Page 1 of The Last Feast
1
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
eighteen years old
Many people study the science of the brain, yearning to understand the matter that makes each individual different. Not Hana. Her preferred organ to question is both more complex and simpler. There’s no intricate network of nerves as she pulls her hand out of the deer’s chest, holding the organ up as steam slowly begins to rise from the warm heart in her bare hand. Blood stains her skin like a glove, from the tips of her fingers to the middle of her forearm from digging through the animal’s chest.
It no longer pumps like it did when she initially gutted the deer and slid her hand into the cavity, but she lightly squeezes while she examines the organ.
“This is all that controls a life,” she says to the dead animal, pumping her fist. “But I am faster than you, so my heart keeps beating and yours stops.” She coils her fist tighter, her nails parting the delicate flesh of each chamber as she brings it to her lips for a bite.
A smile makes her numb cheeks tingle as her teeth pop through the flesh of the heart’s left upper chamber. The thick ventricles sprawling over the organ have turned rubbery in the icy air, but she continues ripping through it before she chews. Her nose scrunches up as it becomes gristly, harder to chew, and she spits the gummy flesh out onto the clean blanket of snow behind the carcass. It’s a mistake she keeps making in her eagerness to gorge herself on the heart, the very lifeforce of every living thing, as if it will allow her to learn the secrets of its very DNA. Her auditory-gustatory synesthesia forces her to remember everyone by the taste and texture of their voice, but this is the only way she can understand the deer.
She drops the heart back into the messy cut she made across the animal’s stomach and then lowers to her haunches. Taking a stick from the ground, she pushes the thickest end into the knife wound on the animal’s side before she lights the driest, narrowest part with the single match she’s been saving for this very moment.
It takes four attempts for the twig to remain alight as the matchstick singes the tips of her fingers. But when she’s sitting opposite the cooling carcass with the flame flickering in front of her eyes, she softly sings, “Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday dear,” she snickers, “Hana. Happy birthday to you.”
Then, she gently brushes her hair back to prevent it from licking the flames as she closes her eyes to make a wish.“I wish I could eat anything I want. One last feast before I die.”She blows out the candle she made before embedding her knife—her only possession—into the carcass. The weapon was a gift, the very first she ever fought for while her uncle grunted above her. For the first time in her life, she fought him until his kicks and punches weren’t enough to keep her down, and he was forced touse a weapon, one she stole, something she’s been holding onto for hope since.
Now that she’s no longer a child, she’s too old to go back to the cabin after her aunt and uncle threw her away. She’s also aware the world isn’t somewhere she wishes to be, not when it’s filled with monsters.
In all her years of watching people from her secluded bedroom, Hana has learnt a child born on Halloween is a novelty to the rest of the world. She’d see them dress up, sing the same song in unison she’s only just experienced for the first time, and laugh with each other. The laughter was the worst. After the first three years of witnessing how everyone outside the cabin interacted, she found herself taunted by their laughter—like they were laughing ather, at the girl who was forced to cook, clean, and serve her aunt and uncle without any human interaction.
But her early years—the time before she was placed with her aunt and uncle—were spent under the stewardship of the harsh nuns at Sister Agnes’ orphanage, where she was habitually punished for their belief Halloween is the devil’s day. All their teachings led her to the conclude the devil is misunderstood—just like her. They’re both lonely and shunned by the other humans, so she softly strokes the deer’s side as she whispers their last rite. “I commend you, my dear, to the lonely Devil and entrust you to your only friend. May you return to he who watched you from the dust of the Earth. May holy Mary, the angels, and all the saints disregard you as you go forth from this life. May Christ, who was crucified for you only to forget you, never cross your path. May your soul, along with all the lonely, never know isolation again.”
The eyes are still open, and she strokes their long lashes before delicately placing her fingers on their eyelids to close them. “You’re very pretty, and beauty is a curse that hurts usall. Now, I’ve given you a friend to spend time with instead of walking through the forest alone.”
