War Technicalities [UNDER REVISION]

The Next Hunter

[Unrevised. 4 Years Old. Prepare for inconsistencies with previous chapters.]

Haley's cold, bluish fingertips felt nothing as she pinched the silky feathers of her arrow and grasped the center of her bow, only able to hope that she held it tight enough in her dead hand. Taking a shaky breath, she pulled the tough string back and aimed into the distance besides her, the sight of the black bear turned blurry and no bigger than the tip of her arrow. Nevertheless, for the third time that hour, she exhaled quickly with a puff of white smoke and slumped her weapon down in front of her, letting it crash against her lower abdomen. Immediately, she heard Rocket screeching in front of her to protest to her actions, or lack thereof, which only made her roll her eyes. After living inside the giant fortress for more than a month, Haley was finally allowed to leave, Caesar actually taking it upon himself to apologize for the apes taking so long to trust her enough, but her joy was morphed into confusion when Rocket slipped her weapon into her arms and led her away, apparently just to make her kill the large black bear, who still hunted, unbothered, for fish in a foreign river.

"I can't do it, alright?" Haley groaned and pulled her gaze away from the unsuspecting target to give her ape friend a conflicting look, "I just can't."

"Seen human do it." He pointed out through his frustrated hoots, "Before ape followed human and took human back to village."

"Yeah, when you kidnapped me." Haley scoffed under her breath, but quickly shook her head, dismissing the subject, "And that isn't what I mean. I know I can kill it, but I have no reason to – I need a reason. Killing things is not something I can do for sport."

Quickly, Rocket grew silent, finally understanding the predicament Haley found herself in – that is, in some way; he thought she must've realized the reason by now. Grunting softly, he nodded back to the village, compelling Haley's gaze to follow. "Apes hunt," He signed in the corner of her eye while she watched from afar as the next group of apes got ready to search for food, the cause for her and Rocket's outing quickly dawning on her, "human better with bow and arrow and long-range attack."

As bad as it was, Haley knew he was right and that he wouldn't lie to her, so, as she nibbled anxiously at the inside of her lip, she pondered her choices and identified the motivation for what she must do. Inevitably, she took another breath, this time steady and slow, and re-positioned her aim on the bear. As routine, she puffed out her chest and straightened her back underneath her tattered and filthy shirt, and, wasting no time at all, she let the string slip gracefully from her fingertips. The bear's roar vibrated across the woods as the arrow pierced its ribs, but only a moment later, it glimpsed at Haley in between the trees and begun to charge, making Rocket, as well as a few observing apes by the village, screech in alarm. Repeating her process, however, Haley simply ignoring the harsh sounds around her and forced herself to remain calm down while she aimed again, also cursing herself for getting so rusty over the past few weeks. Again, an arrow whisked through the air at her command, but as the sharp weapon pierced its target perfectly, its tip slicing through the fragile surface of an eye and burying itself deeply into the soft tissues of the brain, the bear didn't make a sound and simply tumbled against the ground in loud crashes until it halted and laid as still as a corpse. Haley's hair whipped high into the air as a crowd of apes suddenly sped pass her to the animal in order to carry its carcass back for food, only Rocket staying long enough to give her a proud pat on her shoulder, but unlike them, Haley's curious eyes were glued to the stream the bear once stood in, and absentminded slipped her bow and arrow back into their lonely holster for the first time in what felt like forever.

Skillfully, she slipped pass the apes unnoticed and made her way to the shallow water, hesitating for a moment before she crouched down and dipped her hand into the clear liquid. She gasped, delighted, as the dirt on her skin quickly washed away, just in time before the chilly water became too much and she needed to stuff her hand into her pocket to reclaim some heat. Swiftly glancing back and waving to Rocket, just to signal that she'll be right back, she stared upstream for a minute before she followed it all the way back to its origins, instantly made to gape up at the humongous waterfall that stood entirely separate from the one at the village, large hills and thick patches of trees surrounding it and masking it from the outside world.