The caves have awoken.
What lived there is fleeing. Spiders scurrying away in caravans, going this way and that, like called by some invisible force or protocol and told where to go. Fishes splattering up on land, flailing purposefully further, further, until they dry out or find new habitat. Big animals too, friends and foes alike in hurry, stampeding over each other as they race for survival. Primal fear guides them, [[awareness]] passed down through eons of genetic memory.
You don’t have that. Your mind is as alone as the rest of you. You barely have a mother, save for the splinter of bone you managed to pilfer before being scooped up and thrown in here like some lousy whelp. You suppose you’ll die if you stay here, but there’s nowhere for you to go.
Whatever has roused has opened its eyes, staring [right at you]. It reaches for you, just as:
[[you stand up]]
[[you look back]]
You shiver at the remnants of some intent. The cave is empty save for you, but you feel…
[[Observed]]
[[Hungry]]
For a moment, you are locked in a struggle, your soul pried open and surveyed. You wonder what it hides. If it's to taste. You expect some sort of verdict; a nod of approval, a rebuke. Then the moment is gone.
You should thank your lucky stars.
[[Thank your lucky stars]]
[[If you had stars, they'd be ill-fated]]“Mother?” you call out. No dear, mother’s gone. She’s as gone as she is blameless. She worked herself to the bone for you. You demanded too much. Such a lousy child, given everything and still craving [[more]].Voracious. You are not picky, child, nor are you patient. Hunger has you at its whims. You will pluck even the nails off your nailbeds in a pinch — they'll grow back soon enough, but so will your hunger. Your appetite must have its fill.
And you, child, have eaten. What your tongue sought out, you've savored; what your stomach allowed, you've swallowed. You're all but full. Do you really need more?
[[To be continued]] Glakhoun she called you. The Swallower. It is not a name to have, nor is it your name. Yours is much
more sinister. Your stomach growls — swallower will do for now.
You learned long ago how to curb your hunger. Once the flesh ran out you turned to grain, but even that cost more than poor mother had. You bit your tongue not to suggest the flesh she kept from you, carried around her weary bones. It was to be had later, if at all. Kids shouldn’t eat their mothers, it was not proper. But then you weren’t [[proper]], were you?
Instead you turned to the air, gorging yourself on its breezy spirit. You sifted mud through your
practiced teeth and chewed on its fusty pulp. Even rocks you ground into gravel, then dust, then licked up with careful precision.
Now you cup your hands into a [[pond]].You look down at the water — and it looks back. It has a sunken appearance: deep-set eyes and bones and angles. Wrinkly lips are mouthing an “O” from which spittle has trickled free and drips toward you. It hits the surface with little impact. You [inhale] and plunge your face into your glossy self.
A moment — two moments — before your eyes adjust. It’s all you can do not to panic before the black. When the hues return, you scan the pond. Dead fish litter the bottom — the unfortunate ones.
Your stomach growls again. You consider the effort to swim down.
[[Your hunger can not be denied. Go for the fish]]
[[Hunger be damned]]
[[To be continued]] You decide not to. There’s your little trick after all. Gulp, you hear, gulp gulp gulp. You chug of the pond in big mouthfuls, savoring the slurry as if it were juice.
The fish haven’t moved, but their eyes — dead — all look at you. They’re offended.
[[Who, the fish?]]
[[Well, duh. You’re guzzling down all their graveyard water]]
[[To be continued]] [[To be continued]] [[To be continued]]Fairly so, you're sure. If children are born stainless white, as milk — as your mother believed — then you are as a milk that has soured.
Your mother didn't like you very much.
[[To be continued]] <a href="https://kananiaydan.wixsite.com/portfolio/prose">Thank you for playing</a>