Fog clung to the earth like a second skin.
Elias walked. Or drifted. He wasn't sure anymore. His clothes were damp and torn, mud clinging to his boots, but he felt none of it. The world around him passed in smudges crooked trees, lopsided fences, scattered farmhouses half-hidden in morning mist.
He didn't know how long it had been since the forest. Hours? Days?
He only knew the hunger was back.
It sat inside him like a second soul. Coiled. Writhing. Growing sharper with every breath he took. His throat burned. His chest ached with emptiness. He could smell blood in the air faint, diluted but it was enough to drive nails into his skull.
He came across a road, dirt packed and winding, leading into a cluster of small wooden homes. A village.
Quiet. Peaceful. He almost turned back.
But the hunger wouldn't let him.
---
He hid in the shadows of an alley, watching people move between their chores. A mother wringing out sheets. A child chasing chickens through puddles. An old man smoking under a rusted tin roof. The scent of life was everywhere thick, intoxicating. Each heartbeat was a drum pounding against his ribs.
He clutched his face, trying to block it out. Tried to breathe. Tried to not think about how warm their skin would be. How easy it would be to taste them.
"I'm not this. I'm not this."
His voice came out hoarse. Hollow.
But he was lying. And he knew it.
---
That night, it rained again.
He moved through the village like a ghost quiet, unseen, a pale figure in the dark.
He found a house on the edge of the road. Lights off. One inhabitant. An old man. Sickly, judging by the slow beat of his heart.
Elias stood at the door for a long time, hand raised, trembling.
Then he slipped inside.
The man lay on a cot, wheezing softly, unaware. The room smelled of damp wood, medicine, dust and blood.
Elias knelt beside him.
> "I'm sorry," he whispered though he wasn't sure why. The words tasted foreign, like a line from a play he no longer believed in. But they came anyway, as if his mouth remembered something his soul had long since buried.
And then, he fed.
His teeth broke skin, and warmth rushed into his mouth like fire. Not just blood memory. Images, flashes, voices.
— a birthday candle lit for a granddaughter who never visited.
— a letter never mailed.
— a woman's laugh in the kitchen years ago.
Their life poured into him in warmth, in memories, in love. For a second, he felt human again. But it wasn't real.
Just borrowed pain.
He wanted to stop but it was already too late.
The man's breathing slowed. Then stopped.
Elias pulled away, blood coating his lips, hands, everything.
"No…" he muttered a dry, instinctive sound. Not grief. Not guilt. Just the echo of a man who used to feel those things.
He stumbled back, hitting the wall. His body shook like it wanted to cry but no tears came. Just the tremors of a memory pretending to be remorse.
And then a voice spoke behind him.
"You've had your last meal, monster."
Elias froze.
A man stepped into the doorway. Tall. Lean. Cloaked in dark oilskin, the rain dripping from the brim of his hat. His eyes were hard and grey, like storm-washed steel.
In his hands a blade.
Long. Silver. Etched with runes that glowed faintly, like embers trapped under ice.
"Who?" Elias rasped.
"Doesn't matter."
The hunter moved first.
Elias barely dodged. The blade whistled past his ear, slicing a lock of his hair.
They clashed in the tight space fists, claws, steel. Elias moved faster than any man should. But the hunter was calm. Trained. Every motion precise.
Elias managed a punch to the chest the man staggered.
"Why are you doing this?!"
"Because someone has to."
Steel tore across Elias's shoulder. Blood sprayed the wall black, smoking.
Elias roared and slammed the man into the floorboards.
But the hunter rolled free and drove the blade into Elias's chest.
Straight through his heart.
Time stopped.
Elias gasped, mouth open, but no sound came out. The pain wasn't sharp it was cold. Deep. The kind of pain that hollowed out everything.
The blade burned. His veins lit up with light. His limbs trembled, then failed.
He collapsed to his knees.
The hunter knelt beside him.
"You're lucky," he said. "Most don't get a clean end."
Elias looked up at him not angry. Not even scared.
Just… tired.
> "Killing Rothman… would've been easy," he whispered. "But I wanted him to suffer."
The hunter didn't respond.
Elias looked past him. At the broken door. The body on the bed.
"This wasn't the plan," he muttered. "But maybe this was always where it was going…"
His voice faded.
Then silence.
Rain tapped on the roof.
---
Outside, the village slept on.
Inside, the hunter stood, wiping the blood from his blade, the glow of the runes slowly fading.
He left Elias's body where it lay.
But before stepping out into the storm, he turned and looked back.
"We're not all monsters. Some of us just get cursed trying not to be."
Then he vanished into the rain.
---
Above, clouds gathered.
Thunder rumbled slow, and deep.
The air grew heavy. Electric. Still.
Then, from the sky, a flash.
Lightning struck.
It split the heavens with a shriek, slamming into the house like divine wrath.
The roof exploded. Fire roared. Smoke poured into the sky.
At the center of it all
Elias's corpse, wreathed in flame and shadow.
For a moment, time held its breath.
And in the heart of the storm…
something stirred.
Something old.
Something waiting.
And with a final crack of thunder, the world let go.