WHY DO YOU COWER
The wind whipped in a frenzy outside, a flurry of snow following after Jorgun as he forced shut the door to his family home, quickly latching it with the iron bar and collapsing onto the ground, his back sliding against the rough, oak wood of the door. He knew he should be feeling something, the freezing cold of the wind and snow, the ache of hi shoulders from where the beast had practically impaled him, the soreness of his muscles as he turned the frozen earth, burying his brother beneath the tree next to their mother. It was a small comfort at least, though the Nord adolescent doubted his brother would be appreciating the gesture, now.
He should have felt it all, felt it slamming into him like a falling pine...but all Jorgun felt, was warmth. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and opened his eyes, his gaze pointed towards the ceiling before it slowly lowered to his hands. They were trembling, covered in the slowly coagulating blood of the stag he had slain. It cloyed to his flesh like a second skin, still warm to the touch despite the freezing winter wind outside.
Jorgun slowly turned his hands around, the dark ichor glinting red as streams of light caught the limbs through the cracks in the door. He licked his lips, a salty, metallic tang resting on his tongue that made the boy nauseous as he slowly stood up from the floor. There was a click of bone at his hip and his head whipped down to see the massive pair of antlers strung to his hip. He had nearly forgotten about them amidst the tragedy his mind was yet to fully process. But now, amidst the darkness of his family home, their weight seemed to return to him and the wounds and aches of his body suddenly sprung to the forefront of his mind.
"Nori, help me fill a pot with snow." Jorgun said with a raspy croak, slowly getting back to wobbling feet. He expected to see his younger brother in front of him, pulling off the black cauldron from it's spit above the fire...but it hung still above the cold hearth and Nori was nowhere in sight.
It was though a great, yawning pit opened up in the pit of Jorgun's stomach. An unfillable emptiness as the comprehension of his new life fully dawned on him. He stood by the door for a long moment, shaking not in fear or sadness, but in anger.
"Why would that idiot do such a thing? Why didn't he strike when he had his chance? Why did he have to get himself killed..." Jorgun's breath came out in a tremble, his fists clenching together, the thickening blood of the Stag seeping between his fingers in large, crimson dots.
"Why hadn't it been me? Why had it been him...Why did he have to make me be alone..." The boy sucked in a deep breath, an uncomfortable stinging at the corners of his eyes as he stared into the darkness of his cabin. When their mother had passed, Jorgun had been strong, for his brother's sake...now he had to be strong for himself.
He was all the family he had left.
The cabin door swung open with a loud thud as Jorgun huffed through the entry way, ducking his head so it wouldn't hit the top frame while he heaved the snow filled cauldron through the door and hooked it onto the spit above the hearth.
He let out a frigid breath as he let go of the handle and took a step away from it to carefully shut the door. He was silent as he did it, having barely spoken since his brother died as there was little need. At first, Jorgun had talked to himself, having full conversations with anything that stood still and kept attention, the hearth, the pot, the wall. It helped to occupy his mind at first till he simply ran out of things to say and with no reply to his conversations, the boy grew quieter and quieter till he barely spoke at all. Now, everyday was simply a test of going through the motions.
Wake up, hunt, eat, bathe, sleep, repeat.
The sharp clack as flint was struck together sounded out through the dark cabin and soon as a spark caught the tinder Jorgun had placed between the logs, a small flame illuminating the darkness before the wood caught, and the the small flame quickly grew to a large blaze. The shadows retreated to the unseen corners of the home as a warm, dull orange light took their place and the snow in the Cauldron slowly began to melt.
Jorgun quickly stripped himself of his furs, tossing them by the foot of his bed before settling in front of the hearth with a chunk of bland, dried meat that he wasted little time tearing into it with his teeth. It was all that was left to eat as it seemed every animal in the forest had up and vanished. It was slow, subtle at first but now, when Jorgun wandered the woods around his home in search of game, he was met with nothing but emptiness, a silence that echoed in his mind louder than any scream he could of made into the open air.
Every day he seemed to only grow hungrier, digging deeper and deeper into the dried reserves kept behind the cabin till they were all practically used up, the boy having no other choices but to scavenge for nuts and berries around the forest but as time went on, Jorgun refused to travel out of view of his home. There was something out there in that forest. Every time he wandered out, there was an unshakable feeling that he was being watched.
He would go, tree by tree, hiding behind each one as he peered out with a frightened gaze, trying to spot the thing he was sure was following him but everyday he would always see the same thing, hear the same thing.
Nothing.
Till one day, he had caught a glimpse, passing behind the trunk of a massive pine. