LIKE A WALK IN THE PARK, LIKE A HOLE IN YOUR HEAD

She had been numb for days now. The days seemed to stretch endlessly and each one melded together with the previous. Each day she spent alone, her secluded den offering her sanctuary for her to watch the sun rise and set with vacant eyes. It was not sadness that she felt, not despair, but rather an acute sense of apathy. Her growing stomach and hormonal imbalance gave rise to severe discomfort, and it was getting harder to hunt for herself. She was within her den now, the sky the fiery orange-red of sunset, casting an eerie glow over all of the trophies that she had collected. Ehiyeh moved her gaze between each of them, the pelts and the teeth and the bones and the tails, each with a memory attached.

The woman began to feel something. It began to build inside her, a hot, burning anger that seared her insides. She let out a pained snarl, pushing herself to her feet. And then she began to empty her den. Her prizes, her trophies, the things that she held most dear, she threw out onto the sandy shore. Some washed away as the cold ocean waves eagerly licked at the shore, but the larger ones stayed, being ruined by the salty seawater and sand. Tears stung at her eyes. The bobcat pelt, the fox tails, the rabbit's feet, the feathers of rare birds, all splayed out on the shore pathetically. Ehiyeh could not look at them anymore. They represented a part of her that had died the night that the male had violated her.

At last her den was bleak and empty. She stood in the sand, her sides heaving with exertion and anger. "I hate you, I hate you." She whispered harshly to herself, her violet eyes no longer vacant, but instead smoldering with a fierce and unadulterated rage. Ehiyeh glanced at the animal parts laid across on the sand, but she did not feel sadness. She felt only fury.

The sound of pawsteps, large and lumbering on the sand, caught her attention. Her head whipped backwards, but her fur began to lay itself flat at the sight of the dark face of her brother, Erebos. She had not spent much time with any of her siblings, and Eden only recently. Perhaps it was time to create those bonds that should perhaps naturally exist. "Hello, Erebos." She greeted, turning towards him slightly. Her voice sounded haggard and tired, more gravelly and hoarse than usual. Her eyes had dulled once more, but beneath the surface there was still that vengeful, boiling anger.

Ehiyeh angled her head towards her former trophies that were carelessly tossed onto the sand. "I suppose you... wouldn't want them, would you?" She sighed. "You liked the whole ones better... I... I think."

ehiyeh