful. All that was left of the monster was the matted grass where it had been laying for hours. It was gone from the world, and it would never come back.
I walked back to the clearing to tell the dying man the good news. The dying man was dead. Clutched in his hand was a pitchfork made from yellow metal. He held it close, but his last expression was troubled.
My town would know what to do with him. I decided to go back and tell my family everything that had happened. Dad would know exactly what to do. Mom would hug me close and tell me I'd been good for remembering the Mantra. One day they would tell my younger brother Luke how his older brother was living proof of someone following the Mantra.
Along the way to the town my stomach began to hurt. It felt as though hot coals were piling on top of each other until they might burst out of my throat. I leaned against a tree near the edge of a hill to catch my breath. The pain spread through my limbs until it felt like I was being dipped in fire. The agony in my head made me lose track of where I was. I tripped over a root and tumbled down the hill.
The leaves scattered beneath me as I fell. It was a strange feeling because every Autumn I would meet up with the other kids from town and we'd jump into piles of leaves. It wasn't a sound I associated with pain at all.
Every muscle in my body had tensed. My teeth ground together so I couldn't even call out for help. I could feel my bones stretching themselves out. My skin would tear, then repair itself only to tear again.
I tried to think of anything else that might distract me from the pain. My mind went back to just a day ago when we were preparing for the festival.
