One-Shots In The Dark

Wander - Nookie

lost and never found(?)

i came up with an au because i saw a super aesthetic image on tumblr. but basically nate's a god of death and he lives in the forest. it's his job to make sure lost souls make it to the afterlife.

whether hunter is alive or dead is entirely up to you.

--

Hunter knew that coming on this camping trip with mere acquaintances was a mistake.
He did not know these woods. He did not know these woods at all. Every time he turned, every time he went in another direction, everything felt extremely familiar. As if he were going in circles.
He was lost. Very, very lost. He continued to walk a little more, a little more, and a little more. All he heard were the calls of birds, the sounds of leaves under his feet, the occasional cracking twig. He felt he was walking for more than hours, and yet the sun had not set. He had gotten lost, so lost.

He eventually came to a stop and leaned against a tree, just to catch his breath. He couldn't find water. He didn't know where the campsite was. All he wanted to do was go for a walk, and he was stupid and cocky and went on his own, in these woods where he couldn't tell east from west.
He looked up at the trees, stretching tall into the sky. Remnants of early evening sunshine broke through the foliage above him, little spots of hot summer speckling the ground. The shade was cool, but he could still feel the thick stuffiness of the summer heat stick to his skin.

Hunter closed his eyes. He felt his legs slowly slump down to the leaves, his skin crawling with heat and itching from the bushes and leaves he'd brushed and scratched by trying to find his way back.
Just a little bit of rest would do for now, he told himself. Hunter calmed himself, and laid back, just hearing the sounds of nature, just feeling the damp chill of the brush below him and the rough bark of the tree against his back.

He heard a twig snap.

Hunter's eyes shoot awake and he scrambles to his feet, a cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck. What was that? Were there wild animals in this forest? He hoped not. He heard another twig snap, and he whipped his head around, searching for the source of the noise.
He hears a low humming, a somber melody that echoes in his ears and all around him. The sound of more twigs snapping, the sound of leaves crumbling and crunching under footfalls that sounded barely there. He looked around again, and sees only antlers first.

A dirtied deer skull came into view, with vines and string hanging from its antlers. More string, dark oak, black, and crimson coloured gemstones stringed along them, hanging from the antlers. He saw ashen skin, scars long and pale stretching sometimes across the stranger's arms and chest.
Over the stranger's pristine yet scathed body draped long grey robes, the ends translucent. They fell down and around the stranger's feet, scratched and nicked with little gashes.
The stranger continued to hum this mysterious song, with this smooth, airy voice. One of his hands hovered over his waist and the other near one of the antlers of the deer skull that adorned his head. He saw snatches of dark hair that had a deep, dark brown lustre under the light of the fading evening sun.

The stranger stopped. He stopped his movements, stopped his song. Hunter gazed at him, a deadly concoction of both amazement at the ghastly gorgeousness this stranger had about him and as well as fear. He stepped back, and the stranger finally looked up.
From an empty eye socket in the deer skull he could feel a gaze, piercing straight through him. The stranger stood under a break in the foliage above, the sunlight falling over him and casting its dusk charm upon his visage.
The stranger grasped the side of the skull that he'd adorned his dark brown locks with and he slowly slid the skull off.

Hunter felt his dark eyes pierce straight through him. He saw nothing in those dark eyes, there was nothing but a hollow feeling that accompanied the stranger's gaze. As if he was but a husk, a shell, of who he used to be.
The stranger did not look away. Hunter wanted to, but neither could he. It was as if the stranger's gaze had frozen him completely, only the slightest twitch of his muscles and occasional blink of his eyes being the only movement.

"Poor unfortunate soul. Lost, are you?" The stranger murmured. He placed the deer skull back onto his head and held out his hands. "Come with me." He said, and Hunter looked down at his hands.
His hands, his fingertips, looked rough and calloused. Along his arms were thin, long scars, and Hunter felt temptation wash over him. Finally, another person, surely they might help—
But this man was so mysterious. The air about him was eerie, and he smelled like smoke and funeral flowers, and as well as pine.

He did not know what or who this man was, but he reached out anyway.
"I am a demigod of death, and I reside here. I will bring your wayward soul to a safe place."
Hunter felt his muscles tense and his heart sink, but he felt the stranger take his hands and turn, and lead him, returning to humming that song.

Hunter felt both nothing but also something at once—

Enchanted.