Far Away from the Marked Trail 19 May 2024 George
“What do you think?”
George kept his head bowed, waiting for Theodore to answer Hennessy. He picked at one of his knuckles which had split open on the last hunt. The skin had already healed to perfection, but he wondered, absently, if he could make himself bleed again. He felt a light brush on his hip and he looked up to find Theodore at his side, his eyes big and worried. George quickly hid his hands behind his back and turned forward to face their maker. He trained his eyes on Hennessy’s feet and swallowed, his face hot and a thrill of fear running through his gut.
He panicked, his hands trembling at the small of his back. He hadn’t been listening. They never spoke to him, never asked him questions. “I-- I don’t--” he tried.
“Come here, George.” Hennessy cooed. George chanced a glance to Hennessy’s face before quickly averting his eyes. He looked--so different. Warm and calm. It was scary.
George stepped forward into the mouth of the cave, where the grass disappeared and turned to stone. The chill hit him immediately and Hennessy caught him up in his shiver. It felt almost tender. It felt like a few of the nights they had spent between hunts, resting in beds belonging to families snuffed off this earth and drained dry, George tucked into his neck and Theodore under his arm. He felt safe. Like whatever sin he had committed to deserve this afterlife might be washed clean if he believed in the fantasy hard enough.
“What do you think of the cave?” Hennessy asked again, patient and soft. He rubbed a hand along George’s back. Usually it made George sick, but this--maybe it was time, maybe it was the trick of desperately needing to belong, but it felt kind of nice.
Worry fluttered about the space between his head and his heart. His body sank into Hennessy’s touch but his mind ached with the sense that something wasn’t right.
“It’s--nice?” George tried with the tiniest laugh, glancing up at Hennessy again, desperately hoping that was the correct answer.
“Good,” Hennessy breathed with a grin, staring into the vast darkness ahead.
Then, Hennessy’s voice changed.
“Stay.”
The command ricocheted through George’s body, bouncing in every direction like a bullet careening off his bones. It lodged itself in the center of his heart, the fragments of it slicing into his lungs with every breath he took.
“What?” he whispered, terrified.
Instantly, Hennessy uncurled from around George. He stepped back towards the forest and the cold swallowed George whole. George tried to follow, but as Hennessy joined Theodore near the trees, George’s body refused to cross the line of grass that marked the edge of the cave. He whimpered, staring down at his feet, begging his body to move, to flinch, anything, but nothing he did could overcome Hennessy’s command. Stay.
“Why? Please,” he begged. He tried reaching out into the moonlight, but not even his fingers would cross beyond the shadow at the threshold.
Hennessy and Theodore began to turn back to the world in unison and George called out, desperate, “What did I do wrong?!” Theodore paused and George leapt on the opportunity, this little window of mercy, “I won’t do it again, whatever it is, I swear. Please!”
Theodore, who had always had more freedom than George, the favorite, the beloved, reached for Hennessy’s sleeve. They shared a conversation George could not hear, not past the howling in his ears. Finally, Hennessy turned and sighed, all of his warmth gone and replaced by the exasperation of the terrible inconvenience of his very emotional fledglings. When he spoke to George, George could tell he did it for Theodore. Not for George.
“Frankly, George, I don’t need you for this next part.”
George’s heart sank.
Theodore turned away.
“I-- I’ll go, I’ll leave, I’ll go far away and you’ll never see me again,” George bargained.
Hennessy only laughed. “Oh, George. You know, that’s why you’re staying here. You have no vision! They are building my city just northeast of here. It will be beautiful, but you—“ Hennessy paused to shrug, “You really have no use there. You would never survive on your own and I really don’t like other people touching my things.” He stepped forward and stood just where the moonlight ended, just out of George’s reach.
George stood there, stunned, wondering if he was capable of having nightmares.
“Why not just kill me?” George asked, practically pleaded, his eyes filling with scarlet tears.
