She did all the right steps, a hand at the neck’s base with a sharp twist to the left, but the rabbit flailed its legs in a reprisal of desperation. Her left hand slipped and she dropped the rabbit to the snow. Panic set in, The Girl leapt atop the creature, cradling it in her arms. She snapped her holster open and slid her blade along the rabbit’s neck. The warm crimson ran down her wrist, and the creature lolled in her hand, its final moments spent in agony and terror. Its eyes had glassed, and the fear she had seen in its eyes faded, replaced with a dead, unmoving gaze.
The Girl eyed her work; the blade had cut a shaky line along the neck and over the shoulder, with dark streams of blood forging rivers in its fur. Each nick and graze on its flawed hide told her tale of inexperience, and the dark gash across the rabbit’s neck reached within her mind, pulling forth the frustration of an unsuccessful hunt.
She swore and swept a rope from her pack, which she then used to tie the rabbit to her belt. Cleaning her knife, she looked to the trail she had left in the snow. The path behind her held secrets of her missteps and tumbles. She kicked at the frost, scattering the path behind her with a fresh layer of snow.
The road home was long, and The Girl thought it wise to begin the journey. It ran through a jagged wood, the trees rearing their leaf-less limbs across the path. The bitter winds of the woodland were fierce, and each leg of her journey was met with piercing cold. The Girl made haste. She knew the dangers of the wood come gloaming and sought to be safe at home before night fell. Fast and afraid, she retraced the steps she had taken: beneath the low-hanging sections of the canopy, and over the rotting spires of an ancient pine. Her journey took her past the henge of her ancestors, and through the lair of the weeping Anashuuk. She had taken these steps for years, each hunt forging a newer, safer path through a pained and dying wood.
It took her some time to navigate the gnarled undergrowth and so the sun, weary from its work, lay its light to rest along the horizon. The Girl quickened her steps, the wicked eyes of the foliage lingered on each of them. She thought she heard shouting a few hundred metres away, but The Girl had learned better than to trust the ‘helpless wanderers’ of the wood; travellers’ cries were often an illusion, and it was never long before those who followed them vanished amidst cries of pain.
She chose a quicker route home, and the path lead her near a small clearing. The canopy bowed low at the edges of the space, the trees’ dead limbs knotting together in a ring, as if it were some unnatural stage. She’d have paid no mind to the place – after all, she had passed it many times – but the centre of the clearing caught her eye, as it was blackened at the base of a mound. She leant against a tree and studied the strangeness from a distance. The black – or deep crimson, as she now could observe it to be– had pooled around the corpse of a deer that lay in the snow. She had thought this strange, deer didn’t frequent this part of the wood, no grazing beasts at all were foolish enough to search for food in her dying lands. She made sure the way was clear before pushing through the snow toward the body. The sun’s light faded with each minute. Time was running out.
The Girl was eager to find the cause of death, and it didn’t take long. Two wooden arrows: one below the neck, and the other between the deer’s upper ribs. The fletching on both arrows were worn and well-used, the wood on both didn’t match, nor did the skill used to craft them. It looked as though the first arrow was of more careful craftwork than the other, and possessed the mark of a more experienced fletcher. She saw that the deer’s tracks led away from the west, meaning it had run from more nourished ground, likely to flee its pursuers. She cast her eye to the sky and saw the first stars gleaming, preparing for night. Her breath quickened, and she swept her gaze around the clearing.
She knew the wood did not care for those wandering after dark, yet she stayed all the same. She had thought a noise had come from behind her, but she kept her eyes forward. Looking too far into the woodland’s night will assure an unwelcome guest. The cruel and malicious gods of her homeland were not so above revealing themselves from their worshippers, and it was not uncommon for their impossible forms to prowl the woods at night, rustling their bones and performing old dances for pagan worship. She hurried and removed the knife from its holster before flaying the deer’s shoulder muscle.
She had managed a few strips of flesh and a sizable hunk of meat by the time she heard voices approaching from the west. The sun’s final, sickly hues highlighted a pair of men wading through the fresh snow toward the clearing. She snatched up her pack and flew to a nearby tree, along the way her chest was met with a hefty smack as a she was struck by a low-hanging branch. She gasped, and her vision danced and she watched the branch that struck her slither back toward the darkness and vanish. She darted forward and crouched amidst the shrubs. The men, now meters from the clearing, spoke in quiet voices.
‘What do you mean you didn’t hear it?’ said one, ‘Clear as day, someone’s in there, I hear ‘em breathing.’