Monster - A short Story

By Kristi Cheatham (KL Allen)

The rising symphony of the forest had roused him from a deep, murky daytime slumber. Slowly, and with a renewed sense of disdain, his golden cat-like eyes blinked open; glowing faintly in the darkness of the cavern.

His life had become an unending string of nights, filled with hunting and slaughter. Those nights had become an endless string of years, until after witnessing more than three centuries of moonrises, he no longer counted each one.

And he hated every one of them.

Most of all, he hated himself. For as long as he could remember, it had been this way - he was accursed and alone. Nothing but a wretched beast. A vile monster without a name. Damned above all other creatures upon this earth for eternity. Though why, he still had yet to understand. All he knew for certain, was that he was being haunted by the ghosts of dreams he could never remember....and a pair of steel-blue eyes so captivating, that they appeared to contain all the mysteries of the Divine.

"But haven't I always been this way?" Once more, the nagging eternal question tugged at the forefront of his mind. It echoed back at him from the emptiness of the cave; callously mocking his loneliness and pain. He fisted his clawed hands in frustration, and huffed through wolfish teeth, "Oh great, now I am talking to myself again."

Aggravated once more for having lapsed into another round of self-induced pity, the monster growled at his own weakness and scrubbed his eyes with the furry backs of his black-clawed fingers. Clenching his jaws, he rolled over onto his back. He knew that if he did not pull himself out of these sinking thoughts, it would only make his normally foul mood become worse....and he already had a hard-enough time dealing with himself on a good night.

Through a yawning fissure on the far side of the cavern's twisted and glittering ceiling, the monster could see that twilight had already begun to drape its bejeweled cloak across the heavens. That only served to raise his ire higher, for he knew that soon his mistress, the Moon, would be calling to him. She seduced him like a Siren; rendering him powerless to resist her song.

The heartless wench.

He heaved another ill-tempered sigh, then muttered a few of his current favorites from an impressive repertoire of curse words. Absently, he scratched at his chest through the thin fabric of a heather-black AC/DC t-shirt.

Reaching for the iPod inside a pink bling case that was lying beside him, he pushed the earbuds back into his pointed ears, then flicked the magical device on. In an instant, his head was flooded in a rush of sounds, once so strange and foreign, yet the more he listened, the more he liked them. He closed his eyes for a moment sinking deeper into the music, wondering 'Just how does one learn to walk that way?', while attempting to ignore the escalating tug of the moon.

Unable to resist her sway any longer, he shook his head and yanked the earbuds out, "Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Hold your damned horses."

He sat up on his bed, which was composed of leaves, twigs, and various scraps of scavenged vegetation. It was topped off with a worn, red and blue plaid flannel-lined sleeping bag. He had acquired the sleeping bag, iPod, solar charger, and other wondrous items, last summer from a rowdy group of young, intoxicated campers. They had spent nearly a week partying at the lake located within his territory, deep in the isolated forest -

He knew that he should not have gotten so close to the humans, but after several hundred years of being alone, his growing curiosity finally got the better of him. These humans were not like the explorers, hunters and trappers the monster had observed over the years. Nor were they the same as the Inuit tribe he had once protected.