As I slipped toward unconsciousness while buried in the darkness, everything about these woods dragged up a memory I thought I had forgotten. It surfaced because of the pain, the fear, the persuasion of the moment. The memory of the first man I killed with my bare hands.
I was only eight back then, the first time I managed to escape the White Unit facility after four years of being harshly experimented on. It happened because of one doctor's carelessness, but also because of my own long-time planning and yearning for freedom. When I left, I wandered into the deepest, darkest parts of the city. The parts that smelled only of cigarettes, beer, and crime.
I walked for days, hunger clawing at me like talons. My head bowed to the ground, my vision buzzing, everything a blur, my shoulders dragging lower with every step. That's when I stumbled into a caravan, merchants travelling with their goods back to their store or whatever they called it. It was an old-fashioned caravan, but slightly modern, with wheels turning without horses to pull them.
A chubby man noticed me from afar. He was short, his attire almost that of a clone, with a stomach twice his size and large teeth that seemed to belong to a giant. He walked toward me, and though I barely saw him, I bumped into him. Even then, I never lifted my head.
He looked at me. "Oh! Look what I found," he said, an enchanted grin spreading across his face. "This one will fetch me a handsome amount." He turned me around, checking my weakness and fatigue, but instead of concern there was only disappointment. It didn't matter to him. He gripped my shoulder and said, "Come with me, child." He didn't even bother to wonder whose child I was, or if I was simply lost.
His fellow merchants laughed at him, mocking. "Come on, you collect every stray. Just toss that one in the trash bin. What good is it? It looks half-dead."
I didn't resist. I wouldn't even think of it. I was too tired, too confused, with no direction, no choice, no decision or destination. I barely knew anyone in the city anyway. I walked with him until he opened the door of the iron-cage wagon, then a cage, and muttered, "Get in."
I stepped inside and sat, shoulders sagging, gaze still fixed on the ground. My vision was blurred, I could barely tell where I was.
"Such a good boy." He grinned, then closed the door.
Around me, faint noises drifted, children and adults and even animals breathing and stirring quietly in their own cages.
After two days, a man came. He said he was looking for something he could use for hunting. Maybe as bait.
The chubby merchant didn't hesitate. He brought him straight to my cell without even checking elsewhere. "This one looks frail and useless. You could use him for hunting however you want."
But the man shook his head. "No. I want an animal that's smart, cunning, and fast. Something I can use as bait to draw out the beast, but not lose it in a single day. What am I supposed to do with a human child?"
The chubby man waved his hand impatiently. "Don't you get it? This kid might be sick. He'll be dead tomorrow anyway. I'll give him to you at a low price. Just two coins." He was eager to get rid of me.
"Two coins? Are you serious? I came prepared with three hundred coins. And you're telling me you'll sell me this child for two?" The man was stunned.
Greed flashed in the merchant's eyes. "Alright, then… make it fifty."
The hunter studied me, his voice calm but wary. "I'm not a hunter officially known, not like the dungeon runners or the Netherkin exorcists. I'm just a man who hunts beasts and brings meat to the city. I can't guarantee I'll protect him. So, are you sure you want to sell me this child?"
The merchant persisted until the man bought me for fifty coins.
The first day he brought me to his home. It was somewhere in the woods, not too deep, but near the edge. His house was wooden, simple, but I could tell it wasn't his real home. It felt more like a shelter he used when hunting in the forest.
He sat me in a corner, my head still hanging low. He looked at me, uncertain if he should really take me along on his hunts or simply keep me as one would keep a lost child. His expression wavered between hesitation and pity.
Maybe looking at me reminded him of his old self. And of course pity won.
He went to prepare food. I don't remember what it was, but the taste was something you would call good. He crouched in front of me with a plate in his hand. "Kid, are you hungry?"
Of course I was. Couldn't he see it written all over my body? I was beyond hungry. I snatched the food from his hand and devoured it, stuffing my mouth so fast it nearly choked me. He handed me water to keep me from collapsing, then asked my name. But my name felt lost. I searched for it in my head, repeating the question over and over—what was my name again?
The White Unit had stripped more than my body. It gnawed at my mind, leaving gaps where memories should have been. I was beginning to lose what little I had left, but it wasn't as if I had much to begin with. There was no mother, no father, no grandmother, no one. I was just some child with nothing.
I lifted my head slightly, just enough to look at him. He looked young, maybe late twenties, or early thirties. Short black hair, cut neat, a face calm and kind. He asked me again if I knew why I was in his house, or if I knew my purpose. But I gave him nothing. Eating was all I cared about; sleep would be my next move.
