Re: Hunt; deep in the woods
Ah, now there was a question which merited thought. But the skeleton man, he wasn't much for thinking, less concerned with why and content to accept that things were what they were. Knowing what made them such wouldn't change their nature, after all; he wasn't very forgiving, not even of himself. "They're nightmares," he rasped. "Monsters. Depravity. Things no one wants to believe are capable of existence. Some of them try to hide it. They pretend they're normal. Good, even. Some don't. Others deny what they are, but a lie is just truth covered up." As for why they chased the boy, a dark shadow passed over his features, inked bone becoming gaunt and razor sharp. "They look at you, kid, and see something small. Weak. Something they can corrupt in all sorts of ways that aren't fit for young ears," and there his tone took on something parental before it was gone, blown away by the chill of graves and dirt and stone.
Maybe, deep down, this boy wasn't what he seemed, but he was scared and young and the skeleton man could tell when he was faced with a creature of his own ilk; this child was not like the ones he sought to devour and hold captive within himself. No, he was not those which screamed and growled beneath the bone man's skin; he was those who whimpered, who cried, who he wished he could free but instead was forced to carry around with him, an invisible burden. He looked down as the boy clutched his bear and felt a very faint stirring of something warm, something so foreign that he could not even recall what it was.
"Sometimes," he said, voice wistful, "being alone ain't so bad." His shoulders sagged with an invisible weight, and there was an echo of a very, very young voice which sobbed, or perhaps it laughed; the sound was too muffled to tell. "People don't last long around me, kid," he added, but maybe, just maybe, this boy could be different. Maybe he could get him out of here without dragging him down as he had with so many others. "But no, I won't leave you. Just don't touch me, got it?" He straightened up, took a step back, and waited to see if the boy would stay or change his mind and flee.