Awakening
Rain. It greets me as I return to the world, falling from the sky in endless streams. Cold, sharp, and insistent, it clings to my skin like a lover, or an enemy, I cannot decide which. Perhaps both. The droplets drum against my flesh, rolling down in silver rivulets, trying to distract me, trying to conceal what cannot be hidden…the stench.
That is what woke me. It wasn’t the rain. It wasn’t the shifting of the earth above me, but that scent, putrid and vile, a rot that time itself has failed to bury. The rain seeks to wash it away, but water alone cannot erase what has soaked into every grain of soil, every root, every living thing that dares to grow in this corrupted place.
I dig my claws into the bark of a tree that leans over my resting place. Its trunk groans beneath my grip, and when I tear beneath its surface, the smell rushes up to assail me, even fouler than before. The poison has seeped into its veins. The tree’s voice is silent, choked by the corruption, its life thinned and withered. It has no song, no whisper of greeting. None of them do.
The earth, my dearest ally, my cradle for all these years, she did not even stir to wake me. She left me to claw my way out alone, her silence heavier than stone. I dare not ask her why.
Air floods my lungs, and with it comes the full weight of the stench. It clogs my nose and burns my throat. Everywhere at once, from every direction, it chokes the world. Humans, but not the humans I knew. Not the prey I remember. Their scent is… stronger, more pervasive. It coats every tree, every rock, every plant. I want to retch, but my belly is hollow, my stomach a shriveled sack that yields nothing.
Perhaps, then, the rain is not my foe. Perhaps it does not try to hinder me, but to shield me. Its heavy curtain dulls the sharpest edges of this violation of my senses, easing my awakening.
The soil sloughs from my body as I rise, washing away centuries of slumber. My limbs are stiff, bound by long stillness. My lungs rebel, screaming with the effort of breath. I throw back my head and release a roar into the storm, a sound torn from the depths of my chest. The cry rips through the trees, a raw, primal herald. My ribs ache, but with every scream, the stiffness loosens. The rain carries my voice into the darkness until at last I fall silent, chest heaving.
My joints creak like old wood as I move, muscles straining, cracking free of sleep’s prison. Hunger gnaws at me, sharp, insistent, and undeniable. I must feed.
The trees snap at my passage, their brittle limbs giving way beneath my weight. The undergrowth claws at me, tangled vines and branches snagging in my hair and the crown of bone that crests my skull. The earth itself, soft with ages of decay, muffles my steps, letting me glide soundlessly through the night.
The stench is stronger in one direction, too strong, but I must wait, so I turn aside. First, I must be whole again. First, I must eat.
Among the trees linger familiar scents…old prey. Once, they roamed vast and proud, their herds thundered on the winds. I remember the taste of them, rich and wild, filling. My mouth waters.
I stalk one easily. Its senses are dulled, its body weaker, smaller than those of ages past. When I strike, it barely struggles. Its bones snap like dry twigs. I peel the hide from its corpse, sucking the thin meat from its brittle frame, but the flavor… the flavor is gone. It’s empty, like ash in my mouth. It burns my tongue. I fling its antlered skull into the brush, disgusted.
Another falls, and another, and still another. Four carcasses lie broken behind me, their blood soaking into the dirt. My hunger persists, unbending and unappeased. These are but shadows of what they once were.
Now they know of my presence. The survivors scatter, fleet-footed and terrified, vanishing into the thickets. It is well. They were not the reason I woke.
The reason is stronger. The stench pulls me onward, undeniable. My true prey gathers in vast numbers, clustering together, soft and careless. Humans…far more of them than I ever knew in the old world. They sprawl across the land like weeds, choking out all else. Their walls and fires rise where forests once stood, where rivers once sang. They think themselves safe. They think themselves beyond fear.
Fools.
I crouch now on the edge of the trees and watch. Hours pass, and the sun sinks beyond the mountains. The rain eases, then ceases altogether, as if the sky itself holds its breath. I do not move yet. I wait, patient as stone, unseen and unfelt. Their voices drift across the night, laughter, chatter, and the dull rhythms of their dulled existence. They have lost the instincts that once made them wary. They no longer look to the shadows for danger. They no longer listen to the silence.
They no longer remember me.
When at last the moon crowns the sky, I rise. My hunger gnaws sharper now, sharpened to a blade’s edge. The rain does not return to mask me. No, it has chosen this moment to remain quiet, leaving the air sharp and clear. My prey will hear me. They will smell me. They will know me, and they will fear.
I step from the trees, silent no longer.
Tonight, I hunt.
Tonight, they will remember.
The End
