Cursed Bunny(43)

The resulting scream almost deafened him as it shook the walls. And in the very next moment, his chain was wrapped around a talon, and he was flying through the air.

It was beautiful. He couldn’t help thinking so when, for the first time, he could clearly see It by the light of the sun. It was truly, monstrously beautiful.

In the sunlight, It was not black but dark gray. Its ashen feathers gleamed like well-forged iron, a cold and lifeless sheen. Its talons and beak were silver, and in the middle of that silver beak was a short but deep, red gash. The youth surmised this was where his chain had hit.

Beside the beak was an icy blue eye staring down at him. That shade of blue, to someone seeing it for the first time, was shockingly deep and clear, and cruel.

He wound his chain tighter around its feet and tried to hoist himself up. But one of the links of the chain he dangled from came into contact with the sharp talons and was sliced into two. Even if he survived the fall like the time he escaped from It, there would be no point in having come all this way if he let It fly off to somewhere far away. He desperately clung onto the silver claws of It and tried to climb up on the monster without getting scratched.

Just then, It lowered its head and bit down on him.

When he felt the steely beak close down from his ribcage to his legs, he was certain he was about to die. But It did not swallow him or shake him off into the air. As painful as it was, he wasn’t being bitten down on strong enough for his bones to break—this could only mean It was trying to take him somewhere.

The minute he thought this, It tossed him in the air and caught him again in its beak. Now the youth lay on his back facing the sky and staring straight into the blue eye of It.

If beasts could show emotions in their eyes, the emotion that the youth would have discerned at that moment would have been clearly one of satisfaction. But being different from people, beasts do not derive satisfaction from scaring or torturing others. The question they ask of any other animal is whether it will kill it or be killed by it. As long as they can prevent themselves from being killed while having prey in their grasp, animals don’t need to concern themselves with the feelings of their prey; simply the fact of having prey in their grasp is enough satisfaction.

It made a wide arc in the air. It was flying back to the cave.

Without hesitation, the youth swung his right arm, hard. The chain connected to his right cuff smashed directly into the icy blue eye of It, and the half-sliced link gave way, leaving a fragment of the chain lodged in the eye.

It gave out a shriek that shook Heaven and Earth as it banked to one side. In its sudden, blind pain, It darted toward a cliff on the mountain where the cave was and crashed.

XXI

He couldn’t understand how he was still alive. But buried as he was in broken branches, scattered leaves, grasses, and brambles, his breath still hadn’t left his body.

As he tried to get up, he felt a jolt through the right side of his body. He couldn’t move his right leg. Grabbing one of the thicker branches around him, he used it as a crutch to slowly and carefully stand up.

The behemoth had crashed against the cliff and broken its neck.

Its eyes were devoid of life; its giant beak still gleamed silver in the light. A wingspan wide enough to wrap over the ridge of the mountain, but the stiff feathers were so clumped and crushed that they looked like rough cloth.

He stood still and stared at the dead bird.

The bird was dead, and it would never steal again, nor would anything be stolen from it. The only evidence the bird ever existed would be the scars on the youth’s body from when he had been its prey.

A realization that somehow saddened the youth.

Without knowing why, he found himself wishing the bird would revive, that it hadn’t died so easily, as he stood there and gazed into its blue eye.

Then, he began to limp back toward the village where the woman was waiting.

XXII

Dusk was settling by the time he arrived at the village. The red sun had fragmented and its pieces were dissolving into the spaces between the iridescent clouds, a sight that he would never tire of.

He took the path through the village and began walking up to the forest in the mountains beyond. There were no lights seen from the road. The woman’s brother had gone out to the forest and hadn’t returned, and the woman was blind so she didn’t need the light. That was what he told himself as he hurried his pace.

At the threshold of the hut, before he opened the door, he called out the woman’s name. He didn’t want to barge in and surprise her.

No sounds came from within. He pushed open the hut door.

The woman had been sitting at the table, and she stood up as she heard the door open. Approaching him, she held out her hand. In his gladness to see her, he also reached out for her hand.

The moment his fingertips brushed hers, the woman transformed into thousands of water droplets and scattered into thin air.

XXIII

Overwhelmed by what had just happened, he stood frozen by the door, his hand still stretched out for hers.

Behind him, a cry as if from a beast. He turned.

The woman’s brother charged at him with a hunting knife.

The youth sidestepped just in time.

He tried to explain, but the brother did not want to listen. In truth, the youth did not understand what had happened, either.

The brother’s momentum carried him past the youth. He turned and rushed at the youth again while uttering his cry.