Legend Of The Five Suns

• Georgia Rice, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2019

He could smell her on the breeze. The feminine fragility that exuded from her kind drew his attention, the allure was irresistible, and he found the prospect of resisting abhorrent. He was here for a reason after all. And she was here alone.
He had been watching her for days, setting the stage from behind drawn curtains in preparation for the final act. Unbeknownst to her, she was to be the main attraction.

Alas, perhaps that was an incorrect assessment, her conscious self knew not of his affections, but he had seen the way her body responded to his. The subtle shift in the rise and fall of her chest when she thought she was alone; the flush of her cheeks betraying the beating life within her. Something primal and long-forgotten had been stirred and he delighted in watching the reversal of time as her most basic instincts whispered to her.

You’re not safe, they would have murmured, Look and you will see.

And look she did, with ever-increasing frequency as time marched on, but perceive she did not. Moving through shadows came naturally to him and he donned their shroud as easily as one might don a hat. She never saw him, only felt his presence and the impending sense of dread it invoked.

He once got close enough to taste her; the citrus of her shampoo, the faint tang of sweat, and the hint of that ancient something – that trepidation all women emit, ingrained in every fibre of their supple flesh by an age of subjection.

It was that archaic sense of predator and prey that drew him in, the urge to fulfil his primary calling tearing at the seams of reality until all that was left was a violent yearning. He had waited long enough, stalking his prey from the darkness; now the real hunt began.