Childhood Memories

“Right ahead boss, you can’t miss it,” Seashell informed her superior happily. Blanco winced at the cheerful tone, his feathers on edge already and his underling’s blasé attitude not helping matters. He knew this place, there was no doubting it after making their way so far beyond the rocky formations they called home. The dry grass crunched under his feet the way it had done many years ago as he broke out of the small human dwelling that had held him for so long. It was even the same time of year as when he first escaped from his childhood imprisonment. The air felt the same, the sharp edge to fresh air in a thriving forest. He had gotten used to the arid air in the gulch and it was like breathing it for the first time all over again. Despite the way his bare scales blistered in the harsh sunlight, he was already missing his desert home. The cool shade offered by the thick canopies of old oak trees did nothing to cool the anxious boiling in his blood. Seashell was oblivious to his turmoil, as she was to most things. She was a competent hunter, otherwise he wouldn’t tolerate her wasting resources in the pack, but most minor details glanced right off her smooth brain. Her cheerful humming as she walked him towards the site of their latest kill was beginning to grate on him, and he had to tell her stop. She did so, but he could tell that besides putting a dampener on her mood he had alerted her to his own mood. She kept stealing glances at him, her expression guileless and easily read. She was openly looking for something in his face, but he knew it betrayed nothing.

All too soon, the stone monolith of Blanco’s nightmares rose from the horizon and his stomach began to churn.

The house was here, still here, it would have to be. It had survived his entire adolescence after all, years upon years of keeping the outside safe from him. He let his eyes drift to the front door, almost expecting to see his mother’s rotted corpse lying there after this long. He couldn’t imagine any living creature being able to stomach her poisonous carcass, he thought even maggots held higher standards for themselves. But she was gone, picked apart with nothing left to show that she had darkened that doorway every day for years.

“Boss, we’re nearly there,” Seashell reminded him, gesturing to beyond the house. He knew there was a well back there, crumbled and dry as bone. He could imagine something running through the overgrown garden and catching its leg in what remained of it. The Carnos in his pack would be fast and coordinated enough to pull off a tactic like that. He had to admit he was impressed that they weren't here to pull a broken-necked Carno from the well instead. He watched the front door as he followed Seashell around to the back yard, like its gaping maw would reach forward and swallow him whole. He swore there was still a dark stain on the ground outside, a slight discoloration to the soil that marked where he spilled his mother’s blood. The inside of the building was too dark to see from the outside, he would have to step in and allow his eyes to adjust to see anything at all. He wondered if his tutor, the glowing box and its cassette lessons, still worked within its walls. He thought about the faded shapes in the wallpaper and if they would still be just about legible. Nothing on earth could compel him to enter, just the thought made his chest squeeze tightly and his heart began to race, hammering hard enough that he swore that it would show on the outside. Seashell was waiting for him, following his gaze into the house and trying to parse his thoughts from his carefully guarded expression. She would continue to be unsuccessful, Blanco thought to himself, like with most of her endeavours.

“Back here then?” Blanco asked, his voice steady as always. When the banded Carno nodded he walked past her to see a large Para carcass on its side in the house’s back yard. Some of his henchmen stood guard around the meal and lowered their heads in deference as he approached. There were a few of them here, four to be exact and Seashell would've made five: more than enough to take down prey this size. He cast his eye over the body, seeing bite marks and torn flesh but all of it appeared to be predation injuries rather than anyone helping themselves. He nodded to himself before sinking his teeth into the flesh and beginning to feed.

For a moment, the sharp taste on his tongue reminded him of her.