The Soul Eaters (The Thin Hex Line Book 1) by Gwyndolyn Russell (e reader txt) 📕

"Something on your mind?"

"Near the planet."

"Yeah, we should be there tomorrow. Did you see the chart?"

"No. Sense it."

I thought about it. How was he able to sense it? It made me think of before in that cave. Somehow he knew we were in danger.

"Fen, how can you sense it? How did you...do what you did before?"

"Not sure…" his head tilted. "We," he pointed to me, then himself, "are connected. I..." he looked away.

He must have been trying to figure out the words. I waited patiently. Leaned towards him as if it would get the words out.

"I shared eyes. Let Jackal use mine."

"I heard you talking, too. But that still doesn't explain anything."

Fenris whined and lowered his head.

"Do not know words….perhaps…" he shook his head.

"What is it?"

"When connected...can share memories. Thoughts."

"You're not really explaining anything."

"Can do at will. Do not know how. Just do."

"You could just say it, that's how people normally share."

"No. Show. See with other eyes." His head tilted the other way. "You opened eyes." He tapped the middle of his forehead.

Right about now I wished I read more books. He said it like it was obvious and I felt stupid for not understanding. From all the tests Reynolds ran on him, she found out that he wasn't stupid. He just couldn't speak well. His vocabulary was garbage and he did not know how to make different sounds. He knew how to do it, but was incapable of explaining.

I asked him to show me. I insisted. If it would help me understand him better, then I wanted to know.

He breathed out this smoke right into my face. It wasn't the same smoke, or gas, that he used against the eos. This was different. It smelled earthy. He put a claw to the center of my forehead, drawing blood.

I sat there calmly. Breathed in the smoke. Focused on his face.

Just darkness. For a while that was all I could see. I heard chains rattling; the soft sounds of silk rubbing against metal. It felt like my body was controlled by an outside force. My head turned, gazing up at what looked like a purple and white speckled surface above. It was small, like I was looking through a hole far out of my reach. My stomach ached. All I could think about was food. Anger. Boredom.

A flash of golden light took the specks over for a brief moment. Then a shadow dropped down. Heavy thumps rang through my ears as the shadow fell limp in front of me.

“Today was...miserable.” Came a voice from outside of the hole. Metallic and hollow, speaking in a great hall of a cathedral. “Could you sing for me? I haven’t heard you sing in ages.”

I looked down to the limp shadow. A foul conglomeration of flesh and metal, still leaking what looked to be oil. A thick, stiff tail bent and snapped to the side, a missing arm. Its jaw too loose to stay in place. I tore into it with my mouth first, ripping away bits of flesh and metal with long, wicked claws.

“Why?” Fenris’ voice came out of me. “No rhyme to sing.”

“Come now!” The other voice said. “Your songs always cheer me up.”

“Perhaps there would be song…” I said between mouthfuls. “If not stuck here!”

He sighed. “I would set you free if I could.”

“You allowed it.”

“I didn’t know he could forge something like that! I don’t know where he got the materials.”

“No change!” I snarled. “No game needed. You lied. Try buy me with food. Let me starve.” Another bite from the corpse. “Trusted you...No song.”

“I promise you, I will figure out a way to get you out. You’re still alive because of me. If I didn’t sneak out here to give you food every night, you would have starved years ago.”

“Fuck you.” I snapped. I could feel the rage boiling through my skin. The anticipation of escape. The yearning to be free.

Everything faded from my vision. Back to the darkness.

I blinked. My eyes wide. It took a second to realize I wasn’t breathing at all.

Fenris pulled his claw from my head.

I looked down at my hands, expecting them to look just like his. I could still taste the blood and the flesh. The hunger…

“A short night….” Fenris said, leaning back. “Understand now? Can share...memories.”

At the time I had no idea how special that memory was. Fenris had finally opened up; put himself out to be judged. He shared this personal event in a way I never thought possible. I didn’t know the words for it then. My emotions swirled around in a vortex with these different thoughts. I felt what he felt at that time. I tasted what he tasted. Saw what he saw. I could smell it. All of the different smells overwhelmed my senses. The freshly killed corpse. The rotting flesh. The molten rock. The fresh, strange air wafting into the stuffiness of the cave. The smell of that man left unseen on the outside. My sight had been totally different than what I knew, or now thought I had known. It was the difference between an old television and an ultra-high definition television. I saw clearer, sharper images down to the very details of the pores in the stone while fully submerged in darkness. Now that I was looking at my own hands, everything felt fast and blurry. I was starved again, like I had been when I was a kid. The cramps of a contracted stomach digesting itself. The amazing taste of food, of that flesh and metal and the delight of sinking my teeth into something that oozed a tacky warmth. I still felt stiff as if I had been the one chained up and locked away for years. I had to stretch and use those muscles that I assumed were meant to be mine.

It felt out of place….

I didn’t belong….

This body didn’t feel like my own. Just something to inhabit like a hermit crab needing a new shell.

“Jackal?” Fenris said softly,