The headmaster looked up. Whatever authority she'd walked into this room with had quietly left.
"Do you know what happens when a human resorts to devouring its kin?"
She shook her head.
"They lose their right to be called humans. They adopt another name."
Alice let that sit for a second. The shock washing over the headmaster's face like a kid being told a scary story. One that couldn't possibly be true.
"Wendigos."
The color drained from her face. A tinge of realization nestling itself into her head. Suddenly she wanted to throw up. To just get rid of anything and everything that's ever entered her system.
"The things you want us to hunt were originally your own people."
——————————
The sun sat at the apex of the sky, the city below it moving at its usual midday pace. It was a modest place — a large dormitory at the center, wide fields with sports equipment, a handful of shops, a river running along the outer edge like a natural moat. Beyond that, houses, most of them dark. Most of them empty.
The students were out. Shops full, fields busy, voices everywhere. But the adults moved differently through all of it — careful, eyes low, carrying something heavy underneath the ordinary motions of a normal day.
Alice tore off a piece of tough bread with her teeth and kept walking, Bjorn at her side.
"I saw a cute kid earlier."
Bjorn said nothing.
"Annoying, but funny. He had this pretty red scarf."
They settled on the grass by the soccer field and watched the students run drills. Alice chewed her bread and looked out at nothing in particular.
"So what do you think?"
Bjorn considered it.
"We'll leave by tomorrow."
"Guess it can't be helped. How horrible."
Behind them, two voices.
"Hey! Shaman!"
"Hey! Alice!"
She turned. Maren was walking over with Naren riding his shoulders, both hands yanking the man's face in opposite directions. Maren was already losing the battle.
"Look! That's the kid!"
They went down together in a heap. Naren was up first, scarf trailing behind him as he sprinted over.
"Didn't I tell you? Even when I met him, he was writing some gibberish."
"Look Alice!"
He shoved a crumpled piece of paper into her hands. She smoothed it out.
FREE WATER WITH PURCHASE OF BREAD.
In handwriting that barely qualified.
Naren looked uncharacteristically puzzled as Alice read the piece of paper.
'She remembered the gibberish?'
"What's this?"
"It says 'My name is Naren.'"
Alice looked at it again. Then she fell back onto the grass laughing, barely able to breathe.
"Bjorn! This kid's a dolt!"
Naren's face darkened. He launched himself at her, grabbing two fistfuls of hair.
"What the hell!"
He was already running. She was already after him.
"You fucking brat! I'll rip you apart!"
Maren picked himself up from the ground and walked over to Bjorn. He sat down awkwardly. The silence between them had weight.
"He never acts that way with me. He's always too peaceful."
Bjorn didn't respond.
"I know I was rude before. I'm..."
Maren held his tongue. The words wouldn't come out the way he wanted them to. He was never good at apologizing, he knew that. Instead he held out a small bottle. Bjorn looked at it, then at Maren. Then he took it and drank the whole thing in one go.
"What do you need?"
Maren relaxed slightly, leaning back on his arms.
"I need a favor."
He leaned in close, cupping his hands around Bjorn's ear.
"Kill everyone but the boy."
Bjorn went still. He pulled back and looked at Maren properly — not the way he had been looking at him since he arrived, but actually looked. Maren looked back. Whatever had been between them before — the rudeness, the posturing — was gone. What was left was just two people who understood each other.
"I'll try. But it's up to lady Alice."
Maren pulled out a second bottle from somewhere and drank it.
"So the master gets the last say."
Bjorn's expression shifted slightly. Immediately regretting his reassessment of Maren.
"Sorry. I meant only one of two on this island."
————————————
The sports field was quiet at night. Two figures sat in the dark, a little boy stretched out across a man's lap, the silence of the island pressing down around them.
"What's cannibalism and devour mean?"
Maren looked down at him.
"Where'd you hear that?"
"Alice said it to the headmaster."
He stroked Naren's hair. Then stopped and grabbed his ears instead, pulling.
"Those damn superhuman ears. Always hearing what they shouldn't."
"Ow! Ow! Stop!"
Maren let go. Looked back up at the sky and said nothing.
"You're not going to tell me, are you."
Silence.
"Then what was the favor you asked Bjorn?"
Nothing.
"Come on. Tell me—"
"I asked them to be good to you."
Naren went quiet.
Maren looked down and placed both hands gently over the boy's eyes.
"It's too late. I'll tell you tomorrow."
"Come on…fess…"
His voice trailed off. Sleep took him before he could finish the word.
