2. Rukh

“To the strangers I’ve yet to reap… thank you.”

I look out over the surrounding countryside, still groggy with my eyes half-shut. In truth, I don’t know who or what awakened me. Perhaps it was all of them. There are many disembodied voices in my head, all crying out for attention.

The forest around me is black, with leaves and pine needles shaking from stray gusts of wind and animal whims. I am alone out here, not like before. It is a strange feeling.

The solitude is peaceful but also deafening.

I can hear the hearts of the wicked screaming, begging to be purged of their abuses. There are too many to count. I wish I could peel into their skulls and understand what makes their brains tick because from here, they are nothing more than echoes, the underbelly shadows of larger beings.

The mystery makes me salivate.

“I wonder. How long have I slumbered?”

Did I say those words out loud? Or did they just echo around my head?

The forest shakes silently, and I receive no discernible answers.

“Interesting. There are no gods here.”

I pivot, looking up at the bright, star-speckled sky. There are far more stars than I remember.

“Or at least none who would come forward?”

I stride through the clearing, arms outstretched as though challenging my masters. The corner of my grim prison pulses violet and red, its black stone maddening to most mortals. Skeletons cover the hard rock I once considered my tomb.

I scream at the sky.

“There was a time when you humored my existence! Now you alienate me, after leaving me buried all this time?”

I pace back and forth, expecting to hear them speak anew. But I realize that I will receive no such grace. The gods are either dead or silenced. They’ve abandoned me, leaving me to carry on the same directives without input.

But that doesn’t seem right.

Perhaps their silence is the challenge. Perhaps I’m meant to look beyond the surface and find them in the minutiae.

But then, I try to remember my time below ground. It is vague and hazy, filled with indiscernible shapes and loud noises. I’m not sure if I was sleeping, or if I was hunting. I see myself reaching out, trying to grapple with my memories, and they slip through my claws like mist.

There are elements of my memories that now feel fantastic to me, amidst the haze and the ambiguity. Perhaps the time before my sealing was all a dream. Perhaps I’ve always been buried, slumbering, not hunting, beneath the surface.

My stomach grumbles, and I realize that this mortal form needs sustenance, too.

A small suru stumbles through the forest, its lithe form poured into by the blackness of my prison. It glows and pulses deliciously red, and I can see its every illuminated vein, nourished by the corruption. To them, it might be an aberration, but I think it’s beautiful.

It peers up at me in curiosity, and I stare back.

I lick my lips. Perhaps the gods do provide after all.

Before the suru can come to its senses, I take advantage, leaping into action. With a simple swat, the suru is rendered dead, struck clean of its power. It falls harmlessly to the ground with a thud, and I begin to rip into its mangy, corrupted form.

The suru look and taste different than what I remember. They seem hardier, and there are more horns to eat around… more gristle to spit out. The act of eating it is not pleasant to me.

I don’t know if I like this change. I hope other aspects of the realm have remained consistent with my recollections, whether those spring from memories or dreams.

Leaving the corpse in disappointment, I smell the air, trying to peel my stomach from the delicious cries of mourning and violence. The scents of animals are far less enticing than my mission on the horizon, but this form is frail and neglected. Before I can undertake my true mission, I must first prepare my mortal body.

Finally catching a whiff of something lingering on the winds, I hunch down, then claw my way through the forests, rushing past lakes and roads, under sweeping branches, and across chasms and burrows. What I’m dashing toward, I’m not certain. It’s pure instinct.

Then I reach another clearing, obscuring myself behind the brambles. Their red and rust-colored hides are different than I remember, their wide, swooping horns almost more intimidating, but I still take in the familiar scent.

They are taura. And they are still delicious.

At first, I check for mortals who might be watching their pens and pastures. Then I realize that they couldn’t stop me even if they tried and that I’m the beast they tell horror stories about.

I dip and dive forward through the bushes, leaping toward a taura before it can think to protest. The others scramble and panic, but they’ll have their turn, too.

I take my fangs to their udders and bite down, greedily slurping down their milk. As my body grows in strength, so do my memories.

