Re: Hunt; deep in the woods
For a moment they were painted as some bizarre sort of mirrored image out there in the forest, twin teeth bared and scowling in turn – though admittedly the boy was in no fit state to be grinning, not with the sounds of animals unknown skittering through the treetops and the underbrush, and not with the noises of hunters and their horses coming far too close for comfort. The boy’s expression remained fierce, nostrils flaring when it became apparent that the dead-thing would pay no heed to his threats. He was just another man who had no idea what this boy could do.
But then, a nod from the boy, and a momentary flash of triumph under his skinny little ribcage when the monster man called him strong. The things out here. He frowned, turning his attention to what he could make out of the woods that surrounded them. “What are they? I mean, what made them want to chase me?”
And for a spell, the boy forgot about the part that he was supposed to be playing. As he gazed off into the overgrown trees, dark and towering, there was a flicker of something very raw and vulnerable on his dirty, bruised face. Even without a dead-man’s nose to smell his anxiety, it was obvious what he was thinking. What did I do, Mama? How had the scared little boy done wrong, to make the bad men angry? What had he done, to deserve the bruises on his cheeks and the nightmares that kept him smothered and screaming all through the night? He pulled the bear up to his chest, and he hugged it tight.
He was drawn out of it – whatever it was, the opposite of a pleasant reverie – once more when the monster crouched, bringing his horrible skeleton face that much closer. The boy swallowed down a noise, nearly choked on it, but he held his ground. When he believed it safe to speak, he sounded sad and faraway. “Are you going to leave me? I’ll be all alone again.”