This is a poem about a young hunter. It has nothing to do with the short story and is here only as a bonus. I also wrote it in my Creative Writing class
Inside the towering forest of redwood,
the young fur-clad hunter keenly scours the trees and grass like a fox,
cradling his wooden spear with one hand,
his long dark hair flowing down his shoulders and chest.
A swish turns his attention towards some bushes.
Camouflaged behind the mint leaves,
a cougar opens its fierce amber eyes,
and pounces at him, its roar echoing across the trees.
The hunter's heart is a beating drum.
He clutches his spear with both hands for dear life,
steps forward and plunges it into the pouncing big cat,
who wails and falls onto his coveted prey.
The hunter feels his shoulders burn and screams in pain,
scratched by the cat's claws
He lands on a boulder with a loud thump,
with the beast on top of him.
As the gale blows from his mouth,
the hunter's eyes are drawn,
to the crimson hole on the cougar's chest where his spear is planted,
leaking blood onto his own body like a spring.
He stands and pulls out his spear,
the crimson point gleaming in the sun
The vanquished beast lets out one last whimper of agony,
before becoming a lying statue.
Pity and regret begin to rain inside the hunter's body,
as he meets the dead cat's large black pupils amid a background of amber.
He kneels and places his hands on its side,
before rubbing its scarlet sore.
But the rain suddenly stops and the clouds part like a curtain,
to reveal the illuminating sun of his father's guidance,
that one must hunt or be hunted,
because the wild has no room for fragility and weakness,
only the tribe's fittest survive.
The cougar had challenged him to a brawl,
which he had won fairly.
His chieftain father would be proud of his first kill today,
a far cry from his first hunting journey.
Where he had cowardly retreated from a boar.
He still remembered the disappointment on his father's bearded face,
after he had been forced to take on his son's chore.
Oh, how he has changed.
At peace with his success,
the hunter now stands tall,
truly having earned the title of chieftain's son,
his grey fur overcoat glittering in the sun.
He now hunts for basil to remedy his stinging lacerations,
having passed his rite of initiation.
YOU ARE READING
The Unlikely Hero- Short Story
Short StoryThis Fantasy Short Story, written for a Creative Writing class, is inspired by Classical Mythology and takes place in the Greek-inspired land of Gratia in the south of Cletus (the same continent where the unfinished Chronicles of the Fugitive Prince...
