A Pound of Flesh

Kari

There is hunger.

Well, perhaps, hunger is the wrong word. Kari isn’t dying from it; she wouldn’t even say she’s suffering from it. 

But there is something, strumming beneath her skin. Some primal greed purring in her marrow, content like a cat- and ready to strike at the first opportunity to catch more.

She doesn’t know more what. She just knows there’s desire. She’s not even sure it’s one that can ever be satisfied.

Sometimes, Kari sees things- hears things, at the corner of her eyes. A glimpse of red eyes, a muffled whisper, the faint scent of warm sand. She’s not unused to seeing things that are not there- but she wonders, sometimes, if the hunger has anything to do with it. Maybe there is something really tasty, right behind the veil, and the thirst twitches and pushes like a caged beast in an attempt to reach it.

It’s easier to forget about it when the others are here. When Tai laughs a “you can do it!” and Sora pats her back with a “I believe in you.” and Tk smiles with so much lovethat adults mistake for a crush but Kari knows to be much deeper than that. 

(Flames are not at fault for burning the logs in their wake; the light is not to blame, if the people are willing and their love is belief.)

There are a lot of things Kari doesn’t know. Though, she doesn’t think Izzy would know, either. All she can do, really, is to learn how to live with it.

The only thing she knows, for sure, is that this hunger is hers.

But she can still pretend this part of her she isn’t proud of belongs to another, for a while.

(In the meantime, she takes the habit of showering in the morning. The veil is thin in her dreams, and the seasalt is sticky on her skin when she wakes up.)