Brittle Teachings

The beasts craved our knowledge.

My hands hadn’t ceased their quaking since I deduced where my fellow scholars and I had been discarded deep into the night. We knelt in the damp earth at the mercy of our fate.

Looming over us, swallowing our shadows, were monsters of lore. Their alluring bodies were naked, and they stood impossibly tall amongst the forestry. Their skins were dark like the tree trunks—the same rich shade as ours. We were in the presence of beautiful, feminine creatures: mockeries of women.

“Hello.”

My brows dipped low at the sweet tone of the monster. It had been repetitive. The fake women only knew hello, and help me, and please, don’t kill me, I’m sorry. My gaze remained subservient, stuck to their perfect feet. More than once, my vision blurred.

Nothing we had been taught at the academy alluded to their existence.

Voices spilled from their gaping mouths, inflections shifting between one word and the next. Voices they had stolen.

The girl on my right mourned. Her thin arms linked in a tight embrace, and her chin quivered. She didn’t utter a word, even when the monsters stepped in front of her, rambling incessant, disjointed phrases. I peeked upwards. Their eyes were unblinking as one of them presented the girl a twisted branch.

“Help me?”

My interest piqued.

The girl continued to cry meekly, and it was only when the monsters pressed closer did she shatter.

“No!” she exclaimed, shaking her head, and slapped the branch away. My eyes widened, and I flinched, sensing the danger before it happened. The tremor in my hand greatened.

The monster shrieked and lashed out with a punishing blow. Then, the girl was gone, fragile neck hanging loose and eyes empty. Her body collapsed.

Now, there were two of us.

“Don’t kill me,” another monster said, creeping close and peering down at the crying corpse. One approached us, and all I could see was its pretty mouth tearing through its cheeks.

“We won’t teach you anything, you monsters!” the remaining girl yelled. Her eyes flared. She had always been bold—the loudest in class. Her earnest nature had her arriving early and studying late every single day. I hardly ever saw her face with how it was always buried in a textbook. The other students looked down on her regardless. What knowledge came easily to them, forsook us. Effort did not always yield what we wanted it to—

I peered at the closest beast to me. It wasn’t looking my way, instead focused on my classmate’s lecturing.

—Clearly.

“We are not going to let you learn our language,” my classmate ranted. I dragged my gaze over to her. “Not so you can use it to lure more people into the forest and eat them—”

I wished, just once, she’d act pathetic.

“I can do it.”

Their eyes swiveled to me.

“I can teach you our language. Do you understand me?” I put a steady hand to my chest. “Me. Help. I’ll help.”

I would survive.

“What are you—?” the girl snapped.

Because I had worth.

My classmate froze, eyes burrowing into me. Rage blazed her expression.

Another voice was devoured. The dead lived on in the monsters’ throats, forever lost.

I was the only student still alive.

And I would become their teacher.

A monster walked to my kneeling form and held out the same crooked branch. The ground was soft with yesterday’s rain, somewhat ideal for etching my language into. They huddled around me. The moon leered behind the trees and lit the ground.

“Hello,” I greeted and pointed to the nearest beast. Its brown eyelids finally blinked. The foggy orbs beneath whirled, landing on me.

“Hello,” it mimicked. I repeated the word over and over and scratched the letters into the mud. I pointed to each character, stressing the individual sound by saying them aloud.

“Hello?” Its voice deepened, taking on a familiar lilt. I winced.

“No!” I shouted. That was my voice.

The fake woman hissed, and my jaw clicked shut. I faltered. Could I even do this?

I took a deep breath, disallowing the doubts to fester. I must do this.

I spent hours with the monsters, teaching them in order to survive. When I spelled a word wrong, I swiped my thumb in the mud, smudging it away, and continued. There were five of the creatures, and I planned to make each one understand every word tumbling out of their mouths.

Soon, the sun tickled through the leaves, and with a terrible cry, the beasts fled into the darkness of the forest, leaving behind half-eaten corpses.

And me.

I stared. My limbs cramped, having not moved since I’d been thrown here. My heart felt as though it was pounding against my bones, swollen with emotion. I tilted my head, eyes burning.

Would I have to go back?

My bones creaked as I got to my feet. I turned. In the distance was the academy. Its stone structure jutted high, like claws ripping apart the sky. It was a prison that had rejected me. The city didn’t need those who couldn’t graduate.

