Since the accident, Lovrenco remembered nothing of his life. His memory erased every new memory, leaving him hollow and cold, empty as a cavern. He lived condemned to forget his name, his identity, his heart. The only thing that guided him was hunger, so, estranged from his clan and rejected by his people for being animalistic, he hunted alone, taking wild game, even horses if his hunger was insatiable. Some humans fell into his jaws, although, in the moment of realization, he managed to shake off the hunger and understand what he was doing. No human had yet died between his teeth, but Lovrenco knew that today, that was about to change.
It had been a bad hunting season.
Many humans were hunting that autumn, and therefore, with the noise of the shotguns, it was difficult for him to find prey without running into the hunters. He was desperate, hungry, famished.
And in his field of vision, there was a single element that consumed every glance: a cow.
With its bones protruding like a massive, heavy set of horns, the cow's ribs stood out as it tried to suck up what little rainwater remained in the small puddles of damp mud that formed along the edges of the dirt road. The cow, with its long, pink tongue, lapped and carried away some of the scant water left by the downpour, its large mouth and moist nose full of mud, dryness, and flies feeding on the greenish liquid that dripped from its nostrils, indicating the animal's infection. A few meters away, Lovrenco was trying to carry a heavy, sharp rock, but his arms, weak and thin as small strips of flesh, could barely support the weight. His legs were like two sticks that couldn't stand upright, twisted and with his hip bones protruding, and hunger had reduced the young man to nothing but despair and bone. His side bled from the effort, due to the still-open wound, and his sweaty hands struggled to keep steady the heavy rock in his arms.
The young man approached the animal, but the cow was too weak to even think about fleeing. A blow to the skull, nothing more than that. A quick fire and the meat would soon be ready. Lovrenco's stomach growled at the mere thought. He approached it with trembling legs, because barely an hour ago he had considered throwing in the towel, letting it become food for the birds. For the past seven days, the young man had been convalescing, with a fever so high he could barely move. He opened his mouth during the scant rain that reached the ground and only in that way was he able to stay vaguely hydrated, but food had been absent all that time.
The young man's clothes were half-torn, soaked with his own blood, blood he himself had sucked up in those days before, when he couldn't even sit up, believing that in this way he would manage to survive at least a few more hours. And he had thought about abandoning everything, and letting time drag him to God, but when he saw that cow, that cow that was all bone, he suddenly thought he could survive. A few more days. Enough to make the trek back to one of the nearest villages. He would eat his brain, roasting it over a modest fire, and save the meager rib meat for the journey. His blood would be his drink, his lean flesh his sustenance, and Lovrenco would rise again, even with the stab wound in his side inflicted by werewolf hunters a week ago, the blade still lodged in his body, to exact his revenge.
He didn't dare remove the weapon from his body, lest the wound reopen and he end up on the ground again, suffering such intense delirium that he wouldn't be able to rise to escape. He had been lucky those seven days, with no hunters nearby, but things could change at any moment.
Still recovering, his forehead beaded with sweat and his hands so trembling it was a miracle he could still hold the stone, the young man finally approached the cow and lifted the rock. The animal was so desperate that it kept drinking from the puddle as if it were the only thing of value in all the land—land without a single blade of grass, all barren earth, like meat stripped of all nourishment. Not a single earthworm in the soil to put in its mouth, not a single beetle to feed on. This land had become nothing more than the offspring of hunger, thirst, and neglect. Barren and unfertilized land, besieged by a sadness so profound that one could hear, in the few tears of the sky that fell sporadically, the weeping of God, that God whom humans seemed to have dethroned as if He were nothing more than a blackened skeleton.
It was an exceedingly hot morning, for, despite being late spring, temperatures had reached extreme levels of heat. Clouds of tiny flies darted back and forth on the scorching breeze, particles of fire clinging to his skin like the ashes of a bonfire. Lovrenco could bear this heat no longer, but at least he had been fortunate that, with the meager food that had reached his stomach in the months prior, he was so thin and skeletal that he suffered intense heat in his head, but a horrible cold in his arms, his feet, his stomach. It was the cold of loneliness, of hunger, and of fear, a cold that even ice could not match, far superior, much sharper, like the edge of the weapon that still hung at his side.
