A Hungry Predator

** Trigger warning for suicide, it is touched on and antiquated views on it are shared by a character **

Snow falls without end in sight all over this dark and lonely cemetery. It looks as if the heavens themselves are trying to help us bury the dead. The funerary services for Teresa, my mentor through my 13 years of life, are about to end. She killed herself 2 days ago without leaving a note or reason as to why. Despite having the flu and not wanting to come to the funeral of someone that threw away her life, I decided to attend as I knew nobody else would. The Mother Superior teaches that everyone deserves someone to mourn them in death to be able to find peace in the afterlife, regardless of how they lived or died. If that is what she believes, that is what I will believe too.

Now that the burial has ended I find myself on my way back home. I have to get there and finish putting Teresa’s things in boxes before they are picked up later today. The Mother Superior herself sent me a letter this morning letting me know she had hired a replacement for Teresa to help me with my job. This new person is supposed to arrive tonight.

The route I take is full of long and narrow alleyways, all barely illuminated by the ethereal blue flames of the public candles. In the partial darkness of these flickering lights I can’t help but let my mind go towards dark thoughts, mainly, why did she commit suicide. She was happy and always talked about her plans for the future… plans that supposedly included me. I must stop! I will gain nothing by following these useless thoughts. I still have the Mother Superior to guide me and give support in the challenges of life.

Finally I’m home, a tiny 2 bedroom house with a kitchen/dinning room. I open the door and close it as fast as I can to stop the warmth from escaping outside. Despite its small size today it feels large and empty. I better focus on putting Teresa's belongings away, otherwise, this dark aura will consume me.

As I finish sealing the last of the boxes I hear a muffled and malicious laughter coming from outside my house. I guess someone from the Clergy has come to play a prank on me. They have treated me like this since I was little, always envious of the attention that the Mother Superior gave me in the orphanage. What can I say, she saw my intelligence and skills and knew to nurture me instead of them and their dirty, dirty hearts. Anyways, to deal with their bullying I developed a good sense of my surroundings. Particularly my hearing became quite good.

In order to be over with this as quickly as possible I lean on the window where I can hear them squicking so they can easily scream at me. As expected, a sister jumps to my window and slams her palms against it, screaming like a goat. I jump and act surprised but I guess my acting isn’t very good as they look more annoyed than anything. While frowning their brows, the sisters point with their fingers to my door through the window and start walking. A moment later they knock at my door.

I put on my winter coat and with reservations I open the door to them, sensing the warmth leaving my house. One of the sisters growls at me “Why didn’t you open the door and wait for us, huh?! Do you want us to spend more time in the cold or what?”. I think about how much extra time they have already spent thinking on how to prank me but don’t mention it. Instead, I reply “Sorry, I’m a bit sick and didn’t get your hint”. The sisters take a step back with a mixture of fear and disgust in her faces as they cover their mouths and noses. Then, the sister that was talking to me pulls a small letter sealed with the mark of the Mother Superior from a leather bag and throws it at my face. While I'm kneeling to pick it up she says as she looks down on me “That's the name of your new housemate. We heard their caravan should be arriving in about an hour. So, let us pick those boxes so we can finish our job”. They placed all the boxes in a cart and now that they are done, the sisters leave without closing the door.

I'm on my way to the entrance to the city, the only entry point in the high curricular wall that surrounds the whole of Tisdaiana. My house is on the north side while the entryway is on the south, because of this it will take me close to 1 hour to get there. 30 minutes have passed and I feel like I have made less progress than usual, maybe it's the illness keeping me down. Then I feel like something or someone sniffed at my neck, sending a bone chill across my whole body and freezing in place. A moment later I regain my composure and turn as fast as I can, pulling the pocket knife Teresa had given me years ago. Nobody was there. Suddenly I hear what seems like a muffled scream coming from the plaza at the end of the alleyway to my right. Frozen in fear I stay attentive but can't hear anything, not anyone else coming from that direction. I take several deep breaths to come back to normal. This goddamn illness is making me hallucinate.

It took me another half an hour but I finally got to the entrance. As I arrive I hear the horn that notifies the guards to open the door. The 7 meter tall door opens inwards by mechanisms I can’t understand, moving the snow that had been accumulating in front of it without any effort. As it moves, a warm orange light passes through blinding me for a moment. The caravan enters irradiating liveliness, although making more noise than they should given the late hour. I guess they can learn manners once they have settled down.

Without being able to catch my breath I proceed and raise a piece of paper with the name “Claire” written on it as big as I could. The person that comes is a tall, well fed young woman looking at me with an energetic smile, not what I expected. I assumed that someone hired personally by the Mother superior would be more refined… NO! I must not think like that. I must remember her teachings, only a hollow person judges by looks. I lower my arms and slightly bow my head, saying to her “Nice to meet you Ms Claire, I’m Amina”. She opens her eyes in surprise and while still smiling replies “Glad to meet’cha Amina!”.

We don’t waste any time and start walking towards our home. Now the sounds of the caravan are little but white noise. Claire looks at me slightly frowning her brow like a worried child and asks “Yo, Amina, did something bad happen to you today?”. How does she know about the burial? Or is it that my face looks so bad it is giving that impression? Because I don’t answer quickly she starts putting on a more serious face, more like what I expected from an adult. Before this escalates any more I decide to come clean with as little details as possible. “My mentor died and today was her burial. Sorry to dump that on you. I tried not to let my life bother other people”. Claire initially looks surprised, then her eyes start overflowing with tears as she kneels down and hugs me. In between her wailing I managed to understand “I am so sorry for your loss!” again and again. I start crying and we stay like this for a few minutes. Then, we resume walking in a peaceful yet warm silence.

When we are around half way there, Claire stops dead and while looking at the plaza where I got scared on my way to meet her, asks me if we are going to work in this sector tomorrow. It is now very dark and considerably colder than when I exited my home. I turn to look at her before trying to convince her to start moving when I see for a split second a scary and empty look in her eyes. Then the blue light flickered and her usual cheery face was all I could see. Again the darkness plus the illness must be playing me pranks. Anyways, if possible I prefer to resume walking so I reply with a somewhat exasperated voice “Here? no. I have already worked on the only buildings worth looking at, a morgue and a church. If you are interested in it we can come and see the area later in the weekend but… can we keep walking, please?”. She looks embarrassed and immediately starts walking besides me.

The rest of our way there is filled with her questions about this town. Her warm personality helps to not think about Teresa or the other unpleasant events of today.