Second Kill

OH, GODS ... NO!

She felt him collapse and dangle like heavy rope tied to a bag of sand. He was nothing more than a weight in her hands.

“ ... he’s dead!”

Her voice was a rasping whisper. The threat of being heard was still very real, but the people she saw had simply gone past without a second thought. Her determination to keep him quiet had been a success, but at the most appalling price—one she could not have imagined paying if she had spent all her life trying.

“What have I done? ... The baby, oh no please ... ”

Her legs folded under her as though they had never worked, as the horror of what she had caused swept over her. There was no thought she could find to make herself feel any better.

What would Ikan and Eris say? ... I’m the monster ... Oh, they would stop loving me. I’m sure of it.

Her thoughts were bringing her further down each heartbeat, and she couldn’t form any reprieve.

Finally, the pain behind her eyes felt like it had reached a summit. She looked down to see the torrent of her sorrow pouring onto the small boy’s broken face, a type of sadness she had never felt before.

Tension was building in her body and felt as though it would consume her entirely: no number of tears would ever clear her mind of this anguish. Somehow, she knew already that this feeling would travel with her forever.

As weakness overtook her, she dropped to the floor with the boy still in hand. She couldn’t bring herself to place him down. She tried with such despair to slide him from the unyielding grip that killed him, into a cuddle.

No matter what she did, she couldn’t get his little body to stay where she could cradle him. The misery of not being able to hold him was so powerful she began to strain to breathe, as though the child’s weight were connected to her lungs directly.

Finally, she let him fall to the ground, and curled around him in convulsions of panicked breath, regret and anguish: her tears soaking the dirt around him like the moisture of a light rain.

A sharp twitch woke her from a troubled restlessness. The realization struck her like a rock to her temple, and she looked around frantically, nervous that she had slept into daylight. Once she saw it was still very dark, a moment of relief set in, but it was quickly broken as the smell of children’s soap crossed her senses.

Poor little boy ... I ... I’m so sorry ... I—

The feelings started again as she knelt next to the body, staring in disbelief. Time was working against her—now more than ever.

She slowly stood, gathered the boy and carried him to the next room, where she had decided he came from, and placed him under the covers of his bedroll. Pulling the covers over his broken body, she kissed him on the cheek.

“I ... I ... ”

She tried to find words, but had none. The child was gone now and it was her doing. There were no words she could find that would force that to change.

She drew the back of her hand gently across the soft skin of his cheek, blackened and bruised though it was, and sobbed, grasping at her eyes to try and stem the tide of fresh tears she felt growing.

Pressing her face so hard that it felt like she might break a bone, she managed to stop her tears long enough to stand and gather herself, driven by the thought that his sacrifice would be even more wasteful if she were to get caught.

Mustering her strength, she gathered her menial food supplies, which now felt like the most expensive sustenance she would ever have. Regardless of how awful she felt, she was still very hungry, and nothing good would come of her starvation either.

As she started to move, she came to consider her original reason for not taking too much. It now seemed pointless, as there would be no hiding that she had been here. She went to the cellar and took all she could carry, quickly fashioning a sling from a cloth she found on the table.

Feelings of self-disgust quickly consumed her, coming and going relentlessly as she came to terms with having killed these people’s baby, as well as stealing their food stores. Sickness accumulated in her stomach from the actions she had taken. Feeling like nothing better than a murderer and thief, while still hungrier than she had ever been in her life, the concoction was truly devastating.

With courage returning and self-hatred building in her mind, she made her way out the window, and away from the home.

Glancing back as she went, she knew it was now a place that held worse memories for her than even that of her own home—as this time, she had no one to hate but herself.

Moving back through the Village was easier for her in the sense of safety, but much harder on her spirit than the journey down, having been only such a short time ago, it felt like a whole life had gone by.

As she passed by a point where she had stopped on the way in, she looked up to see the Oil Brush light she had been watching while she had recalled her brother making sweet mash. The thought sat in her mind like a shard of light that she could no longer enjoy—on her way down she was a good girl, who Ikan had loved, and now she was a horrid monster who kills children.

She could barely hold the weight of the thought, and it caused her to stumble. How she longed for the time when she felt like a loved little girl, and not this miserable vermin who caused the death of all close to her.

In a poor state, she kept moving, more driven by a sense of melancholy than any of the exuberance that may have propelled her into the Village for food. All the same, she moved at a good pace now, and being as naturally prone to stealth movement as she had become, she went without any further obstruction or incident: out, and away, from civilization.

She felt the presence of the Village behind her like the looming shadow of a fearsome carnivore waiting to strike, made ravenous by her mistakes and immaturity: voracious, and with infinite patience.

The feeling of pressure started to ebb once she was far enough away from the Village to see its light as a distant haze. She was glad of the space to rest once she scaled the Razors again.

Stolen novel; please report.

Enjoying the taste of dried, salty meat on her tongue, and the feel of gentle, cool water from the moss in her throat, was the closest she had come to comfort since she left her home. Curling up in her cave felt like the only thing she had chosen with certainty in such a long time.

The touch of cold stone under her side eased her pained body as she lay down. After such exhaustion, and so much turmoil, a deep and total slumber silently took her off through the night, and onward into the day.

