The alcove carved into the felled balcony is barely large enough for me to fit inside, and so my forehead and nose still stick out like lightning rods for the incurring downpour.
As much as I’d love to wait it out and avoid being pelted by raindrops and traumatic memories alike, there’s no telling how long it will last.
I have to keep moving.
I have to check my traps before I can head back to my hovel.
For good measure, one more “fuck” slips from my lips and I emerge back onto the street.
I do what I can to avoid the already-forming puddles, but on roads made of stones, there are ample places for water to collect. And collect it does. Pretty soon, my squelching boots are all that I can hear as I sneak through the narrow streets, my fingers icy where they clutch Sable to my chest, my mind a monsoon of blood and screams and terror.
Not without having to stop a half dozen times to desperately try to wipe my face clean, finally, I make it to the first trap.
A pigeon is tangled in my snare, its head hanging limply against its grey breast, wings cocked at awkward angles from its thrashing. It wasn’t a swift death; of that I am sorry. This trap wasn’t meant for birds, and as such, it wasn’t meant to hold a creature that would try to fly away and inadvertently knot itself up until it started suffocating.
My eyes burn, tears threatening to pool, but I bite the feeling down.
Setting Sable down at my ankles, I begin unknotting the bird. It never does get easier taking their cold bodies in my hand and unwinding the rough ropes from around their broken limbs and necks. It also doesn’t get easier to ignore the gentle, somber melody that always drifts into my thoughts when I’m doing it.
When I was younger, my mother set traps in the garden to keep rabbits, mice, and other small critters out who might’ve otherwise been interested in snagging a free bite at the expense of her hard labor. She’d taught me how to tie snares such as this one. Despite the traps being necessary for our family to have the food we needed to eat and trade with, she was always upset whenever she’d find a dead animal caught within one, but I only ever knew because of the songs she’d sing as she’d twist the poor things free from the ropes and wires.
There was one song in particular that she favored in these moments, a tune soft and low that made me think of the journey we’d all take to our eternal slumber one day, the song like a guide or a doorway to glimpse what that might feel like.
It felt cold. Empty. And I always shuddered whenever she sang it.
Now, I have to clamp down on my tongue so that same melody doesn’t find its way out of my mouth. Not while I’m out and vulnerable to any ghouls or noctis who might be around.
Once I’ve freed the dead bird from the snare, I grab my knife and an empty vial from my belt. I cradle the pigeon’s breast in my hand, pinching the head to prop it up and make space for the vial beneath. Then, I slide the knife against the bird’s throat, careful not to nick my own fingers and I collect the blood that is willing to spill.
But I’m a fool because I forgot about the rain.
I don’t know if the ghouls can tell the difference between watered-down blood and the untainted kind, but I’d rather not risk finding out.
With the bird and the vial tucked beneath my breast, I retrieve Sable from the ground, angle my body over my work to try to prevent as much water from mixing with the blood as possible and race to the nearest awning. I look about as awkward and uncoordinated as I feel, I’m sure. And of course, as I run, I can’t really see what’s happening. I have no idea how much blood is falling into the vial and how much is splashing onto the ground until I stop to check it.
When I’m finally free from the downpour, I dare hold the pigeon and vial out to check my handiwork.
My stomach sinks. Not even a full vial’s worth of blood—the amount I can usually get from a bird of this size—sloshes around when I give the container a shake. Judging from the thick consistency, that’s either because the bird has sat too long and the blood has already coagulated, or because I wasted half of the bird’s blood as I clambered over here.
Blood is blood though, I guess. I’ll take what I can get.
Growling through my irritation, I cram the cork into the top of the vial and place the half-full container back on my belt. For a moment, I consider leaving the pigeon here. If the blood is this thick already, there’s a chance the meat has also spoiled. But I can always make that choice later once I’m out of the rain and can better gauge the state of the creature, maybe even get a second opinion.
I tie the pigeon’s legs together with some twine and secure it to the back of my belt.
One trap down, just a few more to go.
But with the rain, I’m not sure I can make it to them all. Not without losing my shit in the process.
One of them is fairly close though. Just a few blocks away, outside the old sewage system, so it might be more likely to have snagged a large rat, or perhaps even a fat racoon, and I can’t afford to let a kill like that spoil just because I couldn’t tough it out and shrug off a little rain.
There and back. I can afford that much.
Securing my knife back into its sheath at my hip, I begin my trot to the next trap.
I make my way toward the old marketplace in the center of town. Because of the ghouls who frequent here, it’s one of the more dangerous neighborhoods in Gravenburg to travel.
That is, unless you know the safe way.
