Instinct (Malady)

[Colt]

79th of Winter This was bad. Black. Wet. Lightless. Cold. Trapped. Khasr paced from one side of the cave to the other. He walked on the balls of his feet with his back hunched and one eye to the center at all times, his ever present leg bone in his right fist. His experiences were choppy, quickly analyzed and stored without enjoyment. Rain. Splattering. Restless. Thunder. How long had it been? some part of him wondered. It was strange, the way his thoughts worked now. Lines in his mind that he had never questioned before were beginning to blur, halving and drifting farther and farther apart with each passing day. On one side was his dormant half; cold, thoughtful and cynical. On the other was his active one; violent, hateful and wild. When anything happened, it was as if two different Khasrs were watching, but while his dormant side would immediately think of a sarcastic comment, it was his active one that reacted. Every outward move was dictated by this half, dedicated to one single goal; survive. There was nothing else. There was no forethough, there were no tactics, there were no consequences. There was only the moment, the reaction, the now. He continued pacing like a caged animal, frustrated by the winter thunderstorm. He might have been cold an hour ago, but he could no longer remember it. There was no point in remembering. Every now and then he would get flashes of the past; a clear day, wind, the feel of a cloak on his back, a campsite, but they were mere flashes. Everything he knew now was this cave and its occupant, and how to make it to the next night. Sometimes he would simply watch her, waiting and waiting for her to attack as she so often did. Sometimes irrational instinct would overtake him and he would fly at her, sometimes with his leg bone and sometimes not, sheer hatred and desperation erasing everything but his desire to kill her. He snarled through his teeth; low, bestial, and reeking with pent up frustration.