“Oh,” Hennessy cooed, reaching into the shadow and cupping George’s face. George wanted to pull away, but his body, again, refused, so well-attuned and trained to Hennessy’s whim. “And waste such a pretty face? I could never.” Hennessy grinned, vile and poisonous, before finally turning away.
“Wait, please!” George shouted after them, “Theodore-- Teddy, please!”
But Theodore had already disappeared into the trees, unwilling to take any further part in it.
As the forest overtook Hennessy, the bond between maker and fledgling glowed one last time and George heard Hennessy’s voice in his head.
Disobey me and I will enjoy making the rest of your immortal eternity a living nightmare.
ii.
Drip.
George flinched and whimpered, the cold air of his gasp felt like shards of glass on his raw throat. He spent hours shouting after them, pleading, begging over the bond for them to come back, but with the loss of their scent came the loss of their line of communication and, suddenly, for the first time in years, he was completely and utterly alone.
He curled up as close to the mouth of the cave as he could, pressing his feet against the ground as if he could force his back through the stone surrounding him. He needed to be as close to the moonlight as he possibly could, as close to the sounds of crickets dancing and owls singing. The cave yawned backwards into the earth, a wide, gaping mouth that seemed to swallow all light. Even if he focused, his predatory night vision still could not see clearly into the pure, black abyss. It dripped and curdled, it felt damp and stale all at once. It seemed eager to digest him--the cave and everything inside it.
No soul for miles, no one to scream to, no one to comfort the terror of the unknown in the deep, despairing darkness just a breath away.
He shivered, once, before he gripped his hair and sobbed.
When the sun came, George tried and failed to fall into its light.
When the moon came, George tried and failed to bolt into the trees.
When that all seemed pointless, he settled into his spot in the corner of the mouth of the cave, wrapped his arms around his knees, and waited, trembling. Every time the cave gurgled, he curled deeper into himself, hoping, eventually, he would either stop being afraid or he’d crush himself out of existence.
Pretty soon, the hunger came.
Like spears plunging through his stomach with every twitch and breath, it grew and grew until his body began consuming itself. Suns and moons passed effortlessly while he drifted in and out of reality. Eventually, he was too weak to curl around himself anymore. Instead, he sat with his arms limp, head lolled to the side towards freedom so fucking close, towards deer turning their heads at him, almost pitifully, as if they considered sacrificing themselves so he might have something to eat. His tongue felt like sandpaper in his throat. He couldn’t feel his legs.
He coughed once, twice, his breaths becoming shallow and labored. He thought, finally. Fucking finally.
When he opened his eyes again, he was still just as hungry, but the breathing was easier. Until it wasn’t again, a few suns later.
This happened in a vicious cycle, over and over, until fear no longer existed, nor did misery or sadness.
Only hunger.
Some suns later, George heard a thud echo from the bowels of the stone. Then a voice, crying out in pain. He whipped his head toward the noise, his body suddenly silent with the thrill of it. No more spears in his stomach, no more sandpapered throat, only two, glowing eyes peering into the mouth of the feast. When the scent of blood brushed against his nose, a snarl ripped its way out of him and he skittered away from the light, descending into the darkness without a second thought.
Once he gorged himself on the life of a man who had fallen too deep into another opening in the earth, far away from the larger mouth George was left at, he realized he was lost.
He wouldn’t see the outside again for almost two centuries.
iii.
Time is marked in voices echoing among the many twists and turns; it is marked in drips and gurgles. His home burrows far, far into the planet. Gifts and offerings come and go. Stupid, daring children, the unlucky wanderer seeking shelter from a storm, all moments that satiate his stomach’s greed.
Others are dumped there. Same as him.
But these are his caves. His. He is just as happy drinking rotten, dead blood as he is drinking fresh, living blood. It all fills the void. It all makes him stronger.
Full and content from a meal snatched from one of the many tempting waterfalls spattered throughout his caves, he pulls himself through a tiny opening, only big enough for his emaciated body, into a large, sweeping cavern lit up in brilliant blues and purples. He curls up into himself, nuzzles the stone with a little sigh. The lights, though soft and fluffy and satisfying to bite, are not food, but they make him happy like food does, so that is where he chooses to sleep.
iv.
