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Two weeks later, after sleuthing, tracing down rumors, and researching missing hikers and adventure seekers, I found my mountain.
And so here I am, slowly digging my crutches in then dragging one leg forward and then the other. And repeat.
I try not to let the anxiety battering at my heart overwhelm me as the sun falls lower and dark shadows are cast over the side of the mountain. Taking a moment to look outwards from the mountain, I can’t deny it’s beautiful here.
But then my attention zooms back to the ground in front of me. For all the beauty of the world I’ve just seen these past few months, my vision is mostly glued to the ground wherever I go.
I try to move faster as the sun drops lower, but after tripping and stumbling forward, only catching myself with my crutch at the last minute before plunging off the side of the mountain… Yeah, I think I’ll go a little slower and more carefully.
I have no tent. No supplies other than the water bottles in my pants pockets, already half gone, and a flashlight… I click on the flashlight when the path gets too dark to see, but it’s difficult to hold along with my crutches. Maybe if I put it in my teeth?
By the time it’s almost full dark, I’m so exhausted.
Ready to drop, really. What the hell do I think I’m doing trudging up this dangerous mountain into darkness all alone? There’s no way I’ll have the energy to get back down again.
I try to bite back my tears, but they flood down my cheeks anyway.
Mother Mary, I pray, and Fire Goddess and God and anyone else who might be out there, hear my prayer: don’t let me die tonight.
It’s right after I finish praying that I first hear the inhuman roar.
Chapter Two
MONSTER
When you flee from the world, there are few places that will allow solitude.
At least, if you’re a monster like me.
But my Father Creator made me and then left me this way. Misshapen. Half-baked. Trying to fuse multiple creatures together which nature never intended to meet in one body.
I am an experiment gone terribly, terribly wrong.
And there is no kindness in this world for one like me.
I’ve sought out many haunts for my life of solitude. Soon I must go back home. I have responsibilities back in that place I detest. And besides, everywhere else, they will not leave me alone. I am an object of interest. Something out of scary stories made real for hunters to hunt. For adventurers to capture. A curiosity like they see in their zoos.
But I will never be fenced in.
And those who are not wise enough to back away from a lion’s roar will meet its teeth.
I let out another mighty roar, but the light below bouncing up the path does not turn back.
I watch, alert, from the entrance of my high mountain cave. All other predators have vacated the area. They, at least, have enough sense and survival instinct to stay away from me.
It’s only these human predators who have no instincts left. They ignore the tingle at the back of their necks. They think they know everything, that they are the gods. Ha!
I laugh in their faces every time before I devour them. I simply help them meet the true gods they have so casually disrespected.
Someday soon, they may come with their guns en masse, at which point I will have to vacate yet another sanctuary. These humans will not allow me among them, but I know enough of them that when too many gather, they can become pests. Like stepping into a bed of swarming fire ants. Far from deadly but annoying enough.
I will leave before that happens.
And certainly this one bobbing, shaky lantern light coming up my mountain at such an hour is no army.
I let out another mighty roar from deep in my unnatural belly. It shakes the ground I stand on. The lantern bearer is close enough, I imagine they are shaken, too.
Turn back, I urge them silently.
But after only a moment’s pause, again the light comes steadily forward.
I let out a great, beastly sigh.
Oh well. I have not feasted on a good meal in a while. This doomed wanderer will meet their end in my belly, and then I will sleep well.
Still, I occasionally let out a loud growl to continue to warn them to turn back. It is not their hearing that lacks, for the little lantern pauses and wavers each time I do. But still, invariably, they come straight toward me.
I barely bother to hide my large shape when they get near enough to the small ledge that is my cave’s entrance.
It does not smell good here. The cave was a home to bears before I took up my haunting here. I did not bother with cleaning it out, because why bother with all the upkeep? I intend to allow myself to be what I am here without any pretenses—just another animal. If it’s what they treat me as, why fuss with all their human pretentions like cleanliness? Especially since it was also Creator-Father’s obsession, and I have turned my back on all his ways.
