Vigil Read Free Page A

came back, though.
    I couldn’t catch anything else to eat. The hunger, i t seemed, never left. I couldn’t satisfy it. This I came to understand as I walked and tried to catch the dancing animals that ran through the forest. I climbed the trees and tried to catch the birds that flitted on the air, but they were too swift. I found a nest and cracked open the eggs within, but the meat was runny and it wasn’t really meat. It made me sick, so I didn’t eat anymore eggs.
    Those first few days I learned much. I learned there were things that made me sick. My hunger told me what I could eat, but I couldn’t catch anything that moved. Moving things tasted much better than other things, even if I could sense life in them. I could sense, or perhaps hear, things that grew in the earth. There were trees, and there was grass. There were tubers under the ground, and things hanging from some trees that I could hear, growing. But they had no beat. I needed the beat. The things that went thump thump thump inside tasted the best.
    I didn’t know what that thump was. I could hear it within myself, steady and comforting. But I couldn’t eat myself. I knew that would hurt me, and if I ate myself there would be nothing left to eat with. And I wanted to eat. It was all I wanted to do.
    So I walked, the daylight burning my eyes so badly I had to walk with my eyes shut and my hands over them to cut out the light. It drove spikes into my brain and made me shiver and cry out sometimes. When clouds passed the sun there was some relief, but night time was the best. Then it was cold, but there was nothing to fear in the night time. The woods were quieter then. The sound of things growing was quieter, and after three days I realised I could hear the thump thump thump of a living thing, a quiet thing, but it was sleeping.
    I crept closer to it. I made very little sound. But it seemed the sleeping thing had good hearing too. I heard a rustle and something small dashed past me. I leapt for it but I was too slow. I heard the beat, faster and faster, but more distant. I chased it for a while, but when it went into a tree I couldn’t catch it. I tried to tear the tree down, but I could not. I was not strong enough.
    Not then.
    So I walked during the night and hid under bushes I tore from the earth during the day. The moon had gone and the night time was my time. I came alive when the sun went away. I felt stronger and there was no pain in my head. I could see better in the dark. I could hear more, too, because the background noise did not confuse me.
    I picked out the sound of something large crashing toward me. I waited for it. Food! And coming to me!
    I was excited, and happy, yes, happy, when eventually it crashed through the undergrowth and roared at me. It was immense, dark as night itself. It had claws and teeth and it smashed me to the ground with one of its huge claws. I wanted to eat it, but I passed out from the pain and entered the sleep that was not sleep.
    When I woke up my arm was at a strange angle, one that was not natural to it. I pushed it back into place and held it there for the rest of the day. When it stayed where I put it, a new word came to me. Bear.
    Plenty to eat, but too big. It could hurt me. It could put me to sleep.
    I avoided bears from then on.
    I got better at hunting. Some things could hurt me, but I found the small things, the things that tickled. I caught them when they were asleep. I was quiet, now. I could creep up on the little things and they did not hear me until I had them in my grasp.
    But they weren’t enough. I was still hungry. Hungry all the time. Sometimes I cried, and my eyes misted over with that red film and the red dripped down my face. The only time the hunger had truly gone away was when I had eaten the woman. I wished I had eaten more. Perhaps then I wouldn’t be so hungry now. I was ravenous. My stomach began to rumble and growl. I woke a few sleeping creatures by mistake, not with my feet or my