SoulBound

Beyond Help, Or So I Thought

I woke to nothing, the way I always did now. Good morning, I thought, and almost laughed at myself. If only there was someone left to say it to.

I let out a sigh and stepped outside for air, because staying still too long in that lean-to only ever left room for the one feeling I'd gotten far too familiar with these past months — the slow boil under my ribs that started every time I let myself remember Hendrick's face, or Borc's laugh trailing off behind him.

Weeks folded into months before I noticed I'd stopped counting them. By the time the season had properly turned, my days had a shape to them, whether I liked it or not — not much of a choice, really, when survival is the only thing filling the hours.

I headed down to the riverbank first, same as always, to wash up and try my luck at the water. The fish had been thinning out lately — fewer each week, like something else had started working the same stretch of river before I ever got there. I made a note to keep watching for it.

By the time I'd finished at the river, I moved into the closer edge of the forest, hoping to catch a Jack Bunny or two. When the forest gave me nothing, which was more often than not these days, I settled for gathering mushrooms instead. Months of trial and error had taught me which ones were safe. I'd learned the rest the hard way — a memory that still put a chill through me even now, months later, my stomach remembering what my mind wanted to forget.

Midmorning I gave myself over to whatever quiet I could find — the only real peace available to me most days — though it never lasted as long as I wanted, and I often lost more time to it than I meant to. By early afternoon I'd force myself back to the present and prepare a meal, usually fish and mushrooms, with meat on the rare days I got lucky.

Evenings were for training. I'd built a rough set of stone dummies to work against, drilling forms into muscles that still felt too thin for what I asked of them. By nightfall I settled in, readied whatever I could for the next day, and let the dark take the rest.

That had been the whole shape of my life for what felt like a month now. Routine wrapped around routine, with nothing underneath it but the boiling thing I refused to look at directly.

I didn't know, that entire month, that I was being watched.

—

"He's not here. Huh." A voice, close enough that it shouldn't have surprised me and did anyway. "Must've gotten up early today. I'll check by the river."

I turned before whoever it was finished the sentence.

"Boo," she said, unbothered at being caught.

"That doesn't work on me."

"Such a sad sack." She didn't even flinch under my glare — if anything, she looked amused by it. "Always so grumpy."

"What do you want?"

"To observe you, of course."

"Well, don't. I don't appreciate being observed."

"I will anyway."

I let the silence answer for me and turned back toward the water. "Suit yourself. Just don't get in my way."

"Sure, Captain Grump."

I didn't dignify that with a response, but when I started walking, I heard her fall into step half a beat behind me. "Hey — at least wait up."

I hadn't asked her to follow. I found, somewhat to my own irritation, that I didn't stop her either.

The day wore on the way it always did, until it came time to head into the forest.

"You can't come with me," I said, before she could ask.

"And why's that? C'mon, I want to go."

"It's too dangerous. You could get hurt."

"I think I can handle myself, thank you."

"You don't get it." I turned enough to make sure she saw I meant it. "I really mean it. You're not following me in there."

She studied my face for a second longer than I expected, whatever she found there apparently enough to settle it. "Alright. I'll wait here, then."

"Thank you."

I left her at the tree line and went in alone, same as every other day, hunting for Jack Bunnies that weren't showing themselves. By the time I'd already stripped most of the nearby mushroom patches bare, I still hadn't caught a thing, and something about that itched at the back of my mind. The bunnies were usually active this time of day. If they weren't here, their nest had to be close.

I pushed further in than I normally allowed myself.

That was my mistake.

The rustling started distant and grew closer with every step I took, until it wasn't distant at all anymore. I lifted my head toward the sound, and the scream that came out of me afterward didn't feel like it belonged to me — high, raw, torn loose before I'd even fully processed what I was looking at.

Three meters of something that was almost the shape of a man, if a man had been built out of hunger instead of bone, red eyes fixed on mine and a mouth already dripping in anticipation of whatever came next.