Hunger

“There was a time when I didn’t doubt what my sister said; you know, about her having magic. Of course, when you’re seven, everything you big sister tells you is true. I guess I just needed an explanation for how she knew things she shouldn’t.

“Then again, there were times when I thought everything she ever told me was a lie. True, she warned me when bad things were going to happen, but she always seemed so mean, so withdrawn. Whether or not what she told me was true is irrelevant, though. In the end, I guess it doesn’t really matter. Whether she was telling the truth or not, she still went around giving people advice on what was to happen.

“In fact, I can’t think of a single day that went by when she didn’t tell someone’s future (or past in some cases). I remember asking her once if she could teach me to read the future, but she just glared at me and went back to what she was doing.

“Seeing the future was only the first step. Soon, she began finishing peoples sentences before they could even finish forming their thoughts into accurate words. With every future she told, and every mind she read, she withdrew a little more, becoming more and more distant, until I no longer knew my sister. She ignored me whenever I asked her what had happened between us. I never could figure out what made her this way, until shortly after I turned thirteen.

“I am ashamed to admit it, but at the age of thirteen, I was not yet over my childhood fear of the dark. When I was little, I would always come into my sister’s room, and tell her about my fears. She had never been afraid of the dark. I asked her once why. She said she didn’t know, just that the darkness comforted her. When I asked her about the things in that lived there, she just smiled.

“I’m not quite sure how I ended up in her room that night. The pale, full moon shown through the with a sense of foreboding, reminding me that I wasn’t to be in there. I glanced around to see what had changed since I had last been in her room those years ago. For the most part, it was pretty much the same, except for a decorated clay bowl that sat on her desk. I went over to look at it. It was just a bowl with water in it. My reflection stare back at me, distorted in the silver liquid. After a few seconds, I wasn’t staring into a bowl of water anymore, I was in a field of daisies. I bent down to pick one up. The crisp step snapped in my hand, and I held it to my nose. It was real. Then I was in the forest, caught in a thunderstorm, watching a lion pride bring down an antelope sitting by a campfire. Then everything was burning. Homes, stores, churches... everything. Wolf-things walking on their hind legs hunted for anything that still lived among the wreckage. They looked at me. Sooo hungry... One of them whispered as it reached for me. Ripples across the surface of the silver liqued broke the things apart into a million little waves. I squinted to see what it was that had caused it to ripple. I was what looked like cat hair, but we didn’t own a cat, and if we did, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t sit on the ceiling. I looked up to see one of the wolf creatures in the corner on the wall, its claws digging into the plaster. A creature wearing my sister’s locket.

“I’m sooo hungry...” It said.

“I don’t remember what happened next, but my sister and I get along just fine now.” I walk over to the window as my listener sits there, entranced by a tale they thought crazy. “The

moon’s so pretty tonight. It’s nights like this where we get along best, you know; nights when the moon is full. But these are nights when we are most desperate, where are starvation threatens to kill us, and we can avoid the inevitable no longer...” My listener watches me, horrified, as my eyes turn blood red. I smile. “I am sooo hungry...”