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It was dark. It was always dark yet his eyes would hang stubbornly open in the darkness. He felt his way around the corridors he had trodden a thousand times before. There was no purpose to his wandering. It was merely a habit that had developed to help pass the time. He turned another corner that he could not see.

It had not always been like this of course. He remembered those early days shortly after his birth. Golden palaces, brilliant sunlight, silken sheets. At the time of his incarceration, he had no idea what he had done wrong. He had harmed neither person nor thing. Yet he had barely mastered walking when they hurled him into the darkness. With time he would come to understand. He was not like the others. It did not matter who he was, he deserved his imprisonment by virtue of what he was: an abomination. He did not deserve sunlight. He did not deserve freedom. He certainly did not, and would never, deserve love.

This corridor amused him. At first it rose, but then, without warning, it descended rapidly and twisted sharply with awkward stalactites punctuating the empty space. When he was younger, he would often bump into the walls then turn clumsily into a waiting stalactite. With time, however, he learned its ways. As the years passed, he began to appreciate every twist, turn, nook, and cranny of his home. Some parts had been crafted by hand and were smooth under his fingers. Others were mere dreams of nature, wrinkled with age and rough to the touch. He loved them equally.

When the door above him closed, he cried. There was nothing else for him to do, so he sat on the floor and he cried. Yet nothing happened and, eventually, he stopped. For a while they left food for him. He would return to the entrance to find bread and meat strewn across the dirt. The bread was full of stones and the meat made his stomach turn. As he ate, he thought of the palace’s milk and honeyed treats.

He made no sound as he walked. The silence of his prison felt sacred somehow. It was how it was meant to be. He trod carefully, placing each step with a quiet precision. In the absence of both light and sound, there were no barriers between him and the corridors he stalked. He could be as much a part of it as the rock just half a pace to his left or the stalactite a hand’s width from his horns.

He would never forget the time the food stopped. He waited for many sleeps but to no avail. He tried climbing up towards the door but found the rock too smooth and too steep. He went away and returned some time later, but still there was nothing. A great hunger began to fester deep within the pits of his stomach.

Something was different. He was sure of it. Bending down, he gently brushed his hands against the floor. The coarse stone remained, but there was something on it. He picked it up and rolled it in his fingers. A single thread. Where did it come from? He began to pull at it.

The hunger had gnawed its way through his stomach, relentlessly crawling towards his mind. He howled in pain, crying out as he clutched his legs to his empty chest. Yet there was no escape. No one responded to his cries. His had been a life of suffering and now it would end in a fittingly pathetic spectacle. Yet just when all seemed lost, he heard a woman cry out.

The string was soft. He brushed it against his face, collecting more and more with every pull. Suddenly, he was a child again. He lay in his crib bedecked with silken sheets. Sunlight flowed through the window as a sea breeze cooled the room and his mother sat beside him, stroking his hair, whispering in sweet tones. He did not like to complete the memory, but once started it could not be stopped. Nothing good ever comes for free.

She was facing away from him and her back was covered in bruises. The torch she wielded threatened to blind him, yet he found himself drawn towards her. Was she a mirage? A spirit? In his stupor he kicked a rock. She turned and she screamed.

“Are you blind? It’s a monster.”

“He’s our son!”

“It’s your son, you whore.” The slap floored her. He cried as the king picked him up by his horns. “Do you really think I could produce this… this… this thing?”

“You can’t kill him…” Her soft voice cracked, broken. “Please…”

“Oh, I won’t kill him. No, I want you to see just what you have brought into this world.”

The memory faded as he reached the end of the thread.

He had not meant to kill her. She had thrown herself at him and he had simply swung an arm to defend himself. He didn’t know his own strength, how could he? He looked down at the body, her blood slowly seeping into the parched dirt. The light from her torch flickered ever dimmer as his stomach began to rumble once more. He waited until it was dark again.

The thread seemed endless. There was barely a single part of his prison that it did not flow through. At times he found himself retreading the same corridors, yet still the thread continued. It was only when he was struggling to carry it all that he saw a light. He held back a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust before continuing.

He woke to the sounds of a woman crying, his mother. He recognised her voice. She stood high above him, folded into her husband’s arms, weeping. Covered in blood, with a belly full of shame, he could not bring himself to call out to her. The king drew her away into the light of the palace. The door closed behind them. He was alone.

The man slept, slumped against the wall of the cavern. He held his sword limply, while his shield gleamed brightly in the dirt, just a few paces away. Picking up the shield, he beheld himself for the first time since he had been a mere babe in the palace. His horns were chipped, his fur was dirty and matted, while half-healed scars cut deep across his chest. Yet when he beheld his face, where all truth lies, he did not behold a monster. It was not a face of anger or of malice, but a face of suffering.

There had been many men and women since. At first, he had been driven my hunger. Yet he heard that word so often (“Monster!”) that he learned to embrace it. He roared as he swung his mighty arms, relishing their terrified screams. If they thought him a monster, then he would be a monster.

He dropped the thread at the man’s feet and took his sword before shaking him awake. He stepped back, threw the thread on the ground, and motioned for the man to follow him. He did not need to turn back; the clumsiness of the man’s footsteps were loud enough. Closing his eyes, he led the man through the winding ways of his labyrinthine home, anticipating each gentle rise and fall in the corridors he knew so well.

For many sleeps after each victim, he would fall into melancholy and the imagined lives of the victims would play out behind his eyes. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. Basking in the warm evenings, living the lives they wanted to live, with the people they loved. These people died so that he could be the monster they wanted him to be. But why be a monster? Why live the life that others expect of you?

They reached the entrance. His hooves were tired. The sword clattered out of his hand as he knelt on the red dirt. Sunlight flowed through the window as the man approached him. A sea breeze cooled the room as he picked up his sword. His mother sat beside him, stroking his hair, whispering in sweet tones as he listened to the silence for one final time.