I’ve been awake before, not too long ago. I saw the realm in a similar state, where the gods had long since abandoned it, preferring to watch its ruination from afar.

Biting down deeper, then devouring the entirety of the organ, I remember reaping a being not far from here. The pastures were far more primitive then, and I didn’t see the same interior light pooling out from within the buildings.

Sadly, the same wickedness does not permeate through the air here. In fact, probing deeper, I feel nothing at all… no darkness, no light.

I take the succulent nipple in my mouth, then proceed to bite through the stomach, feeling viscera and blood pour down on my face. I wonder what it must be like, to be a taura watching another member of your herd be eaten alive.

“Don’t worry, fair creatures,” I say, through a grin, not bothering to wipe the blood from my teeth. “You will not face this indignity much longer.”

I bite through taura after taura, and every bite seems to bring with it a new recollection. At this point, I’m certain it’s been several centuries since I last awakened. I wonder whether, in feeding on their flesh, I am also absorbing their memories, or if they’re awakening my dormant past.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

I shift my head to smile. Standing before me, and now shutting the gate door closed, is a portly-looking dark elf with unwavering exhaustion, whose hands nervously crest the handle of a dulled sword.

His soul isn’t as dark as I would hope, but perhaps I could grant him mercy today. I can see the toll that living has taken on him.

“Tell me,” I say casually.

I stand on two feet, bringing myself to full height before him. He buckles and falls backward against the fenced enclosure.

“What are you?” he stutters. He fights through fits of stammering, unable to compose himself.

I approach him slowly, looking out over the surrounding area.

There’s nobody here to interrupt us. He lives alone on this farm. His only company is the taura I consumed. For miles, he’s surrounded by forests.

“Do you enjoy living? Or would you like me to relieve you of the experience?”

His eyes widen as he looks up at my face. “What kind of question is that?”

“A rather basic one, I would hope.”

He thinks. “Well, what I’d really like is for you to give me my taura back,” he says.

I chuckle, and I can sense his uneasiness.

“I’m sorry. It’s a little late for the taura,” I remind him. “But they were delicious, and their blood will go toward the creation of a new world.”

He falls even further back against the pen, his eyes now scanning the farm in horror. “That’s good?”

“Yes. They were delicious, thank you. I remember now how much I love taura.”

He hesitates. A moment of silence passes between us.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

But even from here, I can sense the sadness in his heart. It’s not livestock that he’s mourning. It’s something else entirely.

“Very well,” I tell him. “Then I won’t kill you.”

He says nothing else as I leave, closing the gate casually behind myself.

“But if you change your mind, I’ll be listening.”

“Is this a dream?”

He speaks to nobody, as by the time he comes to his senses, I am already gone, his voice trailing me in the wind.

Perhaps if it helps him, I’ll let him think that.

I rush through the forests, devouring beast after beast. My appetite feels insatiable to me, with every bite only driving me further toward a different kind of hunger. I know there will come a point when my mission feels ready for my taking, and I can again feed on the corrupt dreams and deeds of sentient mortals, but that time isn’t now. First, I must feast.

The dripir are saltier than I remember, but their dryness is pleasing to my tongue, and eating them almost invokes feelings of nostalgia. I find them scattered through the forests, spread around by the coming storms.

Eating through the coats of thistle has become difficult, and though their meat is quite savory, I resolve to leave them for less selective predators.

The villages and settlements linger on the horizon, enticing me with their darkness. Soon, I will join them, to rid them of their infections and satisfy the deeper hunger within me. Just as I can hear the screams of the persecutors, whose souls are tar black, I can feel the pleas of the oppressed who think their wishes go unheard.

But there’s something inexplicable that burns deep within me. It’s not a hunger for flesh or darkness. I can’t satisfy it by filling my stomach or devouring the wicked. I’m not sure what will satisfy this intangible craving.

For now, I prowl through the forest, filling this body with everything I can find and stalking the beasts that will enable my purpose. The chilly evening air breathes lightly on me, reassuring me of my mission while hardening my resolve.