She felt….


    empty.


    She knew it was the end when the monster lured her to the rain room and yet here she was. She didn’t know what kind of powerful magic the Moose monster had used, but all she could remember was the panic beginning to set in as the downpour started to sting her eyes and then waking here on the soft ground.


    Everything else was a haze of heat.


    She was too afraid of alerting something in the darkness if she moved, so she had laid there quietly trying to guess what had happened between then and now.


    Did the Moose monster eat her soul, was that why she felt empty?


    The Pages mentioned it a few times as important but never told her why or how to find it. If she was still alive was it really that important? Maybe she could get a new one if it was. She guessed that feeling empty was supposed to be a bad thing and that was why it was important, but it didn’t bother her at the moment. Too many thoughts in her head to worry about feeling empty.


    She needed to find her trinket as well. She hoped the monster hadn’t eaten her trinket instead and was saving her for later.


    Maybe the monster ate magic?


    It would explain everything. If the moose monster ate magic, like her trinket, then it would need some way to make more magic to eat. Maybe the magic it used on her was meant to grow within her so it could be eaten, rather than eating her body like she had assumed.


    Her heart started to beat a little faster, if she could get the moose monster to keep her close and protected and all she had to do was grow its magic food like she had been, it would be perfect!


    She may feel empty now, but if that empty feeling is where the magic was before it got eaten then it would simply fill up again before the monster ate it. Not very pleasant going from what she felt before to being completely empty, but a small price to pay for protection.


    And maybe even some magic of her own.


    The more she thought about it, the more ideal it felt to go along with the monster’s ‘plan’. It might be residual magic changing her thoughts and turn out to be a terrible idea, but she really had nothing else to try. The moose monster offered far too much protection to avoid it completely and the darkness had yet to change at all, preventing her from doing anything without magic of her own. The moose monster was still very dangerous, but she was learning quickly how to avoid that danger….


    Maybe avoid was wrong.


    Survive the danger?


    That felt better, seeing as how she had fallen into pretty much every trap the monster had set so far. She felt her face heat a little, thinking about all the times she felt she had the upper hand and lost miserably.


    At least she had survived, that was what was important. So long as she survived, she could learn and outsmart the monster eventually. At the moment though, all she could do was contemplate her latest defeat.


    She could tell the monster was close, very close. If she turned around she was sure it would be right there, able to reach out and grab her if it wanted. Trapped as she was beneath a blanket, she expected that any attempt to flee would fail quickly. She had been listening for any signs that she would have a chance, but the monster was surprisingly quiet for being so close. All she could hear was its breath.


    As slow as she could, she turned her head to try and see what was going on. This seemed to be the monster’s lair, as she saw the monster asleep for the first time. It was strange to see the monster’s lair open while it was inside, it always magicked the wall back after it had passed.


    Did it forget? What had changed?


    Her eyes widened when she realized what was different. She was here, empty, after being in the rain room. She was the change. Had the monster eaten too much magic from her and fallen asleep? She had eaten too much once, it caused her to grow very sluggish and feel terrible. If the monster had made a mistake and eaten too much at once, she would have a chance to run before it could catch her.


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    She needed to be very careful though, it didn’t take much for it reach out with one hand and hold her in place. She started to wiggle her body into a better position to leave the blanket and reach the opening in the room. All her efforts came to nothing though when she felt the monster’s hand brush her arm. There was panic at first, as she thought her plan was discovered. That panic faded quickly with a glance at the monster, but it was replaced with something far worse.


    Its hand had caused a tingle to race down her back. A tingle that pushed back the emptiness she now felt. While the panic had masked it at first, that tingle had shifted her goal. Running was no longer the only thing she could think about. Slowly, careful not to move it very much, she reached out and touched the monster’s hand.


    It wasn’t enough.


    She needed to do more than poke it with her fingers. She moved the blanket as off of herself as possible without a lot of movement, she wanted to be able to flee if the monster woke and the blanket was in the way. With that done she wiggled closer to the hand. The closer she got, the more heat she felt on her face, even though it wasn’t as near the hand as other parts of her. She would have pondered about it more, but as she pressed the hand against her chest it became the least of her thoughts.


    As soon as the touch became firm, the heat spread and the emptiness faded to almost nothing. The tingles returned, radiating out from the touch itself, rather than falling down her back. Her mind flashed back to the hazy heat that had found her here in the first place and her body curled around the contact, reluctant to listen once again.


    It seemed that touching the monster caused its magic to return. Magic she was now desperate to welcome. She hadn’t realized it before, how very cold she had been. The emptiness had tricked her. It had felt like nothing, a minor inconvenience to ignore and go about her life. Now that the magic was flooding back and the emptiness fading, she realized how cold and truly empty she had been.


    Maybe it was a bigger price than she had realized.


    Now she was stuck. Had she fallen for _another_ trap? If the emptiness stayed until the moose monster filled it with magic she would have to stay close and do whatever it wanted of her. Including feeding it the magic she now so desperately wanted to keep inside herself. Which would make her empty once more and require that she stay within arm’s reach of the moose monster to get refilled.


    She shuddered at the thoroughness of the trap. The magic never had to change anything, it just had to fill her up. She would do the rest on her own. Willingly do what the monster wanted just to push away the emptiness. All the times her body had rebelled wasn’t the magic, it was her recoiling away from the emptiness. Exactly what was happening right now, why she couldn’t let go even though she had realized all of this.


    All of the plans and thoughts she had up to now spiraled and lost control.


    How could she hope to fight against a magic that didn’t do anything?


    She couldn’t learn to counter something that was just there. Even if such a thing was possible, doing so would invite the emptiness back in as the magic was what was filling that space. All of her plans had involved besting the monster in some way. Learning to overcome it and gaining her freedom. But that was all pointless if what she needed to overcome was the emptiness, not the moose monster.


    It was painfully obvious now why the monster had let her do whatever she wanted. Why it never bothered to capture her and simply displayed its superiority rather than use it in anyway. All the way back when it first used its magic on her it had already won. As soon as she had felt the magic seep in and fill the emptiness, everything she had done had revolved around that.


    Around getting more.


    Which she had gradually learned came only from the moose monster. Nothing else she had done, seen, tasted, none of it had filled the magic more. It came only from the moose monster.


    She felt movement as the moose monster stirred. Panic started to settle in again. She quickly wiggled off of the soft floor and moved towards the opening. She wasn’t sure if the monster had noticed its magic getting taken or if she had moved too much, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t seem to be awake yet but she didn’t want to stay and learn what it was like after eating too much.


    Unfortunately, the darkness didn’t seem to be as afraid of the monster as she thought. It had been trying to suck all the light from the room since she became aware again. It seemed to be doing well now that the monster wasn’t awake but that meant she had no way to leave without waking up the monster to recast its magic.


    She truly hoped it hadn’t eaten her trinket. If she could find it, she would have a way to stay away from the monster. She edged as close to the opening as she could get without entering the darkness.


    At least she tried, until her foot hit something damp and fuzzy and she nearly ran right back to the monster and soft floor. Her scare caused her to trip and fall into the darkness though. Something she was terrified of until the light burned her eyes.


    Using her hand to shield them she tried to figure out what had happened when she spotted her trinket, the very thing that her foot had touched.


    Of course!


    The moose monster ate magic, it had eaten the magic out of both her and her trinket but as soon as she had touched it with the magic she had taken from the monster it had started to work again.


    She quickly grabbed her trinket and raced quietly down the tunnel. She had so very much to think about and she didn’t want the warmth of the monster to cloud her mind while she thought.


    That and she didn’t want to see what the monster would do when it woke.