Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 15
15
Banno was smiling. He didn't feel particularly happy - the opposite, in fact - but with a giant gash in the side of his face he couldn't not smile. That was simply the way he was now. He would smile until the moment the world vanished from his existence, or he transcended it. Whatever came first.
There was something warm and fuzzy in his hand, struggling against his grip. He looked down and with mild surprise saw a squirrel clamped tightly in his fist, its tiny paws scrambling all over his fingers, trying to find purchase, its fluffy tail swishing from side to side.
Banno held it up to his face, staring into its black, shiny little eyes.
"When did I catch you?" he whispered to himself.
The squirrel writhed and twisted in his hand, trying to break free. It was winter-skinny and riddled with parasites. A sad little thing. And oh, how it tried to get away, how it struggled for freedom... but why?
"Are you real...?" Banno asked, hoping to find the truth inside those jet black little orbs.
The squirrel, apparently giving up hope of escape, twisted around and sunk its teeth deep into the webbing between Banno's thumb and index finger.
This little creature acted like it was alive. It acted like it was real. It fought to preserve itself, but wasn't that just part of the rules? How could he be sure it was real without...
(tasting)
... testing it?
The squirrel bit him again and again, leaving tiny orbs of blood to ooze from his hand, not all that different from its beady little eyes.
"Are you real?"
Banno started to squeeze and the squirrel went mad, thrashing and flailing, chittering in pain. He could feel its tiny heartbeat racing against his intruding fingers, surprisingly fast, and then the soft crunch of its bones snapping inside its frail little body.
"Are you real?"
It jerked and spasmed inside his hand, every muscle going rigid all at once, its mouth yawning wide in a silent scream, exposing its bloody little buckteeth. Even more blood, its own this time, came pouring out of its throat and dribbled down its neck.
Banno stuffed the little creature's head into his mouth and bit down, severing it at the neck in one quick bite. The skull caved in easily beneath the pressure of his teeth, crackling into crunchy little bits of bone. He could taste the fur, the blood, the brains, even the distinct flavour of its eyes and tongue...
But there was no life. None at all.
It wasn't real.
"Not real..." Banno said, feeling the cold all around him for the first time in... he wasn't sure, exactly. A long time...
The snow was cold. He felt it with every step, burning the pads on his foot. The air was cold. He felt it working through his fur, caressing his skin. It blew into his eye, making it water. It flowed through his nose and into his chest, trying to freeze him from the inside out. He could even feel it inside his head, aching... aching... aching...
Why was it aching so much? It wasn't the pain itself that was bothering him, but rather the knowledge that something was in there that ought not to be... something that -
There was something soft and fuzzy in his hand. Banno looked down and saw half a squirrel crunched inside his fist, its headless neck dripping blood onto the snow. He couldn't remember catching it, but he must have at some point.
Unless it wasn't real.
Banno held it up to his face, its bushy tail streaming in the breeze, and sniffed. The odour of wild blood was the strongest, but there was a faint whiff of urine, too. This thing had been female once (if it ever really 'was' at all). Winter-skinny, riddled with parasites, it was a sad, pathetic little thing.
He stuck it in his mouth and gnawed on its tiny body, listening to the sound of its bones cracking beneath the pressure of his teeth, and he became sad... sad because this squirrel wasn't real after all. He couldn't taste any life in it. It was just a dead piece of meat, no different from the rocks or the shadows they cast.
Not real...
The squirrel was gone now. Did he eat it, or did it simply vanish the moment he realized it was never truly there? There was blood on his fingers, but that could just be his own.
Banno raised his fingers to his mouth and licked them clean, one by one. He couldn't feel the pain anymore. It had been there for a while, nestled between his shoulder blades, digging into his hip, stinging his chest... But it was all gone now, eaten away by the cold. Now all that was left was that puzzling ache in his head...
The snow was too bright. It took the sunlight and threw it back into his eye like a barrage of needles. The trees broke it apart into bands of black, their shadows reaching out to him like clawless fingers.
The river flowed on and on by his side, rolling over stones as white as the snow that covered its banks, scraping rotten pieces of deadwood along the gritty bottom, babbling like a lunatic. How long has he followed this thing? How long?
Banno stopped.
He remembered going into the woods. He remembered the empty log. He remembered the bright red anger that had flowed through his body. It was still with him, not quenched in the slightest, only sleeping. He remembered running through the dark, swiping his claws across every tree trunk, checking behind every stone, sniffing every path and trail, finding nothing.
How long ago was that?
The darkness had grown even darker, and he had walked. The moon had risen higher, and he had walked. The cold had grown even more empty, and he had walked. He had walked until the darkness gave way to light and the moon gave way to the sun and still he had walked. Now the sun was setting again, and still he was walking, following the river that had brought him into this world in the first place, carrying him like a newborn baby from the womb.
It would be dark again soon. That meant the cold would get stronger. It would try to get in again.
There was an itch in his chest. Banno looked down and saw the scratch he had given himself with the poker. His blood was clotted and frozen; a hard, crumbly mess of red speckled with white frost. The loose flap of skin and fur had frozen solid and was crackling in the breeze.
Banno seized it and ripped it off, grinning at the sensation of warm wetness spreading across his heart once again. He regarded this piece of himself for a while, rubbing it between his fingers, then popped it into his mouth and ate it. At least this way it could stay a part of him. He wouldn't let the nothingness take it. It had taken so much already.
"Valery..."
He had failed her. She could have been a part of him right now. Vallah and Valery, together inside him, sharing the bliss that came with escaping this terrible, fake world of snow and shadow. But he had failed her. She was just a frail, frightened little girl out there in the wilderness somewhere, trapped with her boorish brothers. They were no different from the cold. They could move and talk, but they were still nothing, and they would not stop until their sister was nothing, too.
He could feel her, the parts of her that had made it inside: her breath, her tears, her blood, and he knew, he just knew she was waiting... waiting for him to come find her so he could finish the job.
So Banno walked on, following the setting sun, listening to the sound of his feet crunching through the snow.
It would be dark soon.
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