I felt them before I heard them.
A weight in the air. A wrongness. The forest didn’t go silent. It went careful. Leaves stilled. Insects held their breath. Even the wind seemed to pull back, as if it knew better than to announce me.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter how fast you run. Or how smart you are. Even cheetahs, the fasted animal on land, got the short end of the stick.
And I was nowhere near as fast as them.
I didn’t decide to run. My body did it for me, throwing itself forward. The branches striking and scraping my skin. It didn’t bother me. I skillfully avoided the rocks and exposed tree roots. The ground was damp beneath my feet, rich with rot and old life. I knew where to place my weight. My body followed paths worn deep into muscle and bone, slipping between trunks, ducking beneath low branches without thought. These lands. These woods had been my home for a long time. They were more familiar to me than my own mind. And yet I was not prepared for how me and my family would have been surrounded.
Especially since I knew my life would end in violence the moment I caught my first breath. My ending would come at the hands of men. My ancestors and predecessors had told stories of men. Had told us of their exploding machines and pointy sticks. They didn’t arrive shrouded in silence. No, they screamed and roared. Their machines caused ground thunder and lightning that could kill. Big enough that it could clear pathways through our homes.
They savaged our lands, violated our mothers and our daughters, stole our fathers and brothers, and worked us until our bodies broke.. They went as far as to display us as curiosities. Forced us into cages all because they thought we were exotic and different.
Because they thought they were smarter than us. Less savaged. More evolved.
Their evil history. Always repeating. Their cruelties, painted on cave walls. The stories told, plenty and always the same. It might have had a different coat but it always looked the same.
It wasn’t just us they did this too. They did this to many others. Many of my friends and comrades had disappeared. Leaving blood trails and grieving lovers.
Tonight, as the moon shone upon me, streaking through the leaves and the trees, my lover by my side only a few feet away from me, I ran as fast as my body could carry me. Their smell had us all surrounded. The smell of smoke and sweat and blood circled us, thick and cloying, pressing in from every direction, telling us to prepare for what was to come.
And I prayed to the moon. And I prayed to the earth, the one that had caught me upon my birth and kept me fed and safe all these years. To save, if not me, then my love, from falling into the hands of the machines I could hear breathing through the forest around us. But running was futile. We’d known that the moment we started. How hopeless it was to try. Still, trying was all we had left. That. And each other.
As my eyes scanned the dark ahead for my lover’s shape, the night betrayed us. Something hissed through the air. A rope dropped from above, sudden and precise, wrapping around him before he could cry out. It snapped tight and yanked him hard into the ground. His body hit with a sound I will never forget.
I reached for him.
An arrow buried itself deep into my back, lightning flashing through my spine. My legs locked beneath me, useless. I pitched forward, catching myself for half a heartbeat before another struck my stomach. My body folded, heavy and uncooperative, slamming into the earth that could no longer hold me.
Another shot, one not meant for me.
My heart thundered too fast and too desperate as if it might tear itself free and run to him when I could not.
I searched for him.
All that greeted me back were his eyes, glossed over now.
Footsteps approached. Unhurried. Confident. Leaves crunched beneath their boots, slow and deliberate, the sound of men who knew there was nowhere left to run. Two shapes emerged from the trees, dark against the moonlight. One of them was tall, impossibly so. His shadow stretched long across my lover’s still body. The other followed close behind, carrying the scent of smoke and iron with him.
My last breath was nearing, slowly. Slow enough to bear witness to them planning what they would do with me. With him, my love.
The first lifted a leg and leaned with it on my lover's chest. “This one will look great over my mantel. I have never seen antlers this majestic.” He’d said.
He wasn’t wrong.
All I could think about now, as my breath thinned and my eyelids grew heavy, was how my lover looked against the stark light of the moon.
“What about that one?” The other chuckled. But I was too focused on how the moon turned my lover's fur to silver. On how peaceful he looked despite everything.
I wanted to tell him how I loved him but the words never came.
My soul returned to the earth.
And the moon watched me fall asleep for the last time.
