My Trash Heap

The underbrush barely covered them.

Jaon crouched low, fingers white-knuckled around the shaft of his spear. His breath came shallow, trying not to stir the leaves. Egg knelt behind him, pressed so close their breath tickled the back of his neck but neither of them dared shift.

The forest was silent.

Too silent.

Even the birds had gone quiet.

Then—a heavy thud.

Another.

The branches ahead shook. A low growl, half beast, half bird, rumbled through the clearing like thunder swallowed in feathers. Egg leaned in, voice so faint it barely existed. “Is that… an owlbear?”. Jaon didn’t answer. Just raised one finger in warning, eyes fixed forward. He could see it now… massive. Hulking. Feathers matted with dirt and dried blood. Its beak glinted in the dappled light. Egg swallowed. “It’s not supposed to be this close to the road.”

“It’s not supposed to be this big,” Jaon whispered back. The owlbear’s head twitched. Sniffed. Egg stiffened. Their hand grazed Jaon’s reaching, not for comfort, but for grounding. Jaon didn’t move.A low snort. The owlbear turned, feathers rustling like dry grass. It took a step. Then another. Closer. Right past them.

It paused.

Sniffed.

Jaon didn’t blink. He couldn’t. He could feel Egg’s breath freeze behind him.

One wrong move.

One shift of weight.

Then, mercifully… a birdcall.

Distant.

The sun was rising when Merina awoke, half-buried beneath ash and splintered reeds. Her fur was caked with dried blood, the scent of smoke thick in her throat. Each breath stung. For a long moment, she didn’t move because she couldn’t remember why she should.

Then it came back in broken flashes.

The screams.

The fire.

His voice… her husband’s voice… shouting her name before it was swallowed by something final.

Merina dragged herself upright, claws sinking into the scorched earth as she looked around what remained of their village. The quiet was worse than the fire. No birdsong. No laughter of the riverfolk. Just blackened huts and the twisted skeletons of once familiar homes.

She stumbled toward their den, or what was left of it, heart pounding with a desperate hope. But it was gone. Burned to its bones like the rest. And there, just beyond the threshold, she found him.

Her husband’s body lay in the soot, his hand stretched out as if he had tried to reach her.

The cry that tore from her throat didn’t sound like her own. It echoed, empty and cracked, across the ruins.

That was the moment something inside Merina broke and something else took its place. Not hatred. Not yet. But something deeper. A seed. Cold, slow-growing.