Reptilia

Preface

                                                                                Preface. Ryxn

       Even though I know she isn't here, I smell the ash on her skin. A smell, despite being discreetly... feminine, that reminds me of myself. And I cannot get to it fast enough.

        Despite the shapeless tangle of scent- sweat and sage in a summer-slicked forest and a high mountain lake- a life nearly consumed by the hunt has refined me to pierce untouchable skin: I picture hot blood coursing through veins, radiating that familiar odor of panic, so lucid I can taste it. Bittersweet. Sensing fear and killing its source are things I can do exceptionally well.

        Now crouched on the forest floor, pine needles mashed to my underside, I wait, gazing into the surrounding undergrowth for a source of the ash. The scent soon fills me, delving into my lungs and  brain, seizing control of my thoughts and breathing. I am drunk with it, I slowly realize. With her.

      The flash of a frightened pulse- either hers or mine- makes adrenaline lace the lining of my veins. I don't know why, but I find myself desperately praying it...  is...  mine... no, no... get out of my head...

Do it. Make your move in the heat of the moment. You need it... The words come to me anyway. They echo through my head without me meaning to think them, as if someone else placed them inside me and wants me to believe they are mine.

        Slight shifting in the leaves catches my eye- black eyes on a gentle face. One blink.

        The deer dies before she can even flinch. Or scream. Or whatever they do. Her body drops beautifully, and a gaping wound down the length of her ribs exposes meat and blood to me. Death, I surmise, is a strange occurrence. The only constant is that it is better to be the one delivering death than receiving it. Just as the tang of that death registers on my breath, suddenly, inexplicably, my head snaps away from the kill. And it isn't the external threats the dead deer might attract that causes my brain to flex or sends a sunburst of pain up my spinal cord. Instead, the threat is one that appears from my own mind.

        A face floods my vision. A girl, clear and unmistakable. She is the first human presence I've felt in a very long time, comforting yet disturbing. It reminds me of something I've been missing- human contact- and that I could crave unconditional affection so strongly but reject it the moment it's given. I stagger back as scent floods my nostrils, smacking my head against skeleton branches from the haze, but I can't shake her image. The smoked-almond smell of her skin now makes me sick with the promise of release.

        Her eyes are very blue and bright. Mine burn with drunken vigor.

        She is beautiful and I am blind. For that I can hate her and crave her at once.

        Even though she won't hear, I turn my head in the direction I believe is the sky to snarl at her with everything in me.

    Her face recedes, colors reeling and focusing above me. My breath, for a second, just a second, stops. The forest floor returns as well as some of my mind's clarity. But her smell still lingers, sweetly lulling... A growl builds on my tongue, low and deep, to seal my decision. She is my forced addiction, this girl. But she could also be the cure to my fervor, the resolution to this strange conflict. And I know the only way to dissipate a flood of smoke... is to slake the desire for the fire.

      It doesn't matter that I somehow want her by my side, if only to calm my own restless urges. It doesn't matter that a sudden recollection of the girl associates her with familiar and safe. It doesn't even matter I called her beautiful.

        I'll call her dead, soon.