I was crying, and the tears fell hot on my curled fingers, still gripping the stupid stick. The branch snapped in my fist.

Nothing had changed. I had nowhere to go and no one to want me. Those monsters left me, in the end.

“Hi.”

I startled and whipped around.

Standing in the light was one of them. Their face was cast with sharper angles, their shoulders squared, and the cut of their waist, straight. Masculine.

“Hi,” I said hesitantly and wiped the wetness from my cheeks. Hi wasn’t a word I had taught them.

“What are you,” it said flatly. Its mouth moved weirdly, shaping with the wrong words.

“Me? I am a human. What are you?” I asked, wondering if it knew. The entrancing creature moved closer. Its head barely reached above my own, shorter than its peers. The split in its cheeks was subtle, almost unnoticeable.

“Human,” it repeated, eyes sullen.

“No. No, you’re not,” I whispered.

“Teach me.”

I nodded. My cheeks were dry. “Okay.”

Every dawn, I’d converse with the lone monster. It was intelligent, and its mind was swift. I discerned they had been studying humans for a long time.

Every night, I’d verse with the five feminine monsters once they awakened. While more brutish than their counterpart, they never raised a hand to hurt me, even when their hunger made it impossible for them to focus. Once, I saw them hunt. They lured a poor man into the forest to take his last breath.

Their power filled me with awe.

Before, ornate, dim halls of stone greeted me from class to class. The walls had been lined with books of old and dusty lanterns, covering even the stained, towering windows. Now, my boots sunk in the damp, mossy cave floor. The fake women sat in front of me, each with their own sticks for writing. And they learned. Outside, the gray, dreary clouds emptied into the earth, creating a pleasant, wet breeze. Primitive, but it was fitting for us.

After months, I felt settled in my new life.

“We are everywhere. Even in the city. And where you go to learn,” the monster said. We leaned on a tree together, our shoulders close, and basked in the sun.

I laughed. The academy had deadly beings lurking in their halls. The thought filled me with elation.

“Why didn’t you go?” I questioned.

“I was left behind. They don’t know we exist. Not anymore.”

“I wish I could go back. Just to see the academy burn to the ground.” I began to ramble, reminiscing. “An entire library used to serve me. Full of words, generational knowledge. And now? I’m reduced to a mere stick for a quill. And my books,” I sighed. “All the words I’ve transcribed, locked in the academy. But, I suppose, why would I need my books when I have you? You’re more enthralling than anything I have ever written.”

The creature smiled.

“What if we go together, to the academy?” I asked and watched as their face screwed, nose wrinkling.

“No. I would rather us stay here.” Their tone was as bland as ever. Something sparked inside of me. How had they been content, living in the forest like a filthy secret and stripped of knowledge?

“Oh,” I mumbled, and we lapsed into silence.

“Do you have a name yet?” I wondered eventually.

They shook their head.

“Really? The others do. I would love to call you by a name.”

“I will find one. Tomorrow,” they reassured.

“A promise,” I said. “It will be lovely to meet you.”

They nodded their head, agreeing, and we shared the rest of evening in meandering conversation.

The night came soon.

I stepped into the creatures’ cave beyond the stretch of trees. The chill in the air bit harder than usual. Only two creatures stood within, the ones who had named themselves Lena and Frey. Maybe they would want to visit the academy. They had a knack for wreaking havoc.

“What do you want to learn today?” I asked them.

“Nothing,” Frey answered, using the word for the first time.

They set their wide, dark eyes on me.

And I ran.

They caught me soon, and their brutal, greedy fingers dug into the flesh of my belly and pulled from my insides. I cried, shrieked, but my tears held no meaning to them. Burning droplets rolled over my numbed cheeks. I was so cold.

They feasted and left me with pieces of myself.

I’d given them knowledge—gifted them the ability to manipulate the voices they had eaten. They had intelligence. Hearts. Names—all things I’d made them realize.

I screamed into the air, begging for anyone to notice me. For the lone, nameless creature to save me. No one came.

“Why…” I sobbed and unleashed the storm of my anguish. My tears and blood mixed into a sea beneath me. “…why does no one…”

My mouth welled with things it shouldn’t, and my throat spasmed, choked.

…no one ever saw my worth.

Tired, I exhaled.