A noise—a new noise—woke her. A grinding, like two large, heavy stones sliding against each other, but with a different, more organic sound beneath it, and a slow purposed click behind it. This was something she had never heard before. Wide awake and straining to hear the sound that woke her, she was sure that with the proper focus she could perceive it again.

Moving through her little cave, she couldn’t understand how such a large sound had come from such a small place, and the more she moved around, the more it became obvious that the cave was not the simple indent in the mountain that she had thought it was. Details were now more perceivable, and she could make out a crevice toward the rear of the cave—a crack that led further back, not big enough for much, just enough for a curious girl.

Squeezing her way through the small crevice, her eyes adjusted easily to the scale of the space, a large area, with various natural corridors branching off of it, and a high ceiling. There were marks on the walls and ceiling, some deep and short; others long and shallow.

They had been made as if the stone was different and softer, but when she flicked a pebble at the wall—the way she had done with the rock outside—it was clear that there was no difference in density. The whole cave was made of the same solid stone.

Moving around the empty space revealed more caverns and off-shoots than she would have ever felt possible. Reaching out to one of the marks that was low enough for her to touch, she felt the contrast of rough edges at the opening of the cut from that of the surrounding material, and yet even more distinct was the finely detailed interior of the cut, as though it had been made by the sharpest of tools under tremendous force.

Standing dead still and listening for any remnant of the sound that had roused her so suddenly from her rest, she heard nothing—no shuffling or grinding, no sound of any kind. The cave itself was deathly quiet. She enjoyed the reverence and peace that it provided, and would have stayed if not for the concern about the unknown origin of the sound ... and the markings.

Having no fear of the darkness, and seeing clearly, Fawn felt no rush to leave the shadows, but not knowing what she was looking at, or how it came to be, got the better of her and she sought the relative safety of the other side of the crack in the wall.

Daylight was fading, as she had slept so long, but there was more to be gained from that than lost—given her constant need to remain concealed. It was a welcome change to be able to come and go as she pleased, and at least for the duration of each night she would be able to do so without any real fear of discovery.

Making her way outside to relieve herself, she looked up at the stars for the first time since she had run from her home. They were glittering and prominent like before, but unlike the stars of her sleeping-room window, they brought her no happiness, as though the light had gone from them and she was looking at a memory. The burden of both what had happened to her, and what she had done, was still too fresh to let her enjoy the light she used to value so much.

As she made her way back to the cave, she heard a distant murmur coming from the direction of the Village. She stopped and sat down, waiting to see what she could through the haze and distance. There was a faint, but clear, light flickering and wavering its way outward from the Village, and loosely in the direction that could be her cave.

She felt her stomach fall, and all her muscles tighten.

They must be looking for me!

The why of it became unimportant as she saw the light grow stronger.

“Umm umm ... what do I do?”

Returning to the cave as quickly as she could, she curled up in the back near the crevice that led further into the mountain.

“I can hide through here ... and ... and then, umm.”

As she hid and waited for what she thought was forever, the group seemed to get no closer, their sounds were no louder, their smell no stronger. She crept her way outside to look, pulse racing—this was the first time people were coming to where she was, and may know her exact location.

Looking outside she could see the light from the Village getting closer. She watched the moving light run parallel to her for some time and then waver in a loose pattern, made erratic by the craggy and hazardous rock formations that most of the villagers had no experience with.

A sense of relief passed over her, as she saw the unfocused group fumble in their search, but there was no doubt in her mind that they were looking for her.

With new fear mounting, she went back into the cave that was starting to feel like a safe place and made her way through the crack that led to the network further within the mountain.

Lacking the courage to venture too far in, she loitered in one of the alcoves within the greater room. It felt familiar, like a quiet room in a friend’s home, or a hiding place from a game played with friends.

The low temperature helped ease her body, and without any dampness to the air it was easy to breathe. She soon found her anxiousness starting to fade.

After listening for what felt like a lifetime and hearing nothing, it was becoming evident that they were not going to find her here—at least not this night—but she would likely have to move soon, otherwise they would certainly find her eventually.

It seemed the group narrowed their search much faster than she thought they would, given how careful she had consistently been.

I need to go further away ... or maybe deeper inside? I don’t know, I wish Eris was here.

Her thoughts dissolved into grief again.

He would know what to do, how to protect me ...

She sobbed as quietly as she could manage.

In the hardened silence of the great cave, the noise of her empty stomach quaking was much louder than it should have been.

“Ow, my tummy.”

There was no sign of anyone, so she made her way back through the crevice and over to where she had left her store of dried food.

Sitting cross-legged, she felt the sleek, cold, stone surface under her thighs. The sensation was such a clear contradiction to the coarse dust of normality, that it brought her a moment of pleasantness. She leaned back against the wall behind her to enjoy the relief.

The food was plain but the salt and protein were sorely needed, so even though there was little flavor to it, it truly tasted good. She tore at it with her sharp incisors, relished the chewy texture, and savored the mix of scents. She soaked in the odor of stone, her skin, the cloth she wore, the water in the moss and the different savory tones of the food she had paid so much for.

Even the distinction between the dirt outside and the dust that blew in through the cave entrance was interesting. Easing herself further down the wall, she felt comfortable, and was grateful for the long nights of the planet, more so than ever before. She lay back and soaked in all around her one more time before getting ready for sleep.

–Garrick M Lynch–