I wasn't supposed to exist.
The others came into this world in light—soft, warm, gentle things.
I remember watching them rise from the roots of the Heartgrove, their bodies woven from dawn and breath and purpose.
The forest loved them.
The trees bent toward them like proud parents.
The air hummed when they opened their eyes.
Humans call them myths now—
guardians, guides, spirits.
Whatever.
I watched them all come into being… before the world made me.
The ground didn't glow for me.
It convulsed.
The great tree at the center of the Heartgrove split open like it was choking on something.
Like it was trying to reject me even before I crawled out.
I remember the sound—
wet, sharp, wrong.
Roots tearing. Bark cracking.
A sound a forest should never make.
Then I slid out of the dark.
Not stepped.
Not rose.
Not floated like the others.
I slid.
My legs didn't work yet, bending the wrong way, jerking like snapped twigs. My bones were too long for my skin, and my skin didn't know where to cling. Every step clicked like something breaking.
I looked up.
The myths stared at me.
Soft creatures made of light and kindness.
Eyes wide.
Hands trembling.
Wings folding tight against their backs.
One whispered, "Why is it looking at us like that?"
Because I was hungry.
I just didn't know the word yet.
The elders approached me carefully, the way humans approach a wounded animal.
"Child," one said gently. "Come forward."
Their voices were warm. Kind.
I hated it.
The Heartgrove tried to shape me like the others—
a guardian, a helper, a protector.
But whatever rules built them…
skipped me.
Broke on me.
Bent around me until nothing made sense.
My first breath wasn't calm.
It rattled.
My first sound wasn't a cry.
It was a snarl.
The elders stepped back.
Something inside me tugged—
sharp, primal, unavoidable.
I lunged.
I remember the taste of the deer-spirit's throat.
The way its glow dimmed under my teeth.
The shock on the others' faces as I devoured one of their own while they screamed.
I wasn't born to help humans like the rest.
I was born hungry.
Born wrong.
Born twisted.
A myth that should've been purity—
turned predator.
They tried to hide me.
Contain me.
Silence me.
But the forest is old.
Its shadows are older.
And I learned very quickly that the dark listens to me.
Humans have a name for me now.
They whisper it, terrified, when the woods go silent.
When their headlights catch a shape that stands too still.
Moves too wrong.
Looks too familiar and not familiar at all.
They say it like a curse.
Not-Deer.
But that's not my name.
It's just the warning.
And you'd better listen.
Because I'm hungry again..