For the Dreamers

Fell

What is consience?  The definition is something along the lines of  'an individual's ability to tell right from wrong'.  But could it be much like a soul, storing our core values and fundamental principles?  To go even further -- supposing it does exist -- there is no proof of it inside ourselves, so what if it isn't?

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His eyes burned with rage, glinting bright despite the oncoming dusk.  Steam poured from his lips along with a string of horrid curses aimed at the empty clearing he now crunched towards.  He stopped once to scan between the trees, but saw nothing..  They were gone. 

Before the sun's rays had fully stretched above the horizon, but not so early that the woods had not awoken, he ventured to the clearing his prey had abandoned the night before.  His dirty weapon weighed heavily on his back through the thicket and underbrush.  Jaggers clawed at his flesh, but still he continued. 

When at last he came to his destination, he slumped and let the bag slide from him, feeling weak and tired as the faded sky above.  But hope and greed fueled him to wrestle the bag into the middle of the clearing, and slit the side so the sweet grain could flow freely.  They would come.  And he would be there, crouched in the underbrush, waiting for the kill. 

Anticipation ate at him, and he figeted and twitched, waiting and watching impatiently, but his anger swelled and pinned him there, helpless.  How could he feel so weak when he had the upper hand?  He was the one with the weapon in his grasp.  He was the predator.  He was the silver puppet of death, luring the prey nearer and nearer...

Crunch.

His eyes sparked, and seeing it, passion ignited within him.  Barely daring to breathe, he raised the barrel slowly, gingerly, and and pressed the butt firmly to his shoulder.  He took careful aim at the animal, and with a deep breath...

His sight was heightened, each sense swelled and intensified by excitement.  He felt each blade of grass, sandwiched between the moist ground and his shivering knee. Every whispering leaf reached his ear, and the crisp air left a frosty kiss in his throat. This was true most of all for his eyes.  Though in his excitement and blind rage, all except the animal had fallen away to background, unimportant.  But he saw it all.  He saw the sun's rays shining down upon it, lighting the way.  He saw every leaf on every tree waving him on, taunting him, tormenting him. And he saw with a smug grin just how small everything looked at the end of a shotgun...

But even so, he barely caught it.

It was a flicker among the trees above.  That was all.  But he glanced up, and time slowed down...

A bird just bigger than a fist was sitting above him. 

It looked down and their eyes met briefly, perhaps a fourth of a second, but it lingered. 

He swung around to claim his prey before it was too late...

But all he saw was the flash of white in his sights, then nothing but the bird's shrill voice hanging dead in the air, mocking him, tormenting him.

But it was far away, oh so far away.  It could not touch him.  He was already in the grasp of a cold tranquility.  He stood slowly, with the grace of a panther, and twisted to see the offender.  In his eyes it gleamed, it's eyes glossy and it's body cold.  This vision melted him, and without aim he fired...

And fell

a single feather upon his breast.