——————————————————————
The narrow halls of the dormitory were only illuminated by the moon coming through the giant windows. Two students— Leo and Cass— were tip toeing through the corridor. Following behind them was Hiro.
"Cass, we should go back."
She didn't respond. At the end of the hall she peered around the corner before continuing.
"I mean it. This is stupid. At least tell me what this is about."
She turned back. Her face was serious in a way Leo didn't see often.
"Something's really wrong here."
She kept moving. Hiro went to follow and Leo grabbed his arm, blocking his movements. Cass turned once she realized her two friends weren't following.
"Hiro's already in bad shape. We can't be sneaking around past curfew over nothing."
Cass crept back slowly. When she spoke again her voice was lower.
"Leo. Please believe me."
Tears were forming at the edges of her eyes. She clenched her jaw.
"I saw it last night. That thing that took Hiro's arm."
A breath.
"It had the same scar on its abdomen. The same one Jerald had."
The blood left Leo's face.
"Stop talking crazy. Jerald graduated last year. We saw him. He said he was going to the mainland. He said—"
Leo's voice trailed off. His eyes widening. However, they weren't looking at Cass. They were looking at what was behind her.
Cass slowly turned her head, expecting the worst, holding her breath. A figure was shrouded in darkness greeted her.
"Cass!"
She exhaled. It was the headmaster.
"This is stupid!"
"Sorry miss, we were just — I actually wanted to tell you something—"
"Cass! This is stupid!"
"What?"
They backed up slowly. Hiro's foot caught and he went down hard. The figure in the shadows kept speaking but something was wrong with the voice now — wrong with the shape of it, wrong with how tall it was getting.
A limb moved through the shadows, the moonlight shining on a stretched out hand moving towards Cass's face.
SHING.
The arm hit the floor in front of her, blood dripping from the forearm. The Wendigo shrieked and fell back.
"My, oh my headmaster. What long arms you have."
Alice landed between Cass and the creature, executioner's axe over one shoulder, black ribbon catching the moonlight. She hadn't rushed. She looked like she'd stepped out of somewhere comfortable.
Cass scrambled back, tears streaming.
"Thank you — thank—"
"What a shame."
Alice looked at her. The warmth that should have been there wasn't.
"As always, I'm late."
Something grabbed Cass from behind. She turned.
Leo's face looked back at her. But the arms holding her were wrong, the joints bent the wrong way, the skin pulled too tight.
"Thank you."
Cass screamed.
"Help me! Please! Please!"
"What's the point."
Alice turned to face what was left of the headmaster. The grotesque creature lurking in the shadows, examining it's own missing arm.
"You all ate the same meat."
She tilted her head.
"Seems you didn't know, did you headmaster."
Alice gripped her axe.
"What should we do about this Bjorn?"
The axe answered.
"Please refrain from unnecessary words, my lady."
————————————————
The walls were smeared with blood. The floors crowded with bodies. Hundreds of skinny, stretched corpses littered the halls. Not a single breathing body was left.
Outside, there was no difference. Only more carcasses littered the grass fields.
Naren lay with his hands pressed hard over his ears, teeth clenched, blood running from his lips where he'd bitten through.
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"
Footsteps. He looked up. Half-expecting the worst, half-hoping it was Maren. Instead, the figure of a young woman landed in the moonlight, walking towards Naren.
"Alice! Please make it stop! Please!"
She didn't slow down. She didn't even acknowledge him, instead the glint of a metal object raised high in the sky.
SHING.
The blade cut clean into the floor. Naren was gone.
A small bottle rolled to a stop by a little boy's foot several meters away.
"Neat trick. Why didn't you use it in the water. Too nervous?"
"Alice. Alice what are you doing?"
She walked toward him. He stepped back.
"You're cursed, Naren."
He didn't answer. She came right up to his face, looking directly into his golden eyes.
"Your sister. She's alive."
Naren sat down hard on the ground. Completely caught off guard by the sudden revelation. Even if he's been telling himself the same thing, it felt different hearing it.
"She cursed you, didn't she? A curse of forgottence — attracting nothing but calamities. Something that should be wiped out."
"What are you talking about. How do you remember — how do you know she's—"
The axe came down again. Naren was too out of it to even think of using whatever magic he did before. All he had time to do was shut his eyes tight.
However, instead of the sharp sting of cold metal, he felt a blunt force hit him in the ribs, pushing him back.
"What happened to our deal?"
A tall lanky man with a cigarette dangling from his mouth held a deep scowl on his face.
