Feral

8 ⇞ Prowling Memories; Visit

She clutched at the bear in her arms. It was a worn and soft thing that had been given to her by a man who she knew she knew but was too scared to remember. She'd been playing somewhere warm, the voice of a woman who wasn't like her but she might have called something, close enough to tell her she was safe. That was when she'd been given the toy. It was a gift of warmth, given when the trees were covered in bugs and green leaves. She was sitting in the snow now, in a time where everything but the prickly trees stopped being. The knowledge of that difference was clear to her but she didn't want to do what she had to.

She couldn't cling to this thing that wouldn't bring her food.

Claws and teeth were needed to catch prey, not her favorite toy.

But she couldn't do it, not yet. So she ran instead. Ran and ran until she was bigger, still small and weak, but closer to the beast than she'd been before. Small but big and unaware that she had once wandered for hours, searching for scents burned away with rubber and metal.

The clearing was her goal. It was always her goal when she wasn't small and scared of the things that did not get her food and shelter. Sometimes she was stopped by the thing that hid in her skin. Others, she was the beast, stopping the girl from seeing what she shouldn't. The rest of the moments, she saw things that made her wish for hunger or the claws of a cat she'd once challenged instead.

Still, she ran, determined to complete this task because she could do nothing else. There was no other thing that could be done. A dog could not outrun itself no matter how hard it tried to catch its tail. So, she ran; ran until she reached the edge of the clearing, where she stopped, always. Then, she watched.

Hands, small like those of the child she'd been. Covered in blood not her own, she used them to pull, bite, and pull again. The motions rushed, quick with the fear of getting caught. The fear of being left hungry in the cold again. She watched her younger hands pull piece after piece of bloody meat from the carcass, uncaring of its raw form.

It was the first time she'd scavenged food. The first time she ate it raw, not in the skin of a beast, but in that of a girl, starving for more than just food.

She was looking down at the deer who had died such a short time ago, that its body was still warm, the flesh still steamed. It had been left by a cat who would no doubt return. She didn't care, she just wanted to eat. It didn't matter that the meat was tough, bloody, or felt slimy against her tongue. Nor did it matter that this way of eating felt better when she wore warm fur.

Reach out, dig in, pull, bite. Reach out, dig in, pull, bite. Reach out, dig in, pull, bite. Reach out, dig in, pull, bite. Reach out, dig in, pull, bite. Reach out, dig in, pull, bite. Reach out, dig in, pull, bite. Reach out, dig in, pull, bite.

Eat until the belly is full.

Until the taste of the dead man left her mouth.

She curled her lips, wanting to snarl at the thought so she wouldn't be caught whimpering and weak. Her hands curled in preparation to dig into the meat again but found only fabric. Nadia blinked, looked down at her hands, fingers clutching the plain sheets of her bed. She tried to recall what it was that had caused her to sit up as she had, feet flat against the stone floor, but couldn't catch the memory. The dreams she had were easy enough to recall. Some were random bits of conversations and images that never made sense and others were endless cascades of senses and things she would never have words for. Those dreams were nightly, easy enough to forget and never enough to bother her. The last one was different, occurring again and again without so much as a warning.