VOLATILE (I) : peter pan ouat

When Killing a Boar Happened

I land face first on to something dreadfully hard, skidding forward. I peel myself off the ground, looking up and turning around. I am on a bridge. I am on the bridge. The bridge, that exists, and not the cold dark ground of the ravine.

I look behind me. Johnny is sprawled behind me, his shirt ripped to shreds. Red everywhere. He turns onto his front, groaning. I look at the edge of the ravine. The tiger is pacing back and forth at the edge. It can't see the bridge.

"You dumb tiger," I laugh. "Filthy little beast aren't you?"

Groaning, Johnny stands up.

I run up to Johnny and hug him. "How is your back?"

He cocks an eyebrow at me. "It was sore from the landing but it feels fine now."

"What?" I ask, turning him around.

His shirt is ripped everywhere, from what I can assume is the tiger's claws, but there is not a single cut on his body.

"What do you mean what?" He asks pushing past me and jogging forward. "I landed funny after the jump and it hurt. But after your hug helped straighten out my back and now I feel awesome."

The bridge ends, and I hop off it, just after him. "You got lucky, not a scratch."

He whoops loudly and jumps in a circle, cheering into the woods.

"Would you shut up?" I demand. "We aren't here to dally about and celebrate over you not being mauled by a tiger. We are only here for one thing; a boar. Now if you'd please-"

He shushes me. "Look, you need to shut up if we have any chance of catching a boar."

I roll my eyes.

He runs away from the ravine and deeper into the forest. I follow him, not wanting to get lost alone in the dark.

He sprints ahead of me, too fast for me to keep up. Thankfully Johnny is very clumsy; he repeatedly rips over logs and bashes into tree branches slowing him down in the process. We reach a clearing.

Johnny bends down into the grass, gesturing for me to do the same. I lay down beside him, looking ahead. There is a boar standing just ahead of us, its face is buried in the ground, sniffing along. The boar is long and quite hairy, much more than I had thought. It has a mixture of black and brown hairs all over its body.

Johnny reaches down and grabs what appears to be a knife from the belt he is wearing. It came from nowhere, the knife, completely masked by the foreign clothes Johnny is wearing. Johnny stands, rustling the long grass as he does. He throws the knife, missing the boar by a foot. The boar begins to run and he sprints off after it.

"Wait here," he shouts back at me, sprinting off deep into the forest.

I roll my eyes and stand up, deciding against listening to him. I brush the dirt off myself and begin to jog into the forest. It's then that I realise my hood fell down on the bridge. I pull up my hood, cursing my hair as I run. The hat managed to stay on though; I guess it is the perfect fit.

I hear the loud whooping of what I can only assume is Johnny having killed the boar. I chuckle, and continue jogging towards the sound. Suddenly, the whooping is cut off. I stop in my tracks, wide eyed, peering around. I jog forward a bit more. Looking around for him. Listening for him.

"Johnny," I yell, trying to keep my voice down.

I jog forward a bit more. After the first few steps I break out into a run.

"Johnny!" I yell. "Johnny!"

I crash through tree branches and trip over logs. I turn to the left and continue running. No Johnny in sight. No boar either. No blood, thankfully. I run and run, not stopping, for what seems like an hour, but can only be twenty minutes. I run into the middle of a clearing, panting. I collapse onto the ground.