Edmin's Jounrnals

AFTER THE INCIDENT.

I was told to leave, and I fled...spitting curses and hate at them...but it wasn't Heron's fault, Swan's fault...it was none of them I hated; even just the curtain wasn't the problem, no it was something inside me. I felt it bubbling up like bile, a need to vomit to expel something. I am one to balk from attentions, choosing to be part of the background, something that exists but does not impose...and I couldn't. I couldn't contain the sensation, the revulsions, I started to see the past.

I started to feel the taste on my tongue, hear the voices of survival in my mind, I had to...it was the only way.

I was told again and again to forget it, set it aside no more thoughts of the past...it never happened, you were free from guilt. Yet I couldn't let it stand. I couldn't let it be forgotten.

I had adored my mother's craft, she worked tirelessly with the sick and injured nursing them with magic and gentle remedies. I loved working with her, I loved to see the hurt recover and leave there with all their strength returned. It was everything I wanted to do, one of my talents I figured it must be...though beasts wasn't the worst either. Either way working to heal the sick was something I had passion for...

But I couldn't heal the sick of Fuchsia, not when their sickness wasn't the Flu, or a sprain, but hunger. We were starving, all of us were...food had rotted away, plants had wilted and died...nothing to eat. That is until the first took the quicker way out, I remember staring at a calf or the breast, they must be tender surely? The thigh might be sweet if cooked.

The horror of sizing up a human frame like a bit of cattle. Something to chop into fine cuts and serve upon the table. And wasn't that exactly what happened?

Evan kindle a fire, he knew nothing of the act, a creature to feed on the curtains, the flooring the pottery. We slow cooked bits of muscle till the sinew was tender, and let fat run over it into drippings, I remember salivating at the scent.

I remember thinking that it tasted like no other meat I'd enjoyed, that it was perhaps...better, even than veal or pork. It was tough, for there was so little left in it. We split the fatty bits, our survival seemed assured for it...but as we looked around the table. Eyes were still hungry, and we waited for the next to fall.

I would never be the same person, but I clung to my being, my quiet ways in the sealed rooms. People hardly took note of my passing, I was a silent hunter, an opportunist. I waited, and the others began to fall first. I was always there at the table.

Even now I feel myself stalking the birds, while I linger in the shadows of curtains....well I had stalked them when I lingered in the Fuchsia, I don't know that they were aware of my motions. Even now I still feel like that predator.

I feel like I'm hunting. Like I have to survive...it terrifies me that I can find no peace anymore. I have to wander, skulk...and everywhere I go Evan follows.

Such a loyal creature, even to one who considered choking the life out of him as a kitten for a nibble to eat. I wish he would leave me, seeing him reminds me constantly of those days, seeing him makes me remember when I considered human flesh as delicious.

Oh god, what has happened to me? What are these nightmares? These vivid dreams of roasting limbs...I wish I could just vomit, expel what I had to do. But it lives here inside me...I wonder which of those Bird's predecessor I had to eat...

It's good I'm not in the Fuchsia yet...I find I want to return, I cannot say why it just calls me back...back to the place where my world crumbled. Back to the feast...back to the prey.

-Edmin Redford