Pain--pain different than hunger.
The scent of my blood. Unfamiliar. Putrid.
Rage, hissing, clawing at both the spear in my shoulder. It pins me to the stone. Rage, hissing, clawing at the food standing above me. A taste. A taste, a taste, a taste.
The food turns his head and the other food speaks to him.
The other food bends down low and extends a hand. An offering, a taste. Ripping skin and muscle, stretching and biting at the scent, so sweet, like sugar.
The food above bears down. Shrieking, the spear is buried deeper. The food above yells, the food beside yells back. It’s loud. It--hurts. Get away-- run away, thrash, flail--
Warm.
Soft.
Opening eyes, a hand on a—my—face.
Silence.
Death?
No, silence.
The other food guides the spear from my shoulder. It does not hurt. It is just. Silent. His mouth makes noises. Don’t understand. His mouth makes noises for many, many drips and gurgles. It’s nice. “George,” he says. Over and over. The food waves and stands. Walks.
Not allowed to leave. Follow as far as I can.
Reaching, just before the moonlight. Don’t go?
Don’t go.
v.
Will reached out for him. He growled, a warning. Not because he would do anything. He didn’t know why he growled, actually. He glanced at Will and frowned. He couldn’t remember how to say he was sorry.
“It’s okay,” Will whispered, his eyes crystal clear, like water, in the blue and purple lights of his nest. “Let me see, George.”
He growled again, this time showing more of his teeth. Partly because he didn’t want Will to see, partly because using that name with that voice was unfair.
Will--stubborn and mean--reached into the cage of his arms, wrapped tight around the wounds oozing from his chest. George was powerless against him, so he could do nothing but pout and whine, allowing Will to pry him open and reveal the large chunks of missing flesh. The other dead-blood had shredded Will’s sweater when he ripped into George’s chest. He was very, very sad at the loss and turned away from Will into the stone wall. He couldn’t remember how to say he was sorry.
Will sat back. George could hear his breath catch when his back hit the wall. It was a bad sound, but George didn’t turn around.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Will scolded.
George squeezed himself tight, tucking himself deeper into the wall. He knew that. He ruined Will’s sweater. He wrapped the tattered corpse of it tighter around his body, tried to salvage its remains and scent. Drip. His blood clung to his elbows and fell to the stone below.
But he would have done it again and again and again and again.
“It wouldn’t have lived if it bit me,” Will tried. His voice sounded tight.
George growled, this time a real warning. He would never let anything touch Will, not ever, not ever. The thought of it made his body hot again. Will speaking nonsense made him angry--usually it didn’t, usually Will’s nonsense made him happier than all the food and lights in the whole world--but this nonsense wasn’t fun. This nonsense was not acceptable. Will should know by now. Will should have learned by now. He is the only heartbeat who has ever mattered and nothing should ever, ever touch him.
“I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.”
Will sniffed.
George turned, perplexed.
Will slid a sleeve across his cheek and George felt like an explosion.
He twisted, with no time to flinch at the squelch from his slowly-healing wounds. He touched as much of Will as he could, his hands fluttering over his arms and chest, begging him not to cry. He held his face and wiped the wetness from his cheeks, smearing his blood across his freckles like stars. He tried to wipe that too and huffed when he made more of a mess.
Will’s laughter sounded like crickets dancing, like owls singing, and George couldn’t help but smile. The feeling was becoming more and more familiar, like home.
Will grabbed George’s arm and he pulled him down to sit next to him. George went willingly. Powerless. Will dropped his head onto his shoulder and wrapped his arm around George’s and mumbled a thank you that sounded too sad to be a real thank you.
They sat in silence, save for the soothing trickle of the creek which ran through his nest. There was a drip, somewhere, which announced that it would soon be time for George to take Will to that creek and clean him up before sending him back home. But he didn’t move. Not just yet. Because Will didn’t want to lose George.
And for one moment, one breath, the feeling of that was greater than the hunger ever was.