A Forest On Fire

Saint Elisabêt

It should be known that Émile was not always this way. He was not always obsessed with telé'l. No, in fact, he once never believed they existed. Sure, he was raised in Rousette and around the people, but he was not so superstitious or so afraid as they. His mother was from Mongolia, and she retained his same skepticism. She hardly knew what they were; she certainly was not going to fear them. And she didn't fear them. She didn't have time to fear them. She couldn't fear them when they were tearing into her throat and her stomach and shredding her skin with their claws and fangs even when she was already dead. But Émile did fear them, in that moment, in the time he fled with his father, in the months they traveled to Mongolia, in the years he stayed there, when his father left him, when he remained alone, simmering in his hatred and frustration, he feared them. Émile feared that place, that wretched division, Saint Elisabêt.

And, so, that was when he decided he would not fear them. He channeled his restlessness into something useful, something with a purpose, and he thrived because of it. What he once thought would end his life was the only reason he lived. But it took time to get there, and his progress will be shown.

Because his home country was landlocked, Émile and his father first had to sail to Russia, where they would be forced to walk and ride through the bitter harshness of the landscape for almost a year. One may be wondering why they would do such a thing. Why would Émile and his father travel back to Mongolia, through the Russian forests, on foot and on horse? Why could they not have stayed in Rousette and found another place to live, someplace other than Saint Elisabêt? Why such a desolate, empty place? That was precisely the point. All too quickly, they realized the dangers of Rousette- the up-and-coming war, the telé'l. They left that horrid island, and it was there, in Mongolia, that Émile became what he is today.

The events of Émile's abandonment by his father were unfortunate. His father had gone, with one of their horses, to find the nearest nomads who may or may not be passing by; he did not know if anyone were. It was a risk. The horse found its way back. His father never did. Émile was alone. He decided to gather up whatever he was strong enough to lift, pile it on the horses, and leave, for he did not know what else to do with himself. He had to wear layers of his mother's old clothes in order to stand the cold nights and days in winter but was often still too afraid to sleep for fear that he would never wake up again. And, in the summer, he could hardly stand being clothed at all, as the terrible heat made his skin feel as if it were burning. It seldom rained, but he had brought water from the well his father had built. But, still, even a well-full of water might not be enough. He went months without seeing another person.

Eventually, Émile ran out.

And this is when the change took place, when he made that life-altering choice, the decision to do something. That, too, was when he stumbled upon something- someone. They were two older men, and their names were Tai Stanislav and Lim Fen. And they were hunters. They did not take in Émile so much as Émile attached himself to them. Without very many words, and only stopping for the hunters to ask, "To whom do you belong?" and for Émile to respond, "To the land," one traveler became three. Émile was cared for by the two and was taught how to hunt. And thus completed his transformation into the orderly monstrosity that he is.

Tai and Lim never stayed in one place longer than a week, and, wherever they walked, Émile followed, always behind them. They almost never spoke. When they did, nearly every time, it was the two hunters with each other, never to Émile, and Émile never spoke to them. The only thing they knew about each other were their names. They did not need to know anything else. But one day, it changed. It changed when something found them.

        Émile quickly realized just why Tai and Lim never stayed in one place for too long. They were being watched, followed, by telé'l. He only knew when the creatures caught up with them. They struck in the night. Hardly could any of them see the monsters for the darkness. They heard them stalking around their camp before they attacked. Émile knew nothing of how to stop them; Tai and Lim shot through the darkness, calling for Émile to find a solution. He drained one of the horses of their oil into a bucket they used to draw water and threw the fuel onto the ground. He lit one of their lanterns and hurled it toward the pool of petrol. The fire which erupted thereafter showed the creatures' hideous, snarling faces in a light Émile hadn't seen for years.

Tai was on the ground, and the boy was sure, although he couldn't see clearly- everything was a blur of heat and blood and deafening gunshots- that one of the creatures had seized his arm and had torn it off. The pool of fire did not create a line between them, but it forced them back; they seemed wary of the fire, even if they could easily move around it, as if it could jump out at them and entangle them in tendrils of flame, like an insect entwined in a spider's web. Lim was shouting something at him, but Émile did not understand his words. Instead, he lurched forward, singeing parts of his clothes and searing some of his skin on the edge of the fire; he grabbed Tai's weapon and fell back, but it was broken- snapped in half as if it were nothing to the telé'l.

Émile grew angry.

He flung the useless thing toward the monsters with a frustrated shout; it separated completely upon impact with the dry ground and hit no one. Nevertheless, the telé'l slunk back a few feet, growling, seething- laughing. They were laughing. Lim stopped his onslaught of bullets. Their disgustingly filthy teeth could be seen by the light of the fire, dripping with saliva and blood, seeming to be too large for the gums that stretched back as their lips curled into a smile. Tai was no longer moving. The telé'l were smiling; their shoulders were shaking. They made no noise, but they were laughing. The thick darkness behind them and the intense light of the fire in front of them made their yellow eyes glow.

One of them stepped forward and straightened itself into a standing position. It was a terrible sight, so human and so foreign. It appeared wrong to the eyes. Every bit of him begged him to look away, to turn away, but his feet remained still, commanding him not to, to stay, to face it. Its tongue slithered out of its mouth and traced the edge of its bloody gums before it slowly retracted back into its long snout. It did not blink once in the heat of the flames. It leaned forward. The white fur under its boney jaw blackened and shriveled and recoiled from the vehemence of the blaze, but the monster itself did not, as if it could not feel it. Émile yanked the rifle from Lim, who stood still, shocked. Its voice cracked, and only a shrill hiss came forth from its throat. But it morphed into words, words that thundered louder than the unanimous beat of hooves in a herd of horses:

"WE SHALL BE FRE-"

And Émile pulled the trigger unflinchingly. The bullet entered the creature's skull through its left eye, and it exploded in an amalgamation of blood, brain, and bone fragments. Its jaw shattered and hung loosely onto the head by strings of ligament and muscle. The body keeled forward and was enveloped in flames. Émile dove for the bullets Lim had dropped and loaded the rifle. He sprung up and shot at the second; he hit its shoulder. The telé fled.         In the aftermath of the incident, they put out the fire, dispersed oil from one horse into the empty one, gathered up their supplies, and left the two bodies behind. Something broke in Lim, like a dam cracking and spilling lakes worth of water. He told Émile what he was, a hunter, and what they do. He told Émile that he and Tai were traveling to the building where the presidents of different divisions- that is, different nations- of hunters met. This particular place was in the Austrian Empire, where it is believed the hunters as a group began. Lim looked at Émile earnestly, honestly, and asked him if he would like to continue with him.

And Émile said yes.