Chapter Text
The songs of birds could be heard getting quieter throughout the forest as stretches of light started to disappear over the horizon. The branches flowed slightly as a breeze moved on through, ruffling the leaves. Crickets had started their nightly song, signaling the end of the day.
I didn’t care, all I focused on was the rabbit sat in the clearing. I stayed hidden in the bush as best as I could, trying to silently get closer. Every sound in the area felt fifty times louder than they actually were.
I put a hand up to my face, or at least the mask that fully covers it. Too many times it has shifted during hunting. It's hard to see when the eye holes are no longer where your eyes are and all, and I couldn’t mess this up. My hunting bag was empty and the sun was going down. This rabbit was important if I wanted to eat tonight.
After making sure the mask was correctly secured to my face I looked for an opening, and the moment the rabbit seemed the most relaxed I hop out, grab it and use my dagger to end it quickly before it can react.
I mentally cheered to myself when I managed to catch it quickly. It was proof I was improving. It probably wasn’t that impressive in retrospect since I've only been learning to hunt for a month at this point but I was still delighted at the catch. I put the deceased rabbit and the dagger in the bag and got ready to walk the long way home. While a rabbit this size wouldn’t fill an adult, it was perfect for me, as I was quite small for a thirteen year old. I also didn’t have many mouths to feed as the only things living at home were me, my pet, and some wilted plants I kept forgetting to water. Speaking of which, I also dug up some more flowers to add to said collection.
A noise stopped me in my place. I could hear unnatural clicks and clacks slightly overshadowed by long creaking sounds, with the clicks and clacks sometimes being replaced with snaps and pops sounding as if bones moving in ways they shouldn't. I grab everything and crouch behind a tree, making myself as small as possible. I knew what this was, I knew the dangers going into the forest but I couldn’t resist hunting here, and now I might pay the price. I could hear the sounds getting closer and closer, and the sounds of dragging could now be heard as well. I could practically hear my heartbeat picking up, so much so I worried it would hear it as well.
Breath in, breath out, I felt like I needed to remind myself or I'll stop entirely. I mentally berated myself for staying so close to sundown, for staying so close to its territory. I didn’t know whether I should keep hiding or run. The rabbit would slow me down, I'd need to discard it, but then this whole trip would be for nothing. I needed to calm down and think.
I risked a peek from behind the tree to try and see how close it was, and I immediately recoiled back behind my hiding place as it was only 20 feet away. A long thin torso, its physique similar to a deer but it stands on its hind legs and every limb is as long as its own body. Where hooves would be, there were humanoid hands with long fingers that turn into claws at the ends. Its head was also humanoid instead of deer-like, but its mouth was unhinged in an unnatural way. Every single thing about its proportions felt uncomfortable and wrong.
Around its face triangular spikes grow out of it, each having an eye on both sides, and every eye was looking in different directions like to watch its entire surroundings, its main two eyes glowing an eerie white. The dragging is revealed to have come from a human corpse limp on the ground that it was bringing along. The person was disfigured, claw marks in every vital spot, their face frozen in an expression of terror, their throat seemed to have been ripped out, which explains why I didn’t hear them screaming.
I could truly hear nothing but my heartbeat now, I didn’t think it saw me but what if it did? I tried to calm myself down again but it wouldn’t work. Breath in breath out, breath in breath ou-
… I looked up and above me I could see two white dots staring directly down at me. I hear creaking as it raises one of its arms. It had found me.