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Our ragged, bloodstained girl in red. Flesh stained teeth, earth crusted nails. An animal-girl.
Girlhood knows red. She knows of blood and the hollowing hunger that resides in the pit of stomachs. She knows her way around organs and the fresh scent of danger. Girlhood knows of red eyes, red hands, red tongue licking a full, satisfied smile.
Red waits with the Creature resting on her grandmother’s bed. It lies with one paw over the other. It yawns and sleeps and bares its neck. It waits for inevitability. Fear wears the clothes of love.
“If you cannot eat, you will die. This is the Law.”
Tears swell at the corners of the girl’s eyes. Who are these tears for, my child? Humanity lays at the corners of her eyes. She wipes them with the back of her hand.
Hunger and hunger and hunger grips the girls stomach. Starvation. Instincts. Animal.
She lays the iron weapon into the Creature’s skull.
Red Riding Hood devours her shadow. She rips apart fur, finds the critical spot where the meat comes apart the easiest, where the heart pounds and fades the quickest.
She splits the skull apart, pulling the strings that have tormented her Story many times told. She strays the path and follows her instincts. Animal.
She eats. She eats and drinks and swallows. Bright red. Raw meat. She picks the fur and guts out of her teeth. She wipes her mouth on the collar of her white dress and her hands at her thighs. “My teeth were made to eat you”.
Unrecognisable child. People fear you the way they feared the Big Bad Wolf. What have you done? Predator claws and ears grow from her body. Alien, familiar. Maturity, mortality, humanity, innocence— the blood at the end of girlhood.
“I met death, and Death wants me to live.”