More than anything, she was surprised by how much it was like fishing. Mostly, it took patience. Sometimes you’d wait minutes, sometimes you’d wait hours. But if you knew how to wait for the fish, you could always manage at least one bite. That was how her grandfather taught her to fish.
She was chosen among the young adolescents as one of several participants in their Coventry’s annual All Hallow’s Eve celebration. It was a time all members of the Coventry looked forward to as they gave thanks to the Gods for their good and bountiful harvest. It was a festival of prosperity.
She was taken along with the other nine youths to her place in the field, making a ring around the statue that represented the God of Bounty. When the festival began, the other adolescents started dancing around, their moves practised with precision as they went to and fro, changing partners as the dance allowed.
Only she did not move. It was as if she was a statue herself, and the other youths did not see her. She’d never had much of a presence in the Coventry, and many would be flustered to try and recall her name if they saw her on the street. They rarely saw her, but she watched them all the time, everyday, and pondered all the ways she was different from them. She saw the people become angry, cry, laugh, and embrace each other out of love or sadness. Yet she did not understand these things, for she had never felt them. She had hoped being chosen to take part in the festival would finally reveal why she did not feel those things.
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She held the ritual knife she had been given for the festival and closely watched the other youths as they moved and pivoted. She watched their faces as they contorted, some yelling, some screaming. Dazzling trails of red flowed through the air like confetti in celebration of the good harvest. As one of the youth jumped backwards towards her, keeping his distance from his dance partner, she took her knife, wrapped her arm around his neck, and thrust it straight into his throat, avoiding the bones and aiming for the brain stem.
His body shuddered as a joyous fountain of red sprayed into the evening air, then he offered his soul up to the God of Bounty as he fertilized the earth with his lifeblood to bring a good harvest the next year. There were cheers from the crowd as the festival began to reach its climax, but she did not hear them; her own thoughts were too loud. Rather than becoming shaken, she was more surprised that she felt nothing at all. It was exactly the same as when she gutted a fish. No more did she see the festival participants as people, they were merely fish being offered up to the God of Bounty. As so she offered the God eight more in a dazzling dance of red.