His mouth watered at the sight of the cow's skull, imagining what its brains would taste like. It didn't matter if they were infected; the boy needed to eat, and he needed to eat now. He lifted the rock with all his might, and then, just as he was about to drop it, something struck his leg. The young man was so weak he barely reacted in time, a few seconds late, as if he were in the middle of a dream and found it difficult to awaken to the human world. The cow had moved, making a strange noise with its mouth, moving toward whatever had hit Lovrenco's thin leg. Then the young man whirled around, finding himself face to face with a piece of something somewhat hard, but not too hard, a wheat-colored hue as golden as the sun on its warmest days, white on the inside, with loose pieces falling into the mud.
A cough was enough for the boy to know he had a visitor. But he didn't care. He snatched the piece of bread from the cow's mouth, which had just grasped it with its dry, thin lips, and the young man took a deep bite. His cheeks filled, for the first time in seven whole days, with food—good food, though slightly hardened, as if it had been in the sun for too many hours. His teeth ached; it was as if his jaw might break at any moment. He had dropped the rock back to the ground. The cow was looking at him with that moist, half-lost gaze, already in the throes of another delirium. The young man ate with such voracity that in less than ten seconds he had the whole loaf in his mouth, biting down until his teeth hurt his gums, until his whole body trembled and his eyes filled with tears. His stomach growled even louder. His stomach was already used to not eating too much, and it hardly ever made noise, but now that the smell of food, of the bread inside him, was so strong, it squealed again with hope.
The boy then turned his face toward the person who had cleared his throat, finding himself face to face with a young man dressed in a loose-fitting white shirt, somewhat soiled from several days of travel, and tight trousers that revealed naturally slender legs with bony ankles and knees, not from hunger, but simply due to his build. His shoulders were narrow, his waist so thin it resembled a wasp's, and his long, chestnut hair fell below his shoulders in shiny, lustrous curls and waves. Kind green eyes gazed at Lovrenco. Pink lips formed a genuine smile. A narrow, pointed nose, somewhat upturned, comically tilted upwards. The mere thought of seeing another human being made the boy's stomach rumble once more. Because he couldn't deny the fact that this human was still a source of food.
He lunged as best he could at the other young man, but the latter tensed his back, stepped back gracefully, and Lovrenco fell face-first to the ground. With a grunt, he tried to get up—he never would have expected such energy in himself!—but before he could attack again, Lovrenco realized he wouldn't be able to defeat him; that this young man was stronger... that this young man, despite being human, was far better nourished.
"If you stop acting like a hyena, I promise to give you more food. I have lentils at home," said the boy with green eyes, wrinkling his brow. Lovrenco's stomach growled in agreement. He could devour that boy's house itself, he almost said, but he stopped himself.
"Take me," he begged.
He was so weak, so fragile—after how big and strong Lovrenco had been!—that the other boy hoisted him onto his back, made a noise to get the other famished animal—the one that wasn't Lovrenco, that is, the cow—to follow, and they set off.
Despite his small stature, the green-eyed youth was very strong, stronger than his appearance suggested. He was whistling animatedly, and Lovrenco wasn't even concerned that he was a cruel serial killer. All he wanted was to eat. Even if they practiced cannibalism on him afterward... all Lovrenco cared about was sinking his teeth into the food. His mouth watered.
Finally, the other boy took him down from his shoulders, sighed wearily, and said:
"Ea, ea, welcome to my home."
Lovrenco tried to go to the kitchen, but his legs gave way, and he fell to the floor.
"Don't strain yourself," said the other. "I'll make you some soup."
"Who are you?" Lovrenco wanted to ask, but his eyes were closing. He only felt a spoon trying to force its way into his mouth, and he eagerly accepted it.
He spent the following days in bed, feverish, watching the green-eyed young man feed him and the cow. Both survived.
And only when he was finally able to take his first steps out of bed did Lovrenco realize something.
He still had his memories.