|3rd POV of Hungry Vermin|
This is a bad place. An unsafe place.
She has them: three scampering, fat rats. The fattest she has ever hunted, ever seen. They are almost as tall as her, their bellies swollen. She knows it is high in fat. Their eyes are wide and desperate as she cuts them using the steel rod she found. She ignores the gaze. She needs to eat.
But not here. Not in this alley. It is too close to others, and the others will take her prey. She has seen it and experienced it before. She needs to move her food to a safe place before eating. She knows a good place.
It is close to where she sleeps, but not too close. If she leads her scent back, it will no longer be safe. The safe place is hidden within the cracks of a rubble pile that the bigger humans cannot reach. Their limbs are too thick and too large to fit, and they are not strong in the right ways to force their way inside. She can crawl into that space and eat there in the darkness.
Her stomach growls, and she feels the sharp pain of hunger twisting inside her. Her body is tired and sore, covered in scars from bites and scratches. Some of those scars come from the animals she hunts. Some come from the bigger humans.
She ignores it all. She needs to reach the safe place.
She grips the rats by their legs and carefully drags them through the dark alley. She keeps to the sides, staying within the shadows where she is protected. She knows that if she does not follow this path, the others will notice her and take her prey.
She slips through a crack along the side of a building and then stops.
There are others ahead.
She cannot see them, cannot smell them, and cannot feel them. But they are there.
They are there. She knows they are there. She has seen it before. She knows what happens when they notice her.
She goes still, staying perfectly motionless in the pitch-black shadow of the corner she is about to emerge from. Her breathing quiets, her limbs freeze, and even her heart seems to slow.
Only her wide eyes remain, staring out from the darkness of a dying world beneath a dim star.
One is with two others: one female and two males. The males are doing something to the female. She does not want it. She is crying and trying to scream, but she is muffled, her limbs broken.
They are laughing.
Time passes slowly. Her stomach does not growl; she does not allow it to. It is not safe yet.
Then she hears it: a wet, dragging sound, like metal cutting through meat. The muffled screams fade, and the alley grows quiet.
She waits. She listens. Eventually, she hears footsteps moving away from the other side.
It is safe.
She begins to move again, slipping through the shadows along the edges and passing through the alley where there are once three others. Now, there is only one corpse.
She does not like the smell of it. It stinks of blood, sweat, filth, and something worse beneath it. She tries to ignore it, even as her mind fills with images of what happens there.
They are bad things. She has seen them before. Some of them happened to her.
She drags her prey through the shadows and into the crack of a ruined building. After several minutes of careful movement through the narrow path, she reaches her safe place. She forces the rats through the opening, scraping her limbs against loose stone as she squeezes inside.
She makes no sound as she endures the pain. She cannot be heard. If she is, then bad things will happen to her.
She does not want bad things.
After another minute, she settles into the narrow hollow. The three large rats press against her in the tight space. She does not bother cutting them, so they are easier to eat. She is too hungry.
Her teeth tear into the flesh. She rips away the first bite and chews. It tastes awful, but she eats anyway.
She has done this before.
She sees it in her dreams last night—the rats, the alley, the others, the eating.
She has seen it all before. She has done it all before. She follows the steps because they are safe steps, correct steps. If she does not follow them, then bad things might happen to her.
She does not want bad things to happen. She does not want them to happen ever again.
She pulls free the heart of one rat and raises it toward her mouth, but then she stops.
There is a scent. Sweet. Warm. Rich. Something she has never smelled before.
Slowly, she lowers the heart and lifts her head, sniffing the air. The scent is unmistakable. Sweet and good. Her heart begins to race.
This is not part of the steps. She does not dream of this. Nothing sweet exists here. That means someone has brought it.
Footsteps echo at the entrance of the alley leading toward her hiding place. They are heavy, deliberate, and unafraid.
Nothing here is unafraid. Something is wrong.
The footsteps stop in the center of the alley. She has enough room to scramble out and flee, to disappear into the cracks and shadows.
