Into the Heart of a Killer: Memoirs of an Assassin

Chapter Thirty-One

The moon was beginning to crawl behind dawn's rays by the time I stirred again. It had been hours. I had seen glowing pairs of eyes in the dark and assumed they were the forest's cruelest carnivores, but none got too close. I had spent the better half of the night screaming into the sky, then curling into a ball and sobbing until I felt my throat was going to bleed.

Only when the sun's first rays landed on the maroon-colored cloth that had once been Ceseth's hunter green shirt did I stir. I pulled myself into a standing position and numbly found my way back to the edge of the forest. The fight had taken us further in than I'd remembered, but then again, the entire encounter seemed to be a blur.

My world was numb, number than I'd ever been. Blood still trickled occasionally from both my back and chest, but I stopped worrying about it. My pants were soaked around the waist with the sticky red substance, but I had no change of clothes. I shuffled back to where my pack was. I reached down and picked it up. It was a useless thing, now. The dried food was crawling with ants and other insectoid creatures. I hadn't taken all of the food, but I'd taken the large majority of it. Whatever was left back in the hut was never going to be enough for me to make it back to town. But then, I'd killed a man. I'd killed many men, actually, but Ceseth took the cake. Surely I could kill a rabbit or two.

-

I didn't find the horses.

Well, not alive. I found one, presumably attacked by wolves, with its innards spread across the forest floor and into the river. The river was no longer running red, and flies were surrounding the carcass just as ravenously as the wolves had been, indicating the corpse had been there for several days. The gruesome sight hardly bothered me as I walked into the river, further upstream. I filled extra flasks with water and shoved them into one of the new packs I'd taken. I'd grabbed the other three, but only two were filled, the third pack shoved deep into the bottom of one of the others.

I stared into the rushing water as it covered my hands and the final flask, not paying much attention to my surroundings. One of the packs sat open at my side. I hardly noticed when there was movement at my side, but I jerked away from the pack as soon as I turned to put the last flask into it. A small ball of fur was digging its way inside of my pack. The flask I had not entirely finished closing sprayed water all over me and the fuzzy thing.

It whined—yes, whined—and bounded away from the pack. Looking closely, it wasn't as small as I originally thought. A bag of dried jerky spilled from its mouth. I stared as my mind connected what the small creature was.

A wolf cub?

The black cub looked at me fearfully, but it had no look of violence in its eyes. Another cub—this one bright white—bounded out from behind some bushes and joined the other. The two of them promptly ignored me and dug into the dried jerky.

"Hey!" I shouted, shooing the creatures. They whined and darted off, but not far. I looked around, expecting to see an alpha wolf somewhere nearby. But the woods were entirely silent. My eyes drifted back to the two cubs. They weren't as big as wolf cubs usually were, I noted. They were probably starving. I sighed and gathered the dried jerky, holding it in the palm of my hand.

"Sorry I yelled," I whispered. The white wolf was the first to come running forward. It eagerly lapped the dried meat out of my hand, turning around and giving a pathetic yap to what I presumed to be its sibling. The black cub was much warier, coming back over to me but refusing to eat out of my hand.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I whispered. The black cub turned up its nose and huffed. I couldn't help but smile as I laid out a piece of jerky by its feet. Obviously deciding food was worth more than its wolfish pride, it eagerly gobbled up the piece of jerky. I looked back towards my pack. There wasn't enough food for me to get two days away from this wretched place, but... I sighed and moved back to the pack, taking the almost-depleted bag of jerky with me. The white wolf followed me without hesitation. The black one decided to follow its sibling, it appeared. I repacked the satchel and slung it over my shoulder. The coarse fabric of my shirt chafed against the scabs along my back and chest, but it was a momentary discomfort.

"You coming?" I asked as the wolf cubs pattered along behind me. I turned and began walking. They looked curiously at the dead horse as we passed, but neither stopped to try and nibble on it. My walk took me towards home.

The home that I'd hated for ten years of my life, but the only home I'd ever really known.

It held memories of pain and dreams of a better life, but it was all I had to return to.

Both the pups followed behind me, the white one occasionally attempting to drag his brother to play with it. The two were my only company as I began the long trek home, the only place I'd ever known. Only now, I was truly alone.