Lost To The Wild

Winter

Winter is beautiful.

The clean snow holds the forest in a lovers embrace. Covering and consuming every precious inch of nature. The leaves changed, and died, and fell in their natural cycle leaving everything looking dry and broken, but now I understand it was only to make space for the beauty of winter.

The air seems ever so slightly tinted the color of blue, as the dainty snowflakes fall from the sky. Surrounding me in the most comforting of ways. The silence here has finally led me to understand the meaning of peace.

Peace is not brought on through treaty or war. You cannot find it through money or family. It is only in silence that the distinct feeling of peace can wash over your senses. I have found this feeling here, and I will never give it up. I will never leave this place, and I will die alone, with a smile on my face.

The cold breeze nips savagely at my cheeks as I stalk the unsuspecting white rabbit with my eyes. Its fur is so pure that anyone else might have missed it. All they would have seen is white on white, fur and snow. But I know better. I've been here long enough that I understand what to look for. I know that you have to use more than just your eyes.

Ignore color. There are too many colors in the wild to hunt.  

Movement is the key. You have to see, and feel, and listen to the movement of the forest. Then, and only then, can you become a predator.

Carefully I draw my bow string back. The feathered arrow brushes gently against my cheek. I smile at the sensation, imagining it to be the bow's kiss. I look down the shaft. I take aim. 

Slow breath in. 

Exhale.

I let my arrow fly. The fog of my breath dissiates in the winter breeze. A satisfying thump and I know my arrow has landed on its mark.

I jump down from the tree I had been perched on, landing on the soft snow, and plowing my way through to retrieve my prized catch. The rabbit was no longer white, but red, covered in its own blood. The body twitched as if trying to fight the inevitability of death. I don't hesitate snapping its neck, pulling it away from those last moments of suffering.

I crouch over its limp body and whisper the same thing I whisper every time I make a kill.

"Thank you."

I used cry out these words to abolish the guilt of murder. They would flow out of me as fully as blood flows out from the body, but now it sounds different. I have become so used to living like this that the blood didn't bother me anymore.

But I say the words all the same, like a prayer that gets lost in the wind.

Feeling the cold starting to seep into my flesh, I retrieve my arrow, grab the limp form, and start heading home.

I never venture far from my cabin. I sometimes imagine that one day I will get lost in these dark woods, and just disappear. I would be like a ghost wandering in circles, moaning against the cold. Perhaps parents would tell their children about the ghost girl who wanders in the woods, and snatches little ones who stray from home. I would love to become a fairy tale. But my world has no magic.

It's a modest cabin, made from modest means.  Sometimes I speak to it, and think the wood creaks in response. It is strange how places can become apart of you. How a ragged bed in the corner can soothe the aches, and how a fire can guide your thoughts out of the dark. I wish I could feel that fire now, licking at my fingertips.   

I remember a time before all this,  when my whole life was an accumulation of other's expectations. I had to be thin, and have unblemished skin. I had to be loyal to my friends, and flirt with boys. I had to prove my independence by rebelling against my parents, and constantly stay in touch with everyone simultaneously through the online social sphere. These simple petty things seemed so important to me at one point. I thought that if I didn't do these things then I would be different. I would feel like I wasn't experiencing life the way I ought to.

Like I was wrong.

There is something so sinister about the word 'wrong'. Every time I think about it my body shutters as if rejecting it completely. Rejecting the implication that there is something out there that is 'right'. Sometimes I blame my school for instilling the fear of 'wrong' into my conscious. They place a value on every student that walks through their door. They say that eighty percent of you is right, but the other twenty percent is wrong.

How can they put a number on a person?

I've always believed that there are too many variables that make up a person to ever put an accurate number on them.    

I continue crunching through the snow lost in my own thoughts. I know my cabin is just over the hill, and my stomach groans in anticipation for a warm bowl of rabbit stew.

Suddenly an animal growls lowly from behind a tree. I freeze as my senses elevate from the adrenaline. It sounds large, and upset, and possibly hurt. Maybe I would be lucky enough to stumble across an injured deer or moose. Actually, I take back the moose part. I already made that mistake once.

A moose would seem like a good thing to hunt for. Lots of meat on its bones. I thought so too, until I hunted one down and realized that there was too much meat. I wasn't strong enough to carry it back with me, so I skinned and sliced up as much as I could carry, and left the rest to the wolves.

I have a fairly strong stomach, but it was a truly repulsive experience,  carrying a slab of raw meat over my shoulder. 

That is a mistake I will never make again.

Curiously and cautiously, I crouch down to the ground. Silently I move towards the unfamiliar sound. I hook the rabbit onto my belt and pull out an arrow. The odd sound continues from behind the tree a few meters away from me, blood staining the snow and bark.

I raise up from my stance and draw the bowstring back. My shoulders tense slightly and hair stand on the back of my neck as warning. 

Something is wrong here. 

I stand tall in mock confidence. For the fist time in a long time I feel nervous and skittish. My heart thumps uncomfortably against my ribs. I gasp for air as sweat pushes out through my pores. My instincts tell me to run, to hide, to live. But my stubbornness hushes my fear.   

I leap forward around the thick of the trunk, pulling my bowstring back even farther, prepared to silence the moaning beast.

Time slows, and my heart freezes in my chest.

I keep my bow taught, not completely believing what I see. My clouded breath comes out in a panicked rhythm. I feel the pumping of my lungs releasing body heat, and inhaling the piercing winter air.

Lying in the snow is a man.

His ragged clothes covered in blood, and bruises painting his skin. He lets out a pained moan with each desperate breath, slouching closer to the ground. I flinch back as his body violently twitches sending a series of slicing shivers through his body.

 I stand frozen in the blood stained snow, unable to comprehend my situation.

"H-Help....H-Help m-me...."

 With those broken words I was pulled from my paralysis. Drawing in a loud gasp, I drop my bow to the ground.