Ghoul

Time was an abstract concept to me. Images, sensations had fluttered past me in those brief moments of lucidity. I was in formation, spear in hand, listening to the emperor speak. Then–suddenly–I wasn’t.

I was moving.

I was fighting.

I recalled the sounds of spears clashing with shields; the wet slaps of steel cutting flesh.

I was moving again. I was in a crowd. I felt the stabs and cuts in my gut and arms and legs, but I kept moving, unsure where I was headed.

I remembered invading villages and cities, climbing up walls with my fingers, leaping on unarmed civilians, tearing at them with my bare hands.

I wasn’t in control of myself. Something was moving me, pushing me; possessing me. And I felt every wound in my body the entire time. They were lethal injuries, or, they should have been. But I didn’t fall. I just kept moving.

I fought monsters. Enormous, ungodly beasts. They poured from a hole in the earth. This was my ultimate duty, the reason I remained alive, if you can call it that.

After the battle, there were few of us remaining. We wandered, aimlessly, angrily. I was incensed by the sight of anything moving.

I saw a deer in the trees one day and I broke off from the crowd to pursue it. I ventured into the woods, teeth bared, growling. I walked for a long time until I found the doe beside a large buck.

I moved forward and the buck moved as well. His antlers rammed into me and pinned me against a tree. The deer snorted and roared, attacking me repeatedly until I collapsed.

They left when I stopped moving.

And there I remained. I watched the leaves brown and fall; the snow covering the world in white; the green buds flowering in the sunshine. The cycle repeated countless times.

I don’t know why or how, but in the time I sat beneath that tree, my mind began stitching itself back together. I not only noticed things, but I began asking myself questions. What sort of animal is that? What season is this? Where am I?

Footsteps. Something approaches.

A small boy. Two small boys.

One was little, his footfalls still clumsy and his clothes too big for his tiny frame. The other was older, and he was wielding a dagger in his hand.

The small one looked at me and the bigger one pulled him back.

“Don’t touch it, Fell,” barked the older boy.

The small one’s blue eyes looked me up and down.

“What is it?” He asked.

“It’s a ghoul. I’ve never seen one before. It’s probably dead. Look at all the ivy covering it.” The larger boy bent down, looking closely. His eyes darted over me. “Something killed it here. Weird.”

I didn’t move. I didn’t want to startle the children, even though a significant part of me wanted to lunge forward and bite his face. I held back. I needed to hold back.

“He doesn’t have anything on him, I think,” the older boy announced. “Anything he had is probably rotted anyway.” He stood up and turned around.

Then he froze.

More figures were moving in the woods. Three? Maybe more. They had swords out. Their faces were sunken in, eyes dark with rings.

The boy was in the way, I couldn’t see in front of me. But I heard what they were saying.

“Give us what you got,” one of them cackled. His voice had sharp ends, high-pitched and aggressive.

“Leave my brother alone,” the older boy ordered as he brandished his knife.

The men laughed. “It’s three against one, boy. Don’t be an idiot.”

“We’ll starve if we give up our things,” the boy’s voice was no less commanding despite the plea.

“And we’ll starve if you don’t.”

That’s what this was. Survival. What is happening in the world right now that three grown men are preying on children to survive?

“Fine. Just let him go.” The boy removed his pack from his shoulder and held it in his hand. “You first.”

“Give us the pack first.”

A man began moving to the side, preparing to flank the older boy. They had no intention of letting either of them go. It wasn’t just a robbery. It was a kidnapping.

Something must be done. I felt that strange pull again, the one that pulled me across the empire, that pulled me toward toppling castles and killing demons. Energy surged through me, slight, but significant.

I lifted my head, taking it all in. One man noticed me, his head cocked and sword at the ready. I moved my arms, causing a tearing sound as the lichen and decomposed leaves shed from my lap. The sound got the attention of everyone present. I saw the small child–his shoulder gripped by an almost-skeletal man–and his eyes were red with tears and terror.

I opened my mouth to speak. Let them go and walk away. But my tongue was like leather and my lungs were filled with dust. I only succeeded in coughing up a cloud of dirt.

“Don’t just stand there!” The leader of the kidnappers screeched. “Kill that ghoul!”

The older boy turned around and looked up at me, horrified, as the two men with swords approached me.

Did my muscles remember how to fight? How to weave between attacks; throw a punch; disarm an opponent?

The first man’s sword came down on top of my shoulder, cutting into my flesh. It didn’t hurt much. Pain had become a distant concept to me–the physical sensation was ever-present in my body, always calling, shooting, announcing itself. I’d stopped listening to it long ago.

I grabbed the hilt of the weapon, my hand wrapped around the attacker. I pulled him forward, toward my mouth, and I began biting him. This was not a technique I’d learned in the Academy, but an instinct that took over my body.

The man screamed as I chewed at his cheek and he let go of the sword. It was mine now. I pulled away, taking a chunk of flesh with me. The man’s hands rushed to his face where blood was pouring.

I heard the second man rushing me from behind. I spun, meeting his blade with mine. His weapon awkwardly bounced off mine. Poor form. I took my stance: sideways position, legs shoulder-length apart, core engaged. He swung again and I parried. Each strike he attempted was easily thwarted. I knocked his blade away, out of his hands.

I wanted more than just his death. I craved his very soul. I wanted to drop my weapons, to strip him of his flesh, searching for the soul inside, knowing I wouldn’t find it there.

The blood in my mouth wet my tongue. I breathed out a single word to the frightened bandit.

Go.

He turned and fled, running like a toddler with a full diaper.

I turned to the leader, who had moved his sword to the young boy’s throat. “Don’t you come any closer!” he bellowed. “Or…or I’ll slit the kid’s tiny throat.”

“It’s a ghoul. It doesn’t take sides, you idiot,” the older boy corrected, holding his dagger before him.

My mouth was dry again and it was hard to articulate words. I looked for the man whose face I bit off, but he’d run away already. I tried another strategy. Looking at the older boy, I put out one hand and, with all my ability, asked, “water?”

The boy’s gaze was frightened still, but curious as well. Without breaking eye contact, he took his water skin from his belt and moved slowly, handing it to me.

I took the skin gently and brought it to my lips. As the liquid entered my body, I heard drops leaking from my broken skin and hitting the ground. Despite the waste of water, I felt less dry. I moved my tongue around and coughed more dirt from my lungs.

“Let him go,” I said in a whisper, a ghost of my former voice.

“What in the hells is this?” The man spoke out loud, without releasing the boy.

The older boy turned around, his back to me and his dagger to the man. It was a maneuver of trust. The voice in the back of my mind was begging me to break the boy’s head open and eat the contents. But I resisted. I stood firm.

“If you kill him, I can catch you, and he,” the older boy pointed at me, “will eat you.”

The man considered this. Finally, he spat on the ground and moved his sword away. “You ain’t worth dirt,” he cursed. Quietly, he departed, looking back a few times before disappearing behind the trees.

Then it was the three of us.

The older child rushed at me and pushed me against the tree, like the buck so many years before. He pointed his dagger at my face.

“Stay down,” he warned as he took his little brother’s hand and sidled away.

So, I stayed. The moss grew back around my legs. The leaves collected; the small creatures found shelter beneath and within me.

I watched the seasons change. The leaves turned brown. Snow covered the naked treetops. Green buds bloomed.