Entry 4: The First Kill
Age 20 - Corruption in the Ranks
I killed Bright-Claw today.
Not the eager young scout I’d trained with, shared meals with, played elaborate pranks on during our cadet years. The thing wearing his face had been feeding on our people for weeks, draining their life essence while they slept in their canopy homes.
Three children dead. Three families destroyed while the Reachguard Elders demanded “proper procedures” and “thorough investigations” and “consultation with traditional methods.”
I didn’t need to investigate. My visions showed me exactly what Bright-Claw had become, exactly where to find him, exactly what needed to be done. When I shadow-stepped into his private grove, what looked back at me wasn’t my former training partner.
It was hunger given form, wearing a face I’d known since childhood.
The corruption had taken him slowly. His simian features were stretched wrong, elongated in ways that made my stomach turn. His seafoam eyes - so like mine - had turned black as the Umbra itself, with too many reflections moving in their depths. When he smiled, I could see rows of needle-sharp teeth where his fangs should have been.
“Banjo!” it said in Bright-Claw’s voice, and for a heartbeat I almost hesitated. “Thank the Last Wolf Pack you found me. I’ve been so hungry lately, and the dreams… the dreams show me such wonderful ways to feed.”
It begged me not to hurt it. Used Bright-Claw’s memories of our friendship, our shared training, our childhood adventures swinging through the canopy levels. “Remember when we both got lost during our first overnight patrol?” it pleaded. “Remember how we made a pact to always watch each other’s backs?”
I remembered. That’s exactly why I had to be the one to end it.
The dagger went in clean - one thrust, precise as Whisper-Steps had taught me. The thing wearing Bright-Claw’s face smiled as it died, black ichor seeping from the wound instead of proper blood.
“You understand now,” it whispered with its last breath. “How easy it spreads. How anyone could be next. How even those you love most…”
Whisper-Steps found me afterward, sitting beside the corrupted corpse in the growing darkness of the deep canopy. He didn’t ask questions. Just helped me build the funeral pyre, said the purification rites our people use for the corruption-touched, held my hands steady when they started shaking.
“First kill is always hard,” he said quietly as Bright-Claw’s twisted remains burned. “Even when it’s necessary. Even when it’s mercy.”
But it was Bright-Claw’s face in the flames. Bright-Claw’s voice thanking me for ending its suffering. I’ll remember both forever - the friend he was and the monster he became.
The Reachguard Elders accepted my report without question. Corruption eliminated, community protected. They praised my “decisive action” and “commitment to traditional values.”
They have no idea I used shadow-stepping to accomplish what their “proper procedures” never could have achieved in time.
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