something random something strange

 "I know you are there, sir."
 The statement caught the old soldier by surprise. He turned his head to look at the child, her grey eyes staring out, blinking, as if she might could defy her handicap and see him through the shadows.
 She stood with the moon at her back, casting her in a glorious silver light. "Tell me, what are you, sir?"
 "A soldier," he replied, stepping back quietly as she began to aproach, her hands feeling around the garden as she walked, barefoot in the grass.
 "Soldiers have passed through here before," she said, stopping just a few feet from him. "But you, sir, are something else. What are you, sir, that walks beside us in the dark?" She turned her head, her blinded eyes seeming to stare right through him in the darkness. "You are different from the others."
 "I'm just a soldier," he said. "Nothing more."
 "Why do you continue to lie, sir?" she asked, her voice as if a sweet melody.
 "I do not lie."
 "You are drowining in lies... telling and retelling until you've become what you have told the world you are."
 He was silent, stepping backwards. But with each step of his, she took two until she stood before him, her fingertips touching his old leather coat.
 "But I see what you are sir," she said.
 He looked down at her. So small, so fragile. So helpless. "What am I, then, child?"
 "A beast, roaring and raging across the land with a hole in your heart so large nothing can fill it. Wounded... so lonely... An animal once tamed now wild and savage."
 "I could make you scream... Wrap your body around me and wear you like a second skin," he said, his voice thick with the blood thirst, with the hunger for death.
 She smiled, her sightless eyes turned up to him as if she were looking into his face. "Of you, I am not afraid, sir," she replied, pressing her body close and resting her cheek against his stomach.
 "Why not, when you know I might not let you live?"
 "Because despite your nature, you are a kind man. A generous man. And I know you, sir, do not dine on girl-child's flesh. For only boys older than I are what you crave."