This kind and gentle man was Rowan. He had lost his family during the Malgeds invasion, and ever since, he lived by hunting the unique creatures that haunted the edges of the world. But a wound on his left thigh, deep from a past hunt, had stolen his speed. He couldn't run anymore, not like before.
He waited, but I stayed silent, chewing. Then he walked away without a word, locked the door and left.
That night I didn't see him again. When morning came, the door creaked open. He found me asleep on the floor. My body was warm, but the floor was cold.
"Why didn't you take the bed?" he asked. "No one uses it anyway."
I turned my head toward the bed he spoke of. It stood in a small side room, visible even from where I sat. A shiver ran through me. It reminded me too much of the beds in the White Unit facility; beds where children were strapped, tested, broken. My expression must have darkened, because he stopped asking.
Instead, he told me to get up. "We're going hunting."
Once we arrived on the ground, he looked at me for a long moment, debating if he should use me as bait or find some other purpose. Then he asked if I could run. He gestured with his hands to make sure I understood. Running, that was something I knew. I nodded.
So he explained. He would give me the flesh of a creature called a Koon. It was black and yellow skinned with no fur, skin like a human's. Its blood carried a scent that attracted beasts; magical, rare, yet dangerous ones. He said I would carry it and run toward a trap. When the beasts chased close enough, I would cut the rope he handed me a knife for. The trap would spring fast, closing on them.
I nodded again. But had I really understood him? Human words never sank deep into me. What I heard, always, were fragments. 'Do it fast. Pull. Drip it here. Push it hard.' Words that lingered like orders. And always—always—I heard 'blood.'
Still, when the time came, I did everything as he said, perfectly, or maybe flawlessly.
Six days passed like this. Each hunt, I ran, cut, trapped the beasts without hesitation, and Rowan was nice to me. Although I never spoke, he always understood me. But later he began to look at me strangely. For a boy so frail, so innocent, so ignorant of the world—I was too good at it. Too natural, and it troubled him.
On the seventh day, he tricked me. There were no traps.
I didn't know why. Maybe he was testing me. Maybe he wanted to see what I really was. But when I ran with the flesh and reached the place he pointed me to, there was nothing waiting. No ropes, no mechanism. Only me and the beast.
This time it was a single bear, huge and heavy. Fangs like knives.
Its jaws sank into my neck. My scream tore out, raw and broken. I clawed at its chest, but couldn't reach deep enough. My right hand flew instinctively to its jaw, fingers forcing their way inside. I squeezed, but its teeth tore away a piece of me before pulling back.
It lunged again, but this time I grabbed harder with both hands, clamping down until something cracked in its jaw. The beast stumbled back, stunned.
The man stood frozen. I don't know if it was confusion or fear, but he didn't move. He watched as though he was seeing something impossible.
The bear came again, relentless. But I had always been built differently. My brutal and unnatural strength rose to meet it. I seized its jaw once more, crushing until the bone twisted inward. The pain was unbearable, but I didn't let go. And at last the bear realized one more strike would be its death. It fled into the trees.
When I got up slowly and turned, the man's face was pale with horror.
He screamed at me. "Stay away! Stay away from me!" looking at my wound as it healed.
But I only tried to hand him the knife. I told him it was weak, that it didn't cut, because that's what I thought, though my words came out broken and wrong. Perhaps it was the way I held it, perhaps it was what I'd done to the bear. Either way, terror filled his eyes as if remembering something darker.
"Stay away from me!" he cried again, snatching up a stone. It was heavy, yet he hurled it at my head with wild desperation.
Blood trickled down my face as I turned toward him. His expression twisted into something I had never seen before, something darker than the beasts. He grabbed another stone and threw it at the exact spot.
He was more afraid of me than he had ever been of the bear, or any other creature he had hunted.
The pain didn't matter. What unsettled me was him; his fear, his expression. It angered me more than the bear's fangs had.
I stumbled forward, tripping on the rocks he had thrown. My body began to fall against him, hands snapping backward. He froze in place and the knife drove itself into his forehead.
I hadn't even meant to. But it killed him all the same.
When I thought I was finally free, I walked back toward the city. But instead of finding safety, I crossed paths with another merchant. Maybe it was the places I chose to walk, always in the shadows, avoiding the bright heart of the city. I feared the lights. Feared being taken back to the White Unit, feared being caught. So I lingered in the dark.
And the people who waited in the dark were always the merchants.
And they took me again.