His scar itched, as it always did when he was on the hunt.
But you don’t hunt any more.
No, not for years, not since he found her in the burning remnants of her village, no more than an infant, and something had broken within him.
It had been 13 years of deflected questions.
“Why don’t we look the same?”
“Why can’t I leave the cave?”
He had fooled himself that he could content her with stories and pets. As he searched, he realized the irony: the answer he’d told her had always been true.
“There are monsters out there.”
Copyright (c) 2021 by Hugh Mackey
Image: "Enrag'd Monster (from 'Fifteen Etchings Dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds')" by John Hamilton Mortimer is marked with CC0 1.0.