Cave Game

IV - Moose

He began his walk again, treading wearily through a forest whose inviting vegetation had turned deeply foreboding in the enveloping darkness. Each off-puttingly shaped tree licked by pale moonlight was a monster lurking in the shadows, with arms and feet and teeth for tearing each of his precious limbs from his body. Steve wasn't sure how it got so dark so fast; A logical thought wearing a three-piece suit told him he lost track of time sitting underneath that oak, but a deranged maniac of a thought wearing an 'END IS NIGH' sign told him that this world's time didn't work like how his foggy memory recalled, and that lunatic of a thought was beginning to make more and more sense each passing moment he spent in the dark woods.

He heard a rustle. 

Panicking, he reflexively spun to the cause of the disturbance and came face-to-face with something he was sure he'd remember if he had seen it before. It glided noiselessly through the grass tufts on four nimble, stumpy legs as its armless torso lurched back and forth, bobbling as it trotted. Its chameleon-like, leathery skin matched the muted green tones of the stalks of grass around it, vaguely leafy in texture. Its beady black eyes sat atop a twisted frown. It wasn't walking towards him with any apparent anger or aggression, but certainly determination. What got Steve was that there were no sharp teeth or ferocious mandibles extending from its warped scowl; no long, gnarly claws protruding from its stout feet; no thorns, scales, pincers, spines, or harmful appendages of any kind. Despite its body being as far from it as possible, it was almost like a cat in its behavior: silent, graceful, and supposedly curious. Steve instinctively took a few steps back, but not enough to distance himself properly.

"Hello," He said like he was talking to a house pet. "Hey guy!"

The creature wordlessly sauntered up to him.

"Well, I expected as much. Don't got any conversation in you?"

With a faint pulsing hiss, the creature began to glow and inflate.

"I didn't expect that..." Steve said, mesmerized by the glow that dimly illuminated the surrounding grove.

"Wow..."

Emerging from the siren-like luminosity, a cloudy memory drifted to the top of his head and dismissed its amorphous form for a brief flicker of purity. Steve remembered, albeit poorly, that where he came from, he spent little time in the wilderness. It was easy to remember the handful of lackluster camping trips he had been on with a variety of ill-defined friends, family, and loved ones. In a flash, he remembered a nameless and faceless father warning a young and innocent Steve of straying too close to any wild animals they could encounter. The importance of the point was lost on his child-self, since a majority of the 'camping' trips he went on were spent cooped up inside the confines of a secure RV with all the modern amenities one could want and not need. Peering through the window of the camper-van, he joyfully recalled the only time he was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of a real animal. At dusk, while his parents were settling down, he sat with his face pressed against the cool glass, drinking in the sight of the sunset-bathed moose that had wandered down for a drink at the creek nearby. After a long and refreshing guzzle of the current, the moose craned its long neck up to survey the area, bringing its gigantic horns into the light. Water droplets dribbled off its dewlap, beading at the tip of its lustrous beard, with each taking its turn releasing its grasp from the clump of thick hairs and plummeting to the earth below. In a sweeping arc, it came to face Steve. Its gaze paused on him, contemplating with a philosopher's stare. The moose blinked a luxuriously long blink, before it disappeared into the thick pines as peacefully as it came. Steve, in that moment, had felt the power the animal had; it was pure strength masked behind a wise delicacy. It fascinated him then as much as it did in the present.

He was foolish to think that all animals with power were peaceful and wise.

The glowing creature ballooned and brightened, popping suddenly as if an invisible needle had been taken to its thin hide. A rapturous howl expanded from the gargantuan fireball that viciously tore the soil around it to shreds, rocketing debris in all directions. The immense explosion sent Steve careening into the trunk of a tree; His impact and subsequent ricochet knocked loose leaves from its branches. The grass swept out in a wave from the smoldering crater where the foul monster once stood, a charred imprint of its form and a wisp of rising smoke all that remained. Steve grasped his side and coughed up a mouthful of mucky blood. In his other hand he held a fistfull of dirt clods and a few cracked stones. His heart furiously beat the drums that echoed through the halls of his ears, providing a metronome to the melodic ringing from the explosion-- a song of death. On quaking legs he stood, spattered in blood and burnt, stumbling away from the smoking bowl. Each step was like a self-contained trip and recovery; he jerked each leg into place as if he was Frankienstein's monster, moments after its incarnation. His stumble grew to a limping jog. Any semblance of careful consideration vanished; terror now puppeteered him as it coursed through his whole being. Terror leaned over him as it held the cross brace, flinging the marionette Steve to and fro, in desperate search of safety. Terror bought him with cash upfront and owned him in full. Dull pain hammered the soles of his feet as he sprinted with too much adrenaline to care. The things were closing in-- he could hear them harmonizing with the squeal still in his ears. Horrifying gurgles, growls, clatters, and screeches came at him from all directions as a cacophony of steps followed him. An arrow whistled by his head and stuck quivering into a passing tree. A full symphony rose around him, playing turbulently amidst an unrelenting climactic motion in the music. His choked mind with vignette eyeballs locked on to salvation: a cave entrance. Steve dived in desperation just as a hailstorm of arrows pierced the ground around him, each head digging up a small mound and morphing them into miniature gravemarkers. Desperately, he thought of a barrier. Summoning the dirt back to his hand he threw it out, where the loose handful miraculously assembled itself into a sturdy cube of soil. Rescue. Without hesitation, he repeated the process with all the dirt he could call upon, encasing himself in total darkness. He felt his vocal cords lose their tautness, and the scream he sustained the entire time in his throat slowly dissipated, the last of the guttural shriek echoing in the emptiness. Steve's eyeballs threatened to pop out of his head, and his face refused to relax its tension while he tried in vain to peer into the pitch-black that engulfed him. 

Everything seemed to finally stand still. 

Just then, cracks began to form in one of the blocks of dirt, letting moonlight flood through in between them. One block broke, and a second, both with a sickening crunch. I was a fool for one final time, he thought, too paralyzed with fear to properly verbalize his final words. A silhouette stood at the opening, faltering in its movement. Its hesitation proved unfortunate. With a squelchy thud, an arrow struck the figure in the small of the back, and it had just enough time in its fall forwards to patch the hole and reseal the cave with it inside.