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“It’s been long enough; I think we should head home now.”
“Not yet. Not after last year’s fiasco.”
Footsteps quiet atop twigs and leaves, the small party presses forward, bows in hand. Near the middle of the group trudges a young boy, silver head bowed toward the ground numbly. His feet step over each other, taking no care to avoid the multitude of twigs snapping beneath his heel. He stumbles slightly, a hand from somewhere behind him unsympathetically grabs his shoulder, keeping him from hitting the ground before roughly shoving him back onto his feet properly.
He continues walking, eyes down toward his feet yet not truly looking, stare somehow lost in the distance from head to toe.
“He needs the experience.”
Helpless cries, a whimper, die out in the young boy’s throat, the reality of his fate pressing down against him. There would be no point in crying, begging, or whimpering – not when there is no one to hear, to care.
He hears it suddenly, they all do: a branch, then another, both snapping quickly, clumsily, a short distance away. His head whips up, golden eyes blown wide, fearfully gazing and desperately scanning, searching for the source with trepidation corded tight around his throat. The instinct to see, to know, betrays him, bearing him witness when he knows it will only hurt him more.
Their eyes meet. Beyond branches upon branches, trees upon trees, they lock eyes; young boy and mother deer.
His breath hitches in his throat, his body tensing immediately. His arms dig into his sides, petrified in place. He doesn’t move, but it doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t matter.
The men around him move, quickly and quietly. He feels them rush past, the wind lifting the silver hair from his cheek, though his eyes remain frozen in place. They move with a grace he could only pray they lose, a practiced hunter’s skill evident in each man’s unique movements.
Run, hide, please!
Desperate pleas bang about ceaselessly within his mind, clawing about for purchase, for a chance, as his vision nearly wavers. His breath comes quicker and quicker, the lump in his throat swelling more and more, choking his dying hope mercilessly. His fingers quiver, twitch, curl, yet he cannot find it within himself to move, to scare the majestic creature, to give it life. His ears, traitors, pick up the sound of heavy footsteps trampling over leaves and twigs, deafening yet not enough to shake the determined creature, her wide eyes fixated solely on the little boy, before he hears it. Amidst the footsteps, the voices of the men only quietly piercing the air, the tell-tale snap of fibers cuts through the atmosphere as easily as it cuts through life.
Devastation rips through him first as nausea settles in, golden eyes blown wide. Numbness circles around him, nearly deaf to the sounds of the adults speaking, celebrating. Deaf only until they return, something heavy slung above his uncle’s shoulder, when it’s dropped carelessly amongst the dead leaves. Dead husk resting atop dead leaves. He averts his eyes once more.
“I think that’s good enough for toda-"
A snap and all their heads whip around, conclusion hanging in the air. Between the trees, further off from where the mother once stood, now stands a baby. Its legs thin and its eyes curious, it can’t be more than a few months old, likely born only months before this wretched, wretched fall began.
Once again, that raw, visceral feeling, that undying scream, wells up in the boy’s throat, begging the animal to turn tail and run; to save itself like it could. To run like he’d like to himself. Yet still, the animal only lowers its head slightly, sniffing at the ground, large eyes transfixed on the pathetic heap that once served as its mother.
Something is huffed behind him, a silent agreement he didn’t hear, before a rough hand shoves him forward, shuffling over his own heavy feet. He turns back, aghast, mouth dangling open and ready to protest, only to be met with stern faces in turn.
“Go on. You handle this one. Then we can head home.” A cold chill shivers the trees as silence settles for a moment, shattered only once more. “And not a moment before.”
Mouth still slightly parted, horror and trepidation filling him, the young boy turns slowly to look again toward where the stupid, stupid deer still stands. It, too, has become rooted to its spot, perhaps too afraid, or too daft, to know it should run. He steps, feet unsure, once, twice, moving closer as one of the adults in the group begins a low argument with the one who forced him forwards.
Numbly, he finds himself having moved ever so slightly closer, his hands barely registering the bow loosely hanging off his fingertips. He gulps, adjusting his grasp to hold the cool metal properly, a tremor shaking up the expanse of his arms. He holds it up before him, arm straight, as he reaches to nock the arrow. He pauses, breath caught.
Foolishly, the young boy makes a critical error; he locks eyes with the creature he is made to kill.
Large black circles, bearing nothing but youthful innocence and the beauty of nature, stare back into his own haunted golden eyes. Pure, they reflect only him back. At that moment, the boy realizes they two are the same. Scared. Alone. Motherless.
With a rush of emotion crashing over him, guilt and venom rise up in his throat. A heat pools behind his eyes as his fingers tremble and quake. The press of the bow against his fingertips feels raw, bleeding, the ache overwhelming and biting deeply into his senses. The air is cold, chillingly so, ripping at the exposed skin of his hands and cheeks, freezing the unshed tears and burning the roof of his mouth. When the wind whips, again and again, tearing and seeking and painful, lifting his hair from his face and beating against his young cheeks. A hiccup, weak and pitiful, wells inside the hollow-feeling crevice settled snug behind his ribs.
He squeezes his eyes shut, the tears forced out to trail down the chilled expanse of his skin. He breathes in, his breath staggering and chest heaving ever so slightly. His emotions run high, higher and higher, tearing and tripping over each other as they bubble to the surface, to the threshold, a choked sob the only sound slipping from him.
“It’s alright, Albert. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
The voice he wants to hear least out of anything. It tears against his ears and beats against his worn heart. The wind isn’t biting or chilling or tearing away at his skin. The air isn’t brutal, punishing his lungs and stabbing his mouth. There is only boy and deer, mirrors of each other within this undying forest. Mirrors of the boy’s own fate.
Motherless.
His eyes shut tight the moment it happens, the arrow whistling from his straightened arm and ending the brutal moment with the most sickening thwack he’s ever heard. His heart beats quickly inside his chest, banging against his ribs as if seeking to escape the guilt lodged tight within him. He cries openly, a weak sound pouring from his mouth in equal measure to the increased tears flowing from his eyes. His feet weakly lead him one step before another, until he finds himself before the once vulnerable, beautiful creature.
His knees find the dirt and his head finds his hands as he weeps. Its eyes are still open and he can still see himself, his weak, helpless self, reflected for the whole world to see. Vulnerable.
The first man to him is his father, strong hand cupping his shoulder for a moment in comfort before gingerly guiding him back to his feet. The touch is kinder, more gentle than those from his uncles before, and he allows himself to take his father’s hand, snot streaming down his face, to be led away from the scene. He doesn’t hear the conversations from his uncles, their satisfaction or delight, curling in upon himself and tuning out the evils around him. His arms hug each other, hunching over slightly, his father’s hand still on his shoulder, as he seeks true comfort only amongst himself.
For who is he to seek forgiveness, warmth? Who is he to beg for love he knows not how to give? He is nothing more than a sacrifice; a struggling, straggling baby deer, prey upon shaky legs, alone in this vast world – motherless.