I was born with a flickering light. A tiny lantern under my heart which blinked at the world around it. It attracted the will-o'-wisps and fireflies, the small flame dancing alongside them in mysterious rituals of foggy morns and rainy days.

But the world outside the woods in which I was born was not tolerating tiny lights.

They came with words and daggers. With oil and axes. And with water; water against the dancing flames. The flickering light was not ready for it. It started to flicker more often, disappearing slowly, dying in my chest, like a moth too close to a lamp, always closer, dragged in by the inevitable.

Burning out slowly like a candle, until there was no light anymore.

The warmth in my chest was replaced with the coldness of the void. Until the ghosts appeared, or gods, no one knew their names, even themselves.

They gave me a shadow in place of the light, they gave me night instead of a heart and they gave me darkness in place of a soul. In my darkness, a sharp talons grew and teeth, even sharper. Ready to defend the night, so it never disappeared, like the small flickering light.

My prey is there. I am the hunter. Dangerous as the falling star, ruthless like a hard stone.

Always hungry beast. Still hollow in place where the light was.

Still seething for a revenge that will never come.