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Mother Nature is an elegant bloody, decorated, double-edged sword. A powerful force that is to not be reckoned with. She will do what she must to regain what's hers, but there is beauty in all that chaos.
There needs to be a push-pull to coexist, so when mankind started pulling harshly by taking, destroying, poisoning, and burning everything to the ground with no remorse to simply benefit their broken societies,
She retaliated.
Violently.
Ferns brush against his legs, he moves slowly, steadily to not startle his prey below. Inhale a draw of the bow, sharp exhale. The arrow hits, plunging itself into the body but not on the mark. Air forces itself out of the lungs, blood leaks out everywhere. A shrieky guttural whine, a need to survive, is all that is known. Move. Get away. Running, running anywhere but here.
With another inhale, an arrow drives itself between the ribs. We all want to live to see the yellow warmth in the vast blue. It's all you could want, but we all don't get that luxury. Blood spilling fast, the ground is swaying, gasping blood is filling their lungs. It all starts to become too much, legs buckle. A thud, adrenaline roaring with nowhere to go; it's becoming too much and exhausting. Is this it?
A man comes forward wearing a skull mask. He crouches next to the prone form. There's no point in trying to get away. Limbs are too heavy; everything is so so heavy.
His brown eyes are filled with remorse as he pushes the arrow further down between the ribs penetrating the fast-beating heart.
"I'm sorry…" the sharp pain lessens. In a few blinks, the world goes dark.
A single huff comes out, the labored breathing stops.
"..thank you"
Light started filtering through the evergreen trees, the warmth hitting his face ever so slightly. He was glad to see the sunrise from its slumber. He was less glad to see the mess he had caused in front of him.
Ghost shrugged his pack off his shoulder, and it landed with a thud next to him. He took out a knife and plastic bag he needed to work quickly with field dressing. He had a creeping feeling he wasn't the only one in the woods this morning.
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A murder of crows soared above the trees, the smell of death high in the air leading them to a wooden structure. The skylight was shattered and bloody...
The group ascended to the cabin, where a few corpses were lying in broken glass and sunlight outside the doors, their bloody bodies starting to rot into the ground. It will be a good feast for them.
An older crow lands on the top of the roof, taking in his surroundings and watching out for the rest of the group. A young crow with scattered white feathers perches himself next to the wiser crow.
The glimmer of a broken skylight caught the bird's eye. cocking its head slightly, it peers in. something is flickering down below, something so shiny that curiosity got the better of them, gliding down to the wooden floors
tip tap tip tap
The crow moved towards the flickering; it was the sun being reflected off of something. Something was moving.
crACKK
The crow spun around, raising his wings with a squawk, the loud noise startling the poor bird. He moves back, but not because of the noise, no- but because of the sight before him.
A person was hunched over a corpse grunting as she ripped into the rib cage, slamming her hand in and scooping fists full of organs into her mouth. Tears stream down her face, strangled sobs get choked out by the intestines that are being shoved into her mouth.
Every survival instinct is screaming to fly back up to leave, get out, this person- no thing. Is dangerous. But she looks so familiar? He knew her eyes were once kind and soft. She wouldn't hurt a fly, she wouldn't hurt this little crow...
He inches closer to the infected woman, her blond hair getting into her eye, but she does nothing to move it. Her hand twitches again, and the bracelet catches the reflection of the sun.
the golden bracelet dangling off of her wrist covered in blood but still shiny as ever
he moves in closer to the bracelet, closer to the once-sweet woman
Oh, little bird, don't you know? Your curiosity will be the death of you.
The infected lunges at the small crow screeching. The bird tries to flap its wings, trying to get away from this grave mistake
squawking, begging, please, please let me go! I'm sorry, please!
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Ghost finishes up with the field dressing stuffing the guts into one bag and the more essential organs like the liver and kidneys into another
he can use the guts for traps and other things if needed
he ties the front legs together and the back legs together, preparing to move the deer back to his cabin
as he went to go move the head, he cut his hand on the antlers
"god damn it" thankfully, it wasn't too deep of a cut, but he would now have to be on top of cleaning it couldn't risk an infection this long into the apocalypse
Moving through some trees, he pushes some brush out of his way. He hadn't been this far downstream before. With the infected killing most of his food supplies in the past 3 months, he's been forced to either hunt farther away or actually go into Woodland, the survivors there have been somewhat friendly, but he tries to not test his luck with them when he doesn't have to.