COFFIN's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Coffin spat out the meat and watched it steam on the cracked ground. Common prey tasted like ash now. His body was starving on full kills. If he did not find richer meat soon, he would rot from the inside before he ever reached the ancient hollow whose name no one dared speak. He pulled the creased photograph from inside his ribs. A human face stared back, yellow-eyed and tired. He did not remember her. That was the point. He kept the picture to remember he was still a who, not a thing. He hunted harder. A centipede-shaped hollow with a screaming human face came at him first. Coffin tore its throat open and ate until his hands shook. Behind him, a pile of fractured bones grew taller each night, pale and crusted with strange crystal. None of it was enough. Each kill fed him for an hour, then the hunger came back worse. So he stopped only eating. He found a black boulder veined with red light and began to climb it, fall, climb again. He dragged prey to its base and fought them there until his blood ran down the stone. He trained between meals. He trained while bleeding. He pushed his body toward something the old one could not ignore. Weeks bled together. One dusk he stood on top of the boulder and felt it. His power had changed shape. He was not equal to the ancient hollow yet. But he was close enough now to be seen. Close enough to be hunted back. Coffin smiled with too many teeth. The waiting part was over.