To Hunt

My world is a frozen one, in which I am a stranger. I pass through it like a ghost, feeling nothing. The world shifts and changes and I remain. Always.

Time means nothing. Age means nothing. I was made to last forever. Forever is grey and empty.

Their world is fascinating. They are born and they die in bursts of colour, two concepts which are most alien to me. They hate and love and kill, over and over, but slightly different each time. A kaleidoscope of feelings that I am still unravelling. I don't understand.

Their flesh is most important though, their blood and bone my nectar. It eases my solitude. For a moment, I am alive when they split open. Some deep craving inside me is satisfied temporarily. I am told this is "pleasure", and it has become the basis for my existence.

I enjoy hunting them, take pleasure in it. Following explorers and bandits through mazes and ruins and tunnels. Disguises are a test of how human I can pretend to be - hunting is an assessment of how inhuman I truly am. I smile when they look, but cannot see me. They never look up. They never listen for my tongue, for the soft clicking of my limbs, for the soft scraping of my claws.

Sometimes I play with them. I feel the urge to defile, to feel their warmth. I pretend to let them escape, only to drag them back when they see the sunlight. I want a tiny part of their vicarious, colourful existence in exchange for my unending, stagnant filth. There are so many of them, surely there is no problem. They should be honoured.

There is one who escaped. She is made of silk and fire, with amber eyes. She was not scared to die. She knew. She saw that there was nothing inside. She was taken from me before I could taint that flame fully. A seed from my world is emblazoned into her shoulder forever. I will find her again.

I remember my creator, who despises me now. A cruel goddess who forced this actuality upon me, this world made just for me. I will never know why. I still love her, for that is how she made me.

I am now in a world of noise and blindness. The rune has left a mark on me that will take time to heal. The sound of the storm is deafening, my mind changes colour. I crave the silence of darkness as it is replaced by the cacophony of light. My shell is lost, my soft skin bare to the frost.

There is no end to it. I eat, but the blindness make it difficult. I am isolated, so far from home.

I dream of a snowy manor, flush with red leaves. We are both there, she looks at me with adoration, her face like a golden sunset. I move to touch her, but all I feel is snow.

I am losing myself.