Page 117 of Lost to the Woods

I fall with it, shaking weakly. My ears are ringing. The cold is already crawling in. I look down and it’s everywhere. My blood. The creature’s blood. There’s no telling us apart now. It’s thick, black-red, pooling around us like some sick kind of womb.

The carvings in my skin—or whatever’s left of it anyway—glow, and for a second, I hear chanting reverberating through the night.

It’s probably just a delirium.

I think… I think I’m dying.

But the hunger doesn’t stop.

It grows. It spreads. It consumes me.

Until there’s only this insatiable primal need.

My mouth waters.

I shouldn’t be starving. Not when my body is shattered. Not when I’m this close to death.

But it’s all I can feel. Not the pain. Not the cold. Just the greed.

My vision tunnels, my stomach aches, and I don’t even think.

I crawl on my elbows, my legs dragging uselessly behind me, until I reach the creature’s chest. My fingers dig into fur and split flesh where its heart is still warm, still beating.

I rip it free and bring it to my mouth hurriedly.

I don’t hesitate.

I bite. It bursts like rotten fruit between my teeth, but I don’t stop. I chew. I devour. Like it will make the pain go away. Like it will keep me alive.

I can’t stop.

I eat like it’s the last thing I’ll ever do.

And when it’s gone, when my hands are empty and shaking and painted in gore—I collapse. Flat on my back. Staring at the sky, I can barely see.

The hunger quiets.

For a moment, it curls up like a satisfied beast in my belly.

Slowly, my other senses return, and I wish they didn’t.

Everything hurts. My whole body is burning. Not like flames. Not like anything that would make sense.

Raw nerves exposed, screaming. Bones grinding where they shouldn’t. Skin torn wide open like paper.

My fingers twitch, and I don’t feel them. My legs—gone. Just weight, just meat now. They may not even be there anymore, but I can’t move my neck to see.

Then, worse comes.

Stillness.

And cold.

Bone-chilling cold. It’s creeping in like fog under the skin, turning muscle to stone. Until I feel nothing at all. Not even the pain. Just this deep, echoing silence, stretching out through my limbs.

My blood is cooling fast. Too fast. It smells like copper and regret.

Can they smell it?

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