Prey

That bitter, unrelenting chill. Even wrapped up and clad in fur such as you are, it never fully goes away—through any fabric, beyond any barrier, slipping between you and the heat of a flame like a set of wiry fingers digging under the door. You can almost get comfortable, but especially out in the wilderness, there’s the constant reminder that all that stands between you and a grizzly, slow death is a few layers of fabric.

But that’s no matter. Your role is clear, and it will be served whether or not nature’s fangs rest against your throat the entire time.

So, you trudge. You trudge for miles, at first watching the dull lamplight of Kattua disappear over the hills, and then the vacant snow-blighted meadows disappear into the grip of dead trees. Your hands tense around your bow, prepared for any sign of prey, and your footfalls remain deftly silent even in the crunchy snow. If there’s anything left out here, it can’t possibly escape your grasp. Not again. Never again.

But the forest… it’s barren. The sunless gray sky gives way to light so lifeless that even the shadows are weak. The way the sourceless light falls so evenly over the land is unnatural, disquieting. Even in the dead of winter, the sky would swell with clouds or clear into a beautiful crystalline blue; it would never look so… hollow. There’s not even a breeze to rustle the dead branches, just empty, gray cold.

You have to busy your mind. If you don’t busy your mind, you’ll remember the chill. You’ll remember the sun and have to mourn its loss. You’ll remember the dead, and have to mourn theirs as well. You’ll remember burned homes at the edge of town and makeshift graves just below the snow, under such a thin layer of dirt that they will surely wash open in the summer rain, if the sun should ever return. But they couldn’t be buried right, because the snow was so deep and just kept piling on, and no one wanted to stay out in the cold.

You’ll—

After almost an hour of walking, you see something! A shadow flits across a tree, of an animal that has surely seen you. Your desperation sends you sprinting across the snow, weaving between trees as you watch that silhouette bounce from place to place, always just a bit too far behind no matter how quickly you move. You won’t let it escape, you CAN’T let it escape!

Your legs start to burn as you feverishly chase it through the woods, but you don’t let up. It’s fast, but you can feel yourself gaining on it. Right? Right! You try to loose an arrow in its direction when you round a corner and see its silhouette dart across a tree, and you could swear you hit it, but it leaves that arrow behind lodged in that very tree.

You can’t lose another animal. You just can't let it get away. You'll chase it to the ends of the earth if you have to.

It’s small—a rabbit, maybe a fox, but it’s SOMETHING. It’s ANYTHING to show for the hours you spend out here EVERY FUCKING DAY for NOTHING and it’s GONE. IT’S FUCKING GONE. YOU LOST IT. YOU IDIOT. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

You watch it juke in a strange direction, and as you try to follow it, you lose sight of it. You can’t see its tracks anymore. You hunt for them everywhere, heading back to the last place you certainly saw it, but… it’s gone. You don’t know where.

You throw yourself against a tree, straining not to cry, heavy, foggy breaths puffing out of you. You slam your fist against the tree and shout as loud as you can through clenched teeth. Slumping against it, for just a moment to rest after that mad dash, you turn back to your original trail…

There’s only one set of tracks in the heavy snow; they’re your own.

What… IS wrong with you?