Post Cards From the Muse

The Next Part

By Nandy Ekle

Sigrun crouched in the corner of the dark house. She had lived there longer than there was a house with a dark corner. She had been tiny then, just an insignificant dot amid all her brothers and sisters. She remembered how they constantly ran over her, stampeding their way through the woods. When the last of them was gone, she took a deep breath and stretched her legs. This area was hers. And good riddance to them all. She preferred to hunt alone.

But that had been so long ago. She had never heard from them again. From time to time she saw someone who might have been familiar, but she didn’t call out their name to see if they were her kin. Really and truly, she didn’t care.

But now, slinking into the dark corner of the empty house, she felt a slight bit of loneliness. Ages and ages alone, no parents, no siblings, no lover, not even an enemy around her. Occasionally an inferior would wander into her path and trip her traps. When that happened she was happy to unleash them—for a time. She listened to them cry and babble. They screamed, they groveled, they threatened her, and then they whined and sobbed. And when they got to that point, she killed them. Then she would be alone again.

Her stomach growled. Thinking back, it was nearly a year since her last meal. Had she really hidden in the corner of this old house that long without eating? Rubbing her eyes, she ventured out and began preparing a trap for a meal.