Corabeth’s shoulders sagged as she walked off the porch of… Whose house was she at? Who was among the people who condemned her? The list was too long now.
If she had looked towards the pillory, she would have seen a large shadow looming over a calf. Instead, Corabeth turned back towards her home, engulfed in flames. She half-expected the Beast to snatch her up along the way. But she walked, and nothing happened, so she kept walking.
Corabeth got as close as she could suffer to the flames and sank down to her knees once again, allowing the events of the day to roll over her. She had been taken advantage of, mocked, abused, beaten. And as she watched her home burn, she realized she had nothing left in this world.
The people of this village had been the death of her mother, and now they were to be the death of her. Come tomorrow, would any of them help her? Or did they think she had finally earned her punishment? It was better this way, better if the Beast came to collect her.
Accepting her own death came with a hysterical feeling, Corabeth’s limbs trembled, the muscles twitching involuntarily. Her teeth chattered as if she were cold in the heat of the fire. But there was also a strange kind of calm inside her. There would be no more struggles, as that’s what Corabeth’s life had been—a struggle to simply survive. She would no longer have to live amongst people who never accepted her. Perhaps she would even see her mother again in whatever afterlife existed.
The call of a raven pulled Corabeth from her thoughts. One was sitting on a branch, its black feathers painted orange in the glow of the flames, its beady eyes trained on her.
Suddenly, it was as if a thick blanket had been placed on all of the sounds in the world. The rush of the fire was muffled as Corabeth felt a presence behind her. A chill ran down her spine.
Death had finally come for her.
Corabeth turned to greet it.
Four
The Beast
The hunger started as a discomfort. An agitation that did not let him sit still. It chased him from the house, pulled on him until every muscle in his body was taut. Then came the pains. Pangs that started in his stomach but eventually wracked his entire body, muddying his thoughts. It was the kind of hunger that stripped him of himself, barely leaving him the memory of his own name.
He was skulking through the forest, the fog like a wet embrace around him, when the scent hit him. A trail of something in the air. Something that promised relief.
His shadow glided through the mist, bending it to his will. He was capable of covering great distances in mere seconds. The mist could swallow him up in one place and spit him out in another. No branch broke under his foot, no leaf crunched. He was a creature meant for stalking.
Up ahead was the village, torches lining the single road that ran through it. Smoke curled upwards from the flames and mixed with the scent that had drawn him here. Soot mixed with something metallic.
A quiet rustle came from the tree line.
The Beast’s head whipped, eyes flared.
There, tied to a tree, feasting on a small pile of cabbages and carrots, was a goat. Unaware of the lurking danger, it kept itshead down. The goat’s white hide had been painted a dark rust color.
No, not painted, the Beast realized all at once.
It had been bathed in blood.
His thoughts fractured, no longer consisting of fragments that fell into any logical order. There was only the maddening hunger, a heady urgency. Who he had been, was, or would become lost all meaning—he had this one purpose, this one reason for existing.
The Beast was upon the goat in a mere moment, tearing open its throat. The animal didn’t even have a chance to cry out, its shriek dying as its larynx was torn out.
The warm, metallic blood flooded his mouth, running down his chin in rivulets. But instead of quieting the hunger, it only fed it. Like two rivers converging and washing away everything in their path.
His thoughts were painted blood red as he let the drained animal fall to the ground. Already, he had picked up the rustling of leaves somewhere up ahead. The scent of blood was like a string pulling him forward.
He found another goat and a sheep tied to trees along the tree line surrounding the village. Then a calf and two more goats near the pillory of the village. All painted in blood. All like a beacon for him.
Vaguely, he remembered he was supposed to do something else tonight. For some reason, it was an important night. That kernel was somewhere in his mind, but it wasn’t connected to anything else, didn’t lead anywhere.
As he let the last drained body of an animal fall to the wooden planks of the pillory, the Beast released a sigh. The pains had finally begun to subside, and the relief was so great he wanted to crawl into the earth and sleep. Let the cold dirt soothe his aching bones. His thoughts slowed. They became the slurry of meltedsnow tumbling down a roof. The night wasn’t over, but he was already full, gorged on blood.
He let his feet carry him through the village, not even bothering to keep out of the firelight of the torches. The villagers could try to shoot him. They had in the past, he remembered distantly. His body would simply push out the bullet, heal the wound unnaturally fast. And then he would return, twice as ferocious.
With each step, the smell of smoke in the air grew stronger. At last, he noticed the glow of a large fire on the edge of the village. He had been so consumed by his bloodlust, he had not even noticed the blaze that ravaged one of the houses. Or the silhouette of a woman, running from house to house.
The Beast pulled back into the shadows, eyes trained on the woman. He watched as she begged and pleaded to be let in. As she was denied over and over again.
