Becoming

As the earthworm emerges from her ear canal, following the blood-slick trail down her cheek, the girl can't help wishing she'd listened to family.

Her body is the feverish rush of tempered steel plunged into icy waters. She doesn't know how long she's been trapped down here for. She bases her concept of time upon the alignment of the sun, the moon. Her eyelids are heavy and even if she could open them, she'd see nothing. The smell of dirt, rich and damp, fills her nostrils. She struggles, but it's in vain. The earth is cocoon-tight around her. She pauses and then alarm shoots through her as swiftly as an arrow.

She can't breathe!

Dirt hits the back of her throat as she gasps suddenly, clogging up her windpipe and making her cough and splutter.

She had to get out of here. She has to get out of here now.

Her left hand is above her head. She squirms, hoping she's not got too far to move, hoping beyond hope that any moment now her fingers are going to crack through the surface, feeling the sharp chill of winter. But all she finds is stone. Cold, hard and infallible as death. If she could scream, she would.

No.

Giving up has never been in her nature. With a grunt, she fights through the dirt, moving her right hand to meet the left. The rock is not directly above her. She can feel its rough edges now, the springy clumps of frost-crusted moss. With renewed optimism, she finds purchase and pulls herself free.

This is how she emerges - not with a war-torn scream, but a whimper, sprawling across the ground, waiting for the world to sink back into place around her, trembling and breathless.

No, no breathless.

Because she's not breathing at all.

She presses a palm against her chest, knowing her heart should be thudding in her ears, but she feels nothing. Not even the faintest of beats. Maybe she's dead? Maybe she's pushed herself out of the hole only to find herself in the afterlife? But she doesn't believe that, either - despite what family says, she has no place for religion. Death is the end of all things.

The sky is a living tapestry rolled out above her, and she remembers. This isn't the afterlife. There's a white fawn lying on the ground, its throat torn and its innards spewed everywhere. She turns around, recognising the path and the trees and the Great Rock by her side. The world is the same, but something is undeniably different about it all. The thought cuts into her mind with the precision of a knife:

The cripple. He did this.

Family lurks in the horizon, beyond the trees and before the mountains. She has to get back there, has to warn them. She finds her bow next to the smouldering remains of campfire. Her arrows have been reduced to splinters, the arrowheads peeking between the charred bits of wood. (The crippled would pay for that alone). But the knife remains. The knife remains and that's all she needs.

She walks between the trees, stealing glances at the sky above. It's a sky unlike any she's ever seen before, a vivid smear of sunset colours. The clouds boil with both fury and fire, and for a moment the girl holds back, fearful she may ignite, too. But there's something else. Her nostrils twitch, catching the stink of something pungent and unmistakable.

Death.

And that's when she spots them. The snakes. They move wetly through the overgrowth like a stream of freshly-removed intestines, hissing her name and come to rest, curling around her ankles. They're an omen, family would say, and the most evil one possible. She kicks them away and runs.

The settlement, her homeland, is in ruins. Columns of dark smoke rise above the flames, clawing at her eyes and throat as she enters the clearing. He is no longer a cripple and sits upon a throne of the dead, His back to her, cradling a boy in His arms, mouth pressed hungrily to the youth's neck.

He pauses, but does not turn.

The knife, a small voice urges. Use the knife.

Her hand tightens around the weapon and suddenly she's moving, using the vestiges of her strength, launching herself at Him. But something shifts in her chest - squeezes - and she comes crashing to her knees, the knife skittering across the ground.

She hears His laughter and it's beautiful: a sound to make Gods weep. And it's as if she leaves her body and she can see herself. She's covered in dirt, but can still glimpse the shocking paleness of her skin, the blood around her mouth and the hardened look of something dark and belonging somewhere else residing behind her eyes.

He says her name.

And then He turns around.