The Monster Hero

Chapter 14 - No

"Can we-"

"No," I answer before the soldier even finishes his sentence.

I go back to sifting through the remains of the village. I step back from the house. Everyone is looking for stuff worth keeping. As I walk past a particular house, I catch a particular smell. I've smelled thousands of times. I go up and smell around.

"Hey! Get over here, sir!" yells a soldier from behind me.

I turn around and I see what the soldier found. It is a man. An alive man. I step over an ugly dead man in a Kiss t-shirt, on my way over. When I step in front of the man, he looks up, terrified.

"Hello," I say with a smile.

The man passes out. I snort.

"Kill him when he wakes up. He's of no use to me," I say, as I turn back toward the house with the scent.

A little while later someone walks over to where I'm standing.

"Sir?" says a soldier, "He's awake, and we want to know if you would want to kill him."

I turn around. I grab the soldier's sword, then I march up to the man. He is on his knees, shaking like it was winter. I raise the sword. Right before I swing, a soldier stops me.

"Sir, there is something in the woods. Do you want to check it out?"

I sigh. The sword drops to the ground with a clank. Everyone else jumps back. I walk over to the soldier.

He straightens up and says, "Some men were walking around the perimeter when they heard a rustling sound. They didn't know what it was, so I came to you."

I sigh.

"Do me a favor and stop talking, now," I say, startling the soldier.

He shuts his trap and we keep walking. Some soldiers are peering into the forest when we walk over. I push them away. I sniff the air for a scent. I catch one, but it isn't one I expect. I follow it away from the soldiers over to a patch of ferns.

"Sir? We heard it and saw it over here," says one of the soldiers.

I go back over to them and say, "Did you catch a scent?"

They nod.

"Rabbit and Wolf," they say.

I sigh. They smelled a rabbit running away from a wolf. Then I catch the scent again. It is the same scent from the house. The same scent I hated for years. The scent of a brother. The scent of Elliott.