A weight in the air. A wrongness. The forest didn’t go silent. It went careful. Leaves stilled. Insects held their breath. Even the wind seemed to pull back, as if it knew better than to announce me.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter how fast you run. Or how smart you are. Even cheetahs, the fasted animal on land, got the short end of the stick.
And I was nowhere near as fast as them.
I didn’t decide to run. My body did it for me, throwing itself forward. The branches striking and scraping my skin. It didn’t bother me. I skillfully avoided the rocks and exposed tree roots. The ground was damp beneath my feet, rich with rot and old life. I knew where to place my weight. My body followed paths worn deep into muscle and bone, slipping between trunks, ducking beneath low branches without thought. These lands. These woods had been my home for a long time. They were more familiar to me than my own mind. And yet I was not prepared for how me and my family would have been surrounded.
Especially since I knew my life would end in violence the moment I caught my first breath. My ending would come at the hands of men. My ancestors and predecessors had told stories of men. Had told us of their exploding machines and pointy sticks. They didn’t arrive shrouded in silence. No, they screamed and roared. Their machines caused ground thunder and lightning that could kill. Big enough that it could clear pathways through our homes.
They savaged our lands, violated our mothers and our daughters, stole our fathers and brothers, and worked us until our bodies broke.. They went as far as to display us as curiosities. Forced us into cages all because they thought we were exotic and different.
Because they thought they were smarter than us. Less savaged. More evolved.
Their evil history. Always repeating. Their cruelties, painted on cave walls. The stories told, plenty and always the same. It might have had a different coat but it always looked the same.
It wasn’t just us they did this too. They did this to many others. Many of my friends and comrades had disappeared. Leaving blood trails and grieving lovers.
Tonight, as the moon shone upon me, streaking through the leaves and the trees, my lover by my side only a few feet away from me, I ran as fast as my body could carry me. Their smell had us all surrounded. The smell of smoke and sweat and blood circled us, thick and cloying, pressing in from every direction, telling us to prepare for what was to come.
And I prayed to the moon. And I prayed to the earth, the one that had caught me upon my birth and kept me fed and safe all these years. To save, if not me, then my love, from falling into the hands of the machines I could hear breathing through the forest around us. But running was futile. We’d known that the moment we started. How hopeless it was to try. Still, trying was all we had left. That. And each other.
As my eyes scanned the dark ahead for my lover’s shape, the night betrayed us. Something hissed through the air. A rope dropped from above, sudden and precise, wrapping around him before he could cry out. It snapped tight and yanked him hard into the ground. His body hit with a sound I will never forget.
I reached for him.
An arrow buried itself deep into my back, lightning flashing through my spine. My legs locked beneath me, useless. I pitched forward, catching myself for half a heartbeat before another struck my stomach. My body folded, heavy and uncooperative, slamming into the earth that could no longer hold me.
Another shot, one not meant for me.
My heart thundered too fast and too desperate as if it might tear itself free and run to him when I could not.
I searched for him.
All that greeted me back were his eyes, glossed over now.
Footsteps approached. Unhurried. Confident. Leaves crunched beneath their boots, slow and deliberate, the sound of men who knew there was nowhere left to run. Two shapes emerged from the trees, dark against the moonlight. One of them was tall, impossibly so. His shadow stretched long across my lover’s still body. The other followed close behind, carrying the scent of smoke and iron with him.
My last breath was nearing, slowly. Slow enough to bear witness to them planning what they would do with me. With him, my love.
The first lifted a leg and leaned with it on my lover's chest. “This one will look great over my mantel. I have never seen antlers this majestic.” He’d said.
He wasn’t wrong.
All I could think about now, as my breath thinned and my eyelids grew heavy, was how my lover looked against the stark light of the moon.
“What about that one?” The other chuckled. But I was too focused on how the moon turned my lover's fur to silver. On how peaceful he looked despite everything.
I wanted to tell him how I loved him but the words never came.
My soul returned to the earth.
And the moon watched me fall asleep for the last time.
Last edited: