*

My eyes slowly opened. Several times during the dark, I’d woken up to the chirpings of crickets, to the raucous squawks of darktime birds, to the howling of hunting carnivores. I’d never heard so much noise in my being. The worst was when I woke up to the sounds of an animal scurrying nearby and heard its heavy sniffing. I tried to block out the noises of chewing and gnawing, of small cracking sounds, of ground insects rustling and cheeping. I curled up against the apa root and hugged the rough bark, squeezing my eyes closed, longing for sleep.

Sleep didn’t help much because I had to wake up eventually. When I did, all I could think was, Yesterdark, I took someone’s being. I stayed where I was for at least a block. The longer I sat with my arms around the t...

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