Breathe.

Hold still – and look. Don’t focus on any one thing, don’t let your gaze wander. Avoid the contours of a leaf, or dart over towards the river. They can feel the intensity of your eyes – wait.

To edge your way through the dirt and the leaves, to feel the air and breathe it in – let yourself strip the air away until all that’s left are the little flecks of silt and earth that wander down in the light. Keep your chest still and hold in that breath until it vibrates in your core and you feel the earth hard beneath you and the poplars hanging above you – still. Hand outstretched, pointed outwards.

Sight.

You’re fifteen and the sun has bleached the parking lot dry and you’re listening to your friend’s father sob in the distance while the two of you sit on the curb with Slushies in hand and everything has been laid bare. Permanent foreclosure of the soul – no vacancy. Which means nothing to do and no place to go – but hey, maybe you can stay over at my place? I mean, everybody’s got to eat. You caress the edges of the bills in your pocket, meaning to dig your hand into the abcess and scoop it out – but it’s cruelty. Suddenly you’re starving, you’re ravenous and there’s nothing you can do about it. Perhaps it would be better if there was nothing.

Pull.

            But you’ve got to lay still. Quiet. The time to feed is yet to come – and you wait on bated breath, watching the brush ahead of you, still taking in the smoky birches and the river.

Open your eyes now, peel them open, force them bare. You freeze so they can’t see you. An infinitesimal movement, the edge of an antler poking through the thorns. And finally, the front – it’s ugly. It’s a beast, ragged fur, brown beady eyes, and it’s dumb. Hooves tread on leaves, he advances in the crackling fire of the afternoon light, chuffling quietly.

            Wait until he sees you, until he turns.

            Pull, fire – oh, every fiber of your body is screaming for you to move that one millimeter, to feed, to pounce, to hunt. You need it and the nature of your race compels you to do it – you feel the compulsion rushing through you like a wave, to kill, to tear into him and take him down.

            The urge, it stops at the eyes. You look over at him once more – can you resist? You push down your instinct, and you think of that friend’s father sobbing in the parking lot of the mall. The agony of those who are devoured. It means nothing – this temporary satisfaction, some little appeasement of your higher mind – it means nothing compared to everything else. Of course – not to you.

            But you exhale, letting out your breath, and crumble. Content for now just to sit on the bank and watch.