The walls of his apartment had never seemed more cavernous, he decided, gloomily. The space seemed too wide and, at the same time, not nearly large enough for him to wallow properly. 

   He was a self-pitying bastard, he knew that much, but he was a bastard with standards, dammit.  His whole body seemed to shake, though that was on account of his increasingly wobbly legs. Too much, he chided himself. But another, harsher voice responded in kind – not nearly enough. 

   The bottle gripped tightly in his hand was so empty by now, that, as he swayed, the moonshine sloshed violently back and forth, reminiscent of the rough sea. It smelled of the burn of alcohol and the sharp tang of fruit, and yet, it smelled of home. It felt like home, the glass frigid to the touch, cold as the tundras he had traversed when he was young and far too naive. It tasted like it, too. Strong, sharp, stinging on the way down, but still sweet, in its own subtle way.

     “M’ikhen,” he murmurs against the bottleneck, the cool glass dotted in condensation. Hearth, sanctuary.     His family’s prized moonshine – well, they called it moonshine – had never been his vice of choice, but he craved the familiar now, as he was tossed by heavy gales and crashing waves – metaphorically, might he add, thankfully. 

   The deep, storm-wracked ocean that was politics was nothing short of brutal, violent. It was the harsh snapping of teeth, the same survival tactics of a desperate, starving, wounded animal, thrashing and snarling. Politics would tear him to pieces and would leave nothing left of him but bones, licked clean. He shudders at the thought and the bottle jerks as a tremor takes up residence in his hands.

    Social darwinism, he thinks, bitter, my old friend. Survival of the fittest had never had anything to do with businesses or politics – or weakness. Simply evolution, the best means to surviving another day. No one in politics wanted that survival; no, they wanted to destroy, to leave their enemies dead and dying and rotting. And he had wanted nothing to do with it. He had been working up his courage to back out of it, but whatever he had tried to accomplish had failed him once he had uncorked the bottle. So much for his supposed steel spine.

      He had folded, badly, and instead of courage from the liquor, he had received sadness, grief – and pity for himself and his horrible decisions. He takes another swig of the moonshine and it almost scalds as it goes down. Not that he cares. 

   He places the bottle down on his countertop with a sharp clink, and he clutches at the lip of the marble, his nails digging into the surface. His body sags. Mother always did write to tell him to slow down, to take a break before his body decided to do it for him. With a bitter laugh, he shakes his head – as always, she was right. 

    He was like a man submerged in brackish ocean water, inhaling lungful after lungful of the sea, sinking and rising and sinking again – being dragged by the scruff of his neck to shore in desperation, despite his flailing. No progress means more and more water creeping into his lungs, restricting his airways. Eventually, he would drown, coughing and heaving, gasping and fighting; that, too, would fade in favor of some strange elation as he would sink, like deadweight, to the bottom of the Mikalish sea. A man lost in the haze of seafoam and warm waters, food for sharks. 

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   That is all he is — shark bait. Shark food, really.

    His fist goes down on the counter, clenched, straining his knuckles. Another swig of the moonshine, too sweet, taken too fast. Another drop of water in his lungs. Another few inches under the water. More precious seconds lost. Closer and closer to the sharks.  If he wouldn't be pulled to the sand and given a fighting chance, there would be nothing left of him. He would drown as he dreamed he would, left to rot on the ocean floor.

    Another swig of the bottle. More burning in the back of his throat. A creak rocks through the apartment like a bullet — loud, bright, too sharp. His head snaps up, but his reflexes are too slow, dulled. He swears, low and long. 

   His landlord had promised that he would keep visitors away for tonight – letting his misery be a private affair. Bastard had double-crossed him. He had never trusted the man anyway; he gave him strange looks and even stranger remarks.  

     That door is not his friend tonight, rather, his jailer, even if he holds his own keys. He opens it anyways, eyebrows raised, his voice rough and hoarse, “What is it no-?”

      His words are cut off in a harsh, rattling gasp – and a few breathless curses. Even lightheaded on moonshine, the shock and sting of a stab wound is unmistakable. The blade passes between his ribs too easily. He stumbles backwards, hand around the wound, blood flowing between his fingers. “Dammit,” he hisses out, ears downturned.

   But the figure, someone he knows by sight only, continues to advance, causing him to scramble further and further back, hands grasping. 

   It isn’t long before he clutches at the handle of the nearest door, swings it open and scurries backwards, his hands blood-slick.

   A gloved hand grasps his shoulder, yanking him forward, his body thrashing in response, his teeth bared. The assailant’s elbow slams up into his nose and he swears, again, in his native tongue. They are harsh words, ancient words. 

   Cornered animal, a voice echoes in his head, a mocking voice – this figure’s voice – laced heavy with contempt, desperate, vicious thing. Prey. 

   Despite his fighting, he can’t stop it when the longest weapon of all embeds itself in his arm, the skin where his shoulder and underarm meet – soft, pliant. The blade glides, cutting through skin, muscle, tissue, bone. He tries to scream, but a hand is pressed against his mouth, the leather of the glove rough and calloused and rugged. A strangled, heaving, wet sound escapes him anyhow. 

   His arm has gone numb and useless and he feels blood trickling down, in fast, bright rivulets like rainwater. He can taste it in his mouth. He is all too aware of the fact that this much blood leaving his body is not a good thing. The spray of it makes everything slick and red, painfully so. His vision spins, the pain and liquor intermixing in a fatal waltz. His eyes feel leaden, eyelids drooping, his tongue heavy and strange in his mouth, his throat constricting, his lungs clawing at any semblance of air, of life. 

    He slips into the easy haze of darkness, even as pain lances through him. “M’ikhen”, he whispers. The taste of blood pools in his mouth and he – instinctively – swallows it, choking out,  “M’ikhen.”

   But, there is no sanctuary left, no hearth to cling to. The hearth, the sacred symbol carved in doorways, the words etched into stone, one last reminder of life, has been ruined. 

   There will be no great feast waiting for him beyond. No sweet wines, sweeter honeyed ale. Nothing but the blood he can taste just beyond his lips. 

❂

  There is something cold stinging his tongue, something biting and familiar. He almost chokes on it — a mouthful of snow. Snow.

   He’s on hands and knees, coughing up what looks to be a whole blizzard’s worth of the stuff, tinged pink. He winces, as instead of snow, he spits up blood, the only thing left in his mouth now. 

  A shudder ricochets through his aching body as he fights to stand on knocking knees. His teeth chatter. 

And, when he looks up, he knows precisely where he is — when he is.

  This is his home, where he sledded the slopes and scratched marks into wood with every inch of height and bought his first books on biology and evolution and learned to track creatures in snowbanks all without making a sound.

  Perhaps he has found m’ikhen after all. 

  He smiles, and his teeth are indistinguishable from his gums.