A good beast is a dead beast
He woke up in his mothers arms. Exhaustion seemed to have settled in his very bones. His limbs ached and there was a weight over his chest. A pounding was pressing behind his eyelids.
Mother was hugging him, her arms warm against his ice cold skin. Where he had the previous day had suffered a 40 C fever he was now freezing. His skin had broke out in a cold sweat.
He was still shaken from the previous night. There was wounds all over him and the memories of that horrid night was creeping up on him.
He considered waking his mother. His stomach was rumbling. He felt he could eat the world he was so hungry.
But when he looked at her he decided against it. There were dark marks under her eyes. Her cheeks were hollow and her skin sallow. She needed the sleep.
So instead he stumbled out of bed. Every step hurt, sending pain shooting up him. His footing felt wobbly and his vision swam. But he needed food. Father was probably in the next room.
Only then did he caught a smell of something. Of decay and blood. The blood smell didn’t have to mean anything he told himself. It was fathers but he didn’t think anything of it.
Instead he opened the office door.
Father was perched against a wall, eyes open. Salty dried tear tracks were visible against his deathly pale skin. His eyes were open. One hand held a broken shard of glass. There were two jagged cuts in every wrist. The blood pouring out of him rapidly, making an eery dark red puddle beneath him. It filled the room with its presence. Rich and iron. He could smell the life pouring out of him, hear his heartbeat slow.
Leave, he had to leave. But he couldn’t. His bare feet were frozen to the floor. He let out an ear-splitting scream. Father noticed him, his eyes focusing on him.
“A dead beast is a good beast” he croaked, voice thick and weak. Father’s hand holding the glass shook as he tried to lift it in his direction.
But then mother ran in.
“What-“ she begun but then stopped dead in her tracks. Fathers eyes became glassy and he heard his heart stop beating.
She ran forward and shook his shoulders.
“Lyall” she cried, voice choked with emotion. He was in shock, had no idea what was going on. He was half convinced that father would crack his eyes open and ruffle his hair before rushing away to the office.
“Father-“ he cried, waiting for him to answer. But he didn’t, his mouth remained half closed, not a sound leaving him. There wasn’t a trace of his father in those eyes, they were simply empty.
Mother was sobbing hysterically into his shoulder. The salt of her tears staining his bloody cardigan.
He ran forward to his mother. Something was wrong. Father was right there yet he wasn’t. Those eyes were to empty. Glassy and unseeing.
“Mother?” He approached her, a new horror gripping his chest.
She seemed to notice him for the first time. As she looked up he could see that she was an utter mess. Her cheeks were red and blotchy, the tears still streaming thick and fast down her cheeks. Those big green eyes shining and so desperately sad.
“He is- he is gone” mother choked on the words.
“Gone?” He asked, not understanding.
“Dead” it was a desperate sad sob.
He remembered how he held the shard out to him and realized he should have died with him. That’s what he wanted. What dead involved exactly seemed to become clear in his mind. Gone, forever more.
A good beast is a dead beast he had said. He was talking about the monsters he hunted. The humans that turned to wolves every full moon. He realized with a sickening jolt that he was one of them. One of the beasts his father wanted gone. He was only gone because of him.