"I never agreed to spare the boy, did I?"
Maren looked at the spot where Naren had been standing. Then at Alice. His expression was genuinely confused.
"What boy?"
Naren's face went pale.
Alice smiled. Slow and crooked.
"What a curse she cast."
She lunged at Maren, horizontal slash. He dodged, swept her legs. She fell back and drove the axe into the ground to keep from going over.
When she looked up, Maren's limbs had begun to stretch — fingers extending, face pulling tight against the skull, blood weeping from his eyes, his nose, his ears, his mouth as his skin constricted around him.
"Why's there another kid alive. I thought I only told you to spare one."
He came at her again. Vertical slash this time — he sidestepped it and hit her across the head. She stumbled.
"Who is he?!"
Alice raised her free hand. The axe spoke before she could use it.
"No. You've been relying on your fable too much."
She grumbled and dropped it. Took a defensive stance.
Maren moved first this time. He came in behind her, going for her neck. She drove her elbow into him, pivoted on her left foot, and kicked him hard in the side with her heel. She brought the axe back into position for the final slash.
The clouds parted. Moonlight fell across the blade.
Naren stepped out of the reflection on the axe's surface. The sudden weight throwing Alice off balance. He jammed two fingers into her eyes.
She dropped the axe. One hand over her face.
"You little dumbass. Don't you see? It's already over."
She flicked one finger upward. Naren went flying, then came back down. Alice opened her eyes. He was tumbling through the air.
Maren appeared beneath him, grabbing his leg, jaw stretching open wider than it had any right to go.
"See! He forgot about you Naren!"
Maren stopped.
Something moved behind his eyes. He looked at the boy hanging from his fist — at the tears welling in the golden pupils staring back at him. Something about those golden eyes.
He let go.
"Wow."
The moon once again peered through the clouds. In the wide open field was a creature. Grotesque and stretched out. It had a stench of cold iron and rot. The creature's own hand was shoved right through its own chest—Maren had pierced his own heart.
Nothing about the thing was human. Nothing but its eyes.
"Naren."
The voice came out cracked.
"Who's name is that?"
The creature fell to the ground with a thud. Lifeless. Along with it, drops of rain started pouring from the sky. One by one, the drops got faster.
Naren got to his feet. Battered, bleeding, limping. He walked over to Alice and threw a punch. Slow. It barely landed.
"Bring him back."
Another one.
"Bring him back."
Tears were running down his face now, mixing with the rain.
"He's dead."
"Bring him back."
He threw another. She caught his fist this time and held it.
"He's already dead."
Naren looked up at her.
"He's the only one who remembered me."
His voice broke.
"It was the first time he said my name."
He swung with his other hand.
"I never got to respond to it."
The rain was loud enough now that the sound of him crying disappeared into it. Alice breathed in slowly. She took both his hands and held them.
"Naren."
He looked up, grasping for air.
"He's dead."
More grief flooded his face.
"But your sister's alive."
He kept crying.
"How do you know. How?"
"Of the entire world, do you know how much humans have conquered?"
She looked at him with something genuine in her eyes. Wonder, almost.
"Thirty percent. The rest is hunting grounds for beasts. One of those beasts is that sister of yours. And the only ones allowed to enter those hunting grounds are shaman."
His breathing slowly steadied. The tears came less fast.
"Can I…can I find her?"
"If that's what you truly want. Then who could stop you?"
——————————
Alice and Bjorn stood over Maren's body. Naren unconscious beside it.
"What will you do?"
She didn't answer right away. Instead, she dropped down onto the ground and sat there.
"I'm tired of killing for now. He's lucky."
A pause. Bjorn knew she was lying. She was just making up an excuse to sound cool. In reality, she probably made up her mind since she spotted that scarf.
"Ten years. He's got to impress me at Witch's Festival."
"Or?"
Alice looked up at the moon.
"Or I finish my job."
———————————————
Nine years later, the wind came in like a wall. Nothing visible in any direction but sand and white sky and your own hands held up in front of your face.
A young woman pressed her arm against the storm, spitting grit from her mouth. She had blonde hair blowing in a mess, along with a black ribbon barely hanging on.
"It's about time, isn't it Bjorn."
The tall man beside her said nothing.
"I'm sure Naren's just about ready to become a shaman."
—————————————
Somewhere in the middle of a dark murky ocean, a ship cut through the water. Below deck, in a small dark cell, a boy of nineteen lay with his hands bound. Dark red curly hair converging into black tips. A crimson scarf around his neck.