Page 120 of Lost to the Woods

I push myself upright, bones creaking under my skin.

It takes some effort. Not because of a lack of strength. But because everything feels brand new. My arms and legs are thinner now, stretched too long, too lean. I move differently.

But even uncoordinated, I don’t stumble when I stand. My steps are silent, too smooth. I barely disturb the leaves beneath me.

When I look down at myself, I see the evidence of what I’ve survived—or become. My body is caked in blood and filth. Sweat clings to me in cold patches. Dirt is smeared across my stomach and chest. There are other stains, too. Saliva. Semen. Old wounds and newer ones, dried and crusted. I don’t want to remember what happened before I woke. I just know Bunny died.

I feel disgusting.

But more than that, I feel something deeper, something worse.

Hunger.

It coils in my gut like a starving animal. Not normal hunger—not emptiness, not craving—but need. Impossible to overcome. My mouth waters in the worst way, and my jaw acheswith the memory of the creature’s heart. The heat of it in my hands. The taste.

I need to feed.

Before I think, I begin to walk. I don’t know where I’m going, only that I have to move.

The woods stretch around me, familiar and wrong. I feel hunted, though nothing is chasing me. Or maybe I feel like the hunter now, and that’s worse.

My senses are sharper than they’ve ever been. I can hear the flutter of a leaf falling a dozen yards away. I can feel the pulse of the earth beneath my feet as I stomp without a sound. I can smell everything—the moss, the sap, the wet bark, old blood. I can taste the decay of long-dead things on the tip of my tongue.

Farther off, I catch the scent of water and I follow it.

When I reach the creak, I drop to my knees and drink. The water is cold, clean, but it does nothing to dull the emptiness inside me. I splash some of it on my skin, trying to wash off the filth, the blood, the memories.

It doesn’t help.

I glance around. The forest is still lifeless. Nothing stirs. No birds call. No deer move through the trees. Nothing dares to come close.

It takes me a moment to understand why.

It’s me.

They know. Whatever I am now, I sit at the top of the food chain. They feel it the way I do. I’m not prey anymore. Not even a human.

Iamthe thing that devours.

The hunger sharpens again, worse than before. It burns low and steady like a flame that won’t go out, no matter how much you try to put it down.

And then, something sweet and familiar hits my nostrils.

Fur and musk and sex.

My boys.

I smile to myself as I stand. The hunger twists inside me and turns into a different kind. More potent. Ravenous. Settling deep in my core.

I’m swallowed by it. But I don’t try to fight it. I don’t even want to.

I track the trail of pheromones back to the cabin, drawn like it’s a calling to me.

That old, wooden dump is still there. Half-rotted, tucked between skeletal trees and sagging earth, as though the forest itself wants to forget it exists. It smells like mold and old blood. Like smoke that never quite cleared. And it smells likethem, so fucking delicious I shiver in excitement.

The hunger inside me growls, and I know that nothing will stand in my way.

I lift my head to the sky and whistle. Just one long, shrill note that cuts through the silence like a blade.

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