♰

 

When the old gods crawled back up to the surface—hungry and wild, cities crumbling underneath their feet, vines seeping through the cracks they left behind, the stench of rot and soil thick in the air—humanity waned as it refused to let itself be swallowed by the earth. It fought to survive, of course, but survival was different from living, and whatever semblance of peace that existed long before this time disappeared in a chorus of destruction and depravity. War ravaged through nations that tore themselves apart, and a trail of slaughter followed wherever there was shelter or sustenance left. 

​

Amidst the chaos, however, was a surviving population from some far northeastern village reduced to ruin, straining to keep its dwindling numbers intact. Soon winter came, drawing its blanket of cold over what little crops there were left to harvest, and in a final act of desperation the people of the village threw themselves at the feet of one of the gods, begging in hoarse voices: they would do anything it wanted, as long as it could keep them alive in return. Yet the god needed neither worship nor recognition. It was no egregore that relied on frantic prayers but a real, tangible creature—one that hungered. 

​

And so a deal was struck. 

​

Under the first snowfall, the villagers would offer it a child to feed on. An offering, not of an instantaneous meal that would break under its claws, but a continuous source of nourishment from a fresh soul. One that it could nurse on for years to come until it grew old and weary, or until the body simply gave up. In turn, the god blessed them with bountiful harvest every season and marked them as territory to keep the other deities from stealing what it had already claimed. The village never grew hungry ever since, gathering back its strength to rebuild itself from destruction. Like a trickle of sand through an hourglass, more and more refugees slowly arrived, drawn by the tales of a settlement up north guarded by one of the vicious beasts that had savagely torn their own homes apart.

​

Soon, the village grew into a town, and eventually became a city, among the few left standing independently in the aftermath of humanity’s end. They remained well-provided for even through the harshest of seasons, cultivating the fragile seed of tranquillity they were given as the years passed. Generation after generation, the city thrived, its descendants never knowing starvation, war, or loss. Each night, their families slept in soft, cushioned beds inside a home crackling with the warmth of a fireplace. And as they vowed to never speak of the dank, abandoned shed hidden deep within the heart of the woods, of the chains and bloodied stone, they lived in complete, utter bliss. 

​

Yet now, as he watched the first snowflake melt against the windowsill, he felt nothing but a quiet rage trembling through him, an anguish bigger than his body. The council had gathered its citizens at the square yesterday: the last sacrifice had fulfilled its duty, and as such, it was time to choose the next offering. Under the cool winter breeze, the air carried a tension that left everyone in a nervous silence, nothing but the sound of the water fountain audible as they waited in anxious anticipation. 

 

He remembered the shiver that ran down his spine when her name fell from the mayor’s lips.

 

 He remembered hearing some of the men and women sigh in relief, grateful that it wasn’t their own children. No, their gracious council had chosen an orphan—a simple girl merely thirteen years of age, one who still lived in a foster home with no parent willing to take her in. One who didn’t cause commotion as the other rascals that stole from their markets or ransacked their backyards, yet was neither well-off nor obedient enough to be recognized. Someone they could send away and mourn tearfully one night before forgetting she existed entirely. But he would remember her.

​

​The same girl who first approached him when he was slumped against the city wall—an injured traveler seeking shelter—and offered him a packet of bandages she kept on her at all times for her own wounds. He’d learned that she got them often from her trips in the nearby forest, foraging and collecting trinkets before the matron called for them at dinnertime. He told her that she should know better than to talk to strangers, especially outsiders, and she simply responded that not even the scar on his face could make him as scary as the other men in town. She would always find him after that, pestering him to tell her stories of his adventures, to know what life was like beyond this city that so eagerly caged its citizens inside with its utopia. Sometimes he would answer, blowing cigarette smoke away from her direction, and sometimes he’d change the subject with a sigh, offering to buy her a warm meal from the market stalls instead. She didn’t leave his side even then. 

​

He was ill-suited to be anyone’s caretaker, much less a father, but as much as he loathed to admit it, he’d come to care for her as if she were his own, for her bright smile and even brighter eyes, for the stubbornness she carried her hope with. She reminded him of a time before this endless cycle of escape and violence, of a life long before her own, when no one had to survive like this. Even then, she believed that soon the apocalypse would truly end, so terribly determined that she would see it for herself—a future without the horrors of the divine. 

 

Now she was to be fed to it. 

​

He turned away from the windowsill and turned his gaze to where she stood beside him, intently watching the first snowfall. This girl, with her hand outstretched towards the sky to catch tiny specks of white, would be dragged to the forest tonight, shackled to stone for a god that would never have its fill. It would tear into her just enough to wound but not kill—just enough to keep her breathing until the next day. No one would be there to hear her scream her voice hoarse from the pain, to soothe the agony of slowly being consumed alive. She would live the rest of her days inside those abandoned, rotting walls, surrounded by filth and shaking in terror. ​

Again.

And again. 

​

A quiet voice interrupted his thoughts, and he turned to her. She was staring at the snowflakes on her hand, her face turned away from him. There was an uneasy stillness to her form, the slightest trace of a tremble in her words. A small child with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“You told me before…that the places outside were nothing like this city,” she murmured distantly. 

“They aren’t,” he replied. “Shit, kid—they have it way worse than here, fighting for their lives and everything. But it’s not all that bad.” 

He stared at the bustle of the market before them, children playing around the water fountain, regulars haggling with vendors while passersby gossiped among each other. A festival was coming soon, and the citizens had started hanging up flower wreaths and preparing their cornucopias. The sight of them, the sound of their laughter, it all made his skin crawl. 

“Do you think you can stand living like that?”

The silence that stretched between them was heavy, and for a moment, he worried he had overstepped somehow. But when she finally spoke, her voice felt no louder than a whisper. 

“I don’t know.” She met his eyes for the first time that day, and he knew right then and there that he would never forget what he saw in them. How many children, he wondered, had that same look on their faces when they learned what they were going to turn into? How many more will? 

“I think I just want to live.” 

​

♰

​

The city fell that night. 

​

Screams echoed throughout the walls as the god raged, buildings crumbling underneath its claws, homes burning with the force of its wrath. For the council did not bring it any sacrifice—only useless, blubbering prayers begging for mercy, for a second chance. But the god desired no apologies and offered no forgiveness. It simply sought retribution, gorging itself on the souls that had so brazenly taken advantage of its kindness and betrayed it. Those who attempted escape ran as far as their legs could take them, pushing past the ashes and the debris, past the scorched corpses that lay on their feet as the flames rose to engulf all it touched, like a starving beast of its own. The heat singed the air even at the cusp of winter, and not once did the survivors—if there were any survivors—look back.