She does not move.
"Little one?"
A voice reaches her. It is strong and searching. It wants to find something. The voice wants to find her. It does not sound angry. It does not sound hungry. It sounds… pleasant and kind.
"I am your brother. I've been looking for you."
The voice continues, soft and careful. It sounds concerned. The voice is concerned about her.
"I have food, if you want it."
She hears something being unwrapped, and the sweet scent grows stronger. Her mouth waters despite the food already in her stomach. It is food she has never eaten. It is tasty. She wants it.
She is afraid. This is not something she has seen before.
"I will not hurt you, little one."
The voice is steady. It is not lying. She knows the sound of a lie. The voice is not a liar. It sounds kind and warm.
She has heard the sound of a liar. She will hear a lot of lies from a Golden Giant in the future. This is not the Golden Giant. The voice is different. It does not hide anything.
Slowly, she pokes her head from the pitch-black shadow of her crack and looks at the voice. It is a giant. It is different from the Liar Giant in her dream. She likes this giant more.
The giant sits in the center of the alley, holding a strange loaf of bread. None of her dreams shows his face.
She watches him for a long time, waiting for something to go wrong, waiting to see how he will be hurt. She is waiting for her vision to see how he is going to die. She is waiting for a vision of the horrific death of the giant.
Nothing comes.
He simply sits there, patient and calm. He does not look toward her; he does not know where she is. She is still hidden.
But she can see him.
She could run. She is faster than the giant. Her small body makes her quick. His giant body cannot move as fast as hers.
The sweet scent fills her nose. She wants it.
Slowly, she begins to move, placing one limb in front of the other as she pulls herself forward through the darkness. She is as silent as possible.
She reaches the edge of the deepest shadow and stops. Her heart pounds in her chest as she continues to watch him. His breathing is slow and steady. He is calm. He is unafraid. Nothing is unafraid in this place.
He is foreign.
The sweet smell gets stronger the closer she is to the giant. She sees him turn around and his face.
He is… pretty.
She creeps forward, inch by inch, slipping into dimmer shadow and then into the faint light of the alley. She stands within his shadow now, her eyes reflecting faintly as she stares at him.
He slowly lowers his gaze and looks at her. Her heart thunders.
He smiles, and her heartbeat races even faster. It is not a smile hiding fear. It is not a smile hiding anything else.
It is a good smile.
She has never seen something like it before.
He slowly raises the bread, breaks off a piece, and eats it. She waits, watching closely, expecting something to happen.
Nothing does.
He lifts the loaf and offers it to her.
Slowly, she moves forward. Then, in a sudden motion, she snatches the loaf from his hand and retreats, watching him closely.
He does nothing. He simply leans back slightly, still smiling. She stares at him for a moment before raising the bread to her mouth and biting into it.
It is sweet.
Tears immediately well up in her eyes, and she cannot stop them.
She eats quickly, even as her stomach begins to hurt from being too full. She refuses to stop. It tastes too good. It tastes like something she has never known before, something soft, something safe.
She refuses to throw up. She forces herself to eat all the bread. It is sweet and good.
"You have been in a bad place, haven't you?"
His voice is gentle.
She looks up at him. He is still smiling, but his eyes are sad. He extends an open hand toward her.
"Would you like to come home with me, little one? I have more than enough food for you."
His face is kind. She cannot see him being hurt. Her vision does not show her his demise. It is silent.
Slowly, she reaches out and wraps her hand around his thumb. He is too big.
His hand is warm. She is very cold, her tatters too thin to keep out the ever-present chill of this place.
She moves forward, latching onto his clothes and body.
He is warm. Her fingernails dig into his skin as tears stream down her face. She presses into him as he shifts and stands, one hand coming beneath her to keep her steady.
The cold begins to fade, unable to reach her where she clings to him. He is warm. He gave her food.
He is a good place. A safe place.
Her tears do not stop.
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