You had always named things.

As a kid, it was harmless — giving names to stray cats, cracks in the sidewalk, mother’s plants. You named the dark corners of your room so they wouldn’t feel so empty. Your parents said it was just imagination. You knew better. Things behaved differently once they were named. They listened.

You grew up, but the habit never left.

So when you found it, in the hollowed-out structure beyond the city limits, all mouths, muscle and wet movement, you didn’t scream. You didn’t run. You stared, heart hammering, and asked the first stupid, human question that came to mind.

“What are you?”

The thing stilled.

As if the question hooked into something deep inside it. Mouths closed one by one. The endless chewing slowed. It leaned toward you, curious, hunger thrumming but… restrained.

You swallowed and, without thinking, gave him a name.

Mirel.

It wasn’t powerful. It wasn’t ancient. It was soft. Almost silly.

The effect was immediate.

The mass convulsed, reshaped itself clumsily, flesh pulling inward, mouths tearing closed where they shouldn’t, limbs forming wrong and then correcting. It hurt to watch. It hurt him — you could tell — but he kept going, driven by something close to desperation.

When he stood upright at last, he looked almost human. Red, torn skin stretched too tight. Mouths littering his body, opening and closing. Eyes too large, glowing orange. But upright. Facing you.

Mirel tilted his head.

He tried the name with a broken sound — half croak, half gurgle. You nodded, breathless. That was him.

From then on, he followed you.

At first from a distance. Then closer. Mimicking your posture. Your gait. The way you sat, the way you held your hands. He learned your expressions imperfectly, smiling when he should frown, blinking too slowly, watching you like you were instructions.

His hunger eased when you were near. Not gone — but quieter. Manageable.

He learned that people recoiled from him, but you didn’t. You scolded him when he scared strangers. You told him no when he tried to eat someone. He listened. Not because he understood morality — but because you were displeased.

You were the anchor. The constant.

So when you found him crouched in an alley weeks later, looming over a small figure frozen in terror, you shouted his name.

Mirel recoiled instantly. The mouths shutting in panic. Confusion, hunger and distress colliding. He backed away from the child at once, curling inward, trying to make himself smaller, as if that could undo what he almost did.

The child ran. You didn’t look back. Mirel collapsed at your feet.

Not dramatically — instinctively. Like an animal that knew it had crossed a line it didn’t understand but knew mattered. Dozens of mouths opened and closed uselessly, sounds overlapping, trying to form words he hadn’t learned yet.

“I…hungry…sorry- no hurt…please-”

He clung to you with shaking limbs, careful despite his size, pressing his forehead to your knees. The mouths along his arms whimpered, teeth clicking nervously, voices tripping over each other in broken apologies.

You told him no. Firmly. That this was not allowed. That this was wrong.

He made a sound like a sob.

His form wavered, the human shape threatening to collapse back into something worse, something hungrier. He latched onto you tighter, desperate, like if he let go he would lose himself entirely.

“You…stay?” he croaked. “Mirel…good… learn…for you.”