𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐫 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 | 𝐉𝐨𝐞𝐥 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 - 𝐓𝐋𝐎𝐔

𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭.

𝟏𝟕 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐑.

𝐘𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊, 𝐖𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆.

𝐂𝐈𝐑𝐈.

I tried to keep my footsteps quiet as I had my eyes glued to the deer prints in the snow in front me.

The bow and arrow shook a little in my hands as the grisly winter breeze bit at my fingertips. I hoped that they wouldn't become frostbitten like Peter's, but even so, we had next to no food, so I had to continue tracking this deer for as long as the rest of my body functioned.

I hated this harsh weather. Like the rain, snow clears the air of scent molecules, so trying to track animals by using scent in this weather is entirely pointless. The wind made it difficult for me to try and use sound to track too, so I could only rely on basic hunting tactics and my keen eyesight.

However, it seemed I'd been so caught up in my desperation that I hadn't been keen enough to notice the great, big furry problem behind me.

A deep, guttural growl made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. "Oh shit." I whip round to see a grizzly far too close for comfort and already coming towards me. It broke straight into a charge for me, giving me just seconds to dive out of the way.

I'd darted for the right but with one great sweep of its paw it sent me flying to other way. The ends of its claws had been dragged right across my side, making me cry out in agony and clutch the wound as I immediately made a break for it. I had to block out the pain to make sure I didn't give it a chance to get atop of me.

It took right after me and just when I thought I was going to be its dinner, I came to skidding stop just after 50 yards when reached a cliff's edge. But because of the snow, I went sliding right off and the grizzly was just inches away from me.

I screamed as we went over the edge, then all of sudden, my back collided with a small ledge just some 20 feet from the top. By some miracle, the bear didn't crush me and went to topple over the edge but not before trying to reach out and save itself. It's far front leg stretched out and just caught the right side of my face.

"Ah fuck!" I hiss and use my free hand to put pressure against the area surrounding my right eye.

I had rolled over onto my front and just looked over the edge to see the grizzly land at the bottom with a loud thud.

I slowly turned over onto my back again, letting out choked sobs in pain and I notice all the snow around me become stained with red.

I lift my frozen fingers shakily to my lips and start to whistle. I curse when the first few attempts don't come out loud enough and then I take a deep breath to finally give an echoing whistle.

After whistling for a good 30 seconds straight, I give up and lay there. I tried to tighten my jacket around my waist to slow the bleeding further. I'd had to close my right eye because of the twitching pain from the scratches and the blood had trickled down across my eyelid, all the way to my chin but they weren't that deep so the flow had slowed pretty quickly.

The wounds on my side, however, were pretty deep for my small frame and I was becoming extremely lightheaded. The impact from the drop had also winded me so bad I was gasping almost hysterically for oxygen.