3. Shade

The man eyes the bleeding corpse of the beast, inspecting it. If only he knew how to tan hide into leather, he would be able to get some warmer clothes. But as it is, he'll have to do with what he has. In one swift motion he draws a smaller blade from his back, more convenient for specialized cuts than his sword. Pulling out all of the entrails, he inspects the meats. Often, when he guts the beasts like he did this time, the stomach acid, undigested food and other contaminants would infect the meat and make it uneatable. This also happens to be the case here. Giving up on the heart, and liver, he looks for the tenderloin. Knowing it Is the beast part of the beast. Cutting deeper into the carcasses he removed the tenderloin, finding it completely unblemished. Smiling in satisfaction he continues to remove different parts of the beast, while waiting for the firepit to really spring to life.

A couple of minutes later, there is a man sitting in front of a weirdly shaped bonfire. A few rocks seem to be jutting out on the sides, while there is a rectangular, flat, thin one, lying over the fire itself. The flames seem to be licking the rock, as if intent on devouring it, but to no avail. On top of this rock there lies tender meat, lined with white fat stripes and some kind of herbs covering it. The man responsible seems to salivate while glancing at the meat and the delicious smell coming off It, while continuing to put herbs on different parts of the meat. The man continues to turn the meat with a stick a couple of more times, while putting a few more readily done meats on the heat. The man then takes one which seems to be done, oozing with flavor, off the grill with a stick and takes a bite out of it. Breathing heavily through the mouth the man's eyes are wide open as the meat almost burns his tongue off but keeps on chewing with tears in his eyes. From the flavor or the pain, one couldn't tell. After the first bite, the man continues to eat at a superhuman pace, for every meat grilled there is another eaten, until the man just simply cannot eat anymore. If you looked at the pile of meat now, over half would be eaten!

The man leans back towards the ground and stares at the sky, lazily noting the position of the sun in the sky. Suddenly, his heart makes a strange sound. As if skipping a beat, then to compensate, beat extra hard. Except, it keeps beating as if a drum being hit repeatedly. As if he was running a fever, a warm feeling seemed to spread through the man's body, making his skin feel cold at the same time. Sweating, while lying on his back, he seemed to have expected this. The man tightens his mouth in concentration while breathing in a particularly slow way, trying to experience this sensation to its fullest. This is the reason he ate as much as he did, for the more he eats, the more this sensation seems to come. And only when he eats the beasts, he's named darkling's.

Darkling's have a bit of a unique existence on the continent. They didn't always exist, one day, they just showed up, and have been there ever since. The man, seemingly still in his early twenties, was just a young child when the first Darkling's started their attack, sending humanity into chaos.