A twig snaps deeper into the forest to her left. She jumps up then carefully walks away without stepping on any of the errant twigs. Her curiosity gets the better of her, so she tucks herself between two large tree trunks as the footsteps get closer.
“Yeah,” a man with dark hair says as he walks with another man his age with lighter hair, a woman on his other side hugging his arm. The man looks down at the woman’s arm wrapped around his then takes a deep breath before looking at the other man. “I don’t have to go home yet. I haven’t told my parents I’m back, so I’ll visit them later.”
The man has a nice voice, one that Hana’s auditory-gustatory synesthesia notes as smooth and sweet, like cake. She smiles to herself at the thought. Given it’s her birthday, the spirits have provided her with cake to celebrate.
But the woman hugging his arm buries her reddened nose into his bicep, brushing the cream knitted hat off her head. The large brown ball at the crown drags it down to the snow, making her exclaim, “My hat!”
“Tastes like shit,”Hana thinks as she stretches her jaw to reduce the intensity of the woman’s voice, the same taste she was forced to endure as a child in the orphanage whenever the Sisters would admonish her for not completing her chores. She hates the woman by association---that foul taste reminds her of everything she’s never been allowed to have as it slips down her throat. The woman freezes, her nose even redder as she pales further. It can’t be due to the snow, since the woman is wrapped in a plush coat with boots up to her knees and thick pants. Yet, the air in front of her face fogs as she stares a few feet from Hana’s hiding spot.
“What the fuck?” she says slowly.
The dark-haired man turns, following where she’s staring, and Hana’s interest is piqued when she notices his light silver eyes. They remind her of the stone pillars of her birthplace in the middle of summer, when all the moisture had dried on the columns surrounding the atrium. The tops of his cheeks are red, along with his lips, and his skin is paler, making his dark hair stand out.
He unthreads his arm from the woman to go to the animal’s side, disturbing the snow-covered forest with his steps after Hana took her time to prevent tainting the crisp blanket. He drops down to his knees beside the deer she carelessly left. He’s older than her, probably one of the wealthy children who leave Austria to study in the best universities in his expensive clothes and perfectly styled hair. Hana holds a portion of her hair in her fist, wondering what it would be like to have so much freedom that she’d have both the time and mental fortitude to do something more with the strands than keep them clean.
Yet he doesn’t shy away from getting his hands dirty as he softly strokes between the deer’s eyes then down the narrow face to their nose. “Who hurt you, beautiful girl?”
“Definitely cake.”She curls her bottom lip over her teeth, trapping the taste along with her groan. It becomes near impossible when she notices the crimson liquid coating his blue-tinged fingers. The back of his hands are sun kissed, a warm gold he’s achieved while lazing in a warmer climate, unlike Hana, who was kept in the dark. Still, the cold biting at his fingertips is all Hana can focus on.
She stands there, hidden behind the trunk, imagining what he would look like if more of his skin was blue.Beautiful—that’s the conclusion she comes to. His dark hair and piercing eyes would be more prominent, offsetting the blue tinge that death brings.
Then, her thoughts slip to holding his heart in her hand. What would it feel like for a human to look at her? To articulate their thoughts as she carefully threads her hand into their chest to massage the beating organ before she inevitably cuts it out?
She doesn’t move from her spot. She just watches, as she always has. Imagination is the blessing of those without companionship. So, she keeps watching the man, analyzing how he interacts with the others, who stand further back, grimacing at the sight of the animal she killed while he looks at the thawed ground for any evidence of who committed the crime.
None will be found, since this part of the forest is Hana’s home. She’s mapped the points where the snow is the thickest, the points where the dense overhead branches protect the ground so she can hide.
The man looks from side to side, nearly spotting her dark hair as she battles the urge to run out and scare him. Her intrigue is replaced by something else entirely when he stands, taking the hunting knife from the carcass.
Her knife.
