Forged by Hunger
770 Words
Evelyn POV
The Alpha rogue pack evicted me years back.
I don’t count them anymore. The process of counting presupposes a change. Out here, nothing does. The woods are cold, inexorable, and interminably patient as ever. It waits for weakness. It only compensates those who do not give it all.
I learned that the hard way.
I am gliding through the trees with a trained silence, stamping my feet through the moss where it is the most mute, and tossing my shoulders comfortably under the burden of a life on my back. The hunger is down in my stomach, keen, and well-known. I don’t rush because of it. Hunger makes people stupid. It makes them careless.
Grasping at thin air kills you.
There is a pine sap scent and the old frost, damp earth, and coppery undertones beneath it all. Blood. Fresh. My vision becomes narrower, and I steer the direction as instincts lead me more than ever before.
This is who I am.
A robber had no one to call by name.
I roam. I take what I need. I do not leave behind anything that can back me up. Wolves hunt in groups and have territory and regulations. I go on a solitary hunt, and it is companied with memory and rage.
The rage never really leaves.
It spirals when I ponder Tristan.
My mate. My best friend. The boy who vowed he would be next to me, who talked of our future as though it had already been ingrained in the bones of the world. He promised me the altar. Promised me loyalty. Gave me a promise that I should not break.
Then he turned me out before the whole world.
Cold. Deliberate. Cruel.
He jested with his new mate as though my humiliation was a joke, as though spending years together would mean nothing at all. As though I were some stupid thing he had grown out of.
That wound never healed. It hardened.
My parents hurt worse.
They were in Lunar Crest, and they said they loved me. Told me Tristan cared. Assured me that all was well as long as I trusted them. And when the rejection came, when the pack turned its back upon me, they turned theirs as well.
They banished me.
Sent me to the forest and did not look back.
They never came searching. Not once. Not when winter came. Not when months passed. Not when years dragged on. Then I realized what the truth was.
They never loved me.
They loved my power, which never came. The promise of it. What they considered I should be.
What other way could they give me up so easily?
The discovery burned something out of me. Left something more difficult behind.
I don’t cry anymore.
Sobbing is no use in making your hands warm or your stomach full. It does not hone your reflexes or instruct on how to fight in a failing body. Tears don’t keep you alive.
Power does.
I squat down as the woods give way to a bright path and stare in the direction of the source of the smell of blood. There is a fresh kill partially covered over with brush-wolf meat, still warm, steam rising softly to the cold air. Someone hunted recently. Someone thoughtless enough to leave it unguarded.
Their mistake.
I wait.
Thirty slow heartbeats. I hear the wind, the birds, the sound that is nothing. Nothing moves. Nothing watches.
Good.
I sneak along with the blade already drawn. The movements are efficient and unhesitating. I cut what I can hold, firm chisels despite the hunger that is now screaming, even louder. I tie up the meat firmly, and the muscles are pained yet compliant.
This is how I survive.
Scavenging when I must. Sleeping lightly, never deeply. Exercising my limbs daily, running till my lungs have ached, hitting trees till my knuckles have been torn apart, making my body do what my muscles and nerves had been too weak before.
I shall never be powerless once again.
I squeeze the knot of last and begin to rise
And the forest shifts.
Not a sound.
A presence.
The spine of my spine stiffens, and all the muscles shrink, drawing the blade a little longer in my hand.
Then, a voice speaks behind me.
Calm.
Close.
Too close.
Well, the voice says, with a certain degree of amusement, this is an interesting mode of earning a livelihood.
I don’t turn.
Not yet.
But as I grow cold and concentrated in my heartbeat, something cold and concentrated is placed there.
Whatever comes next—
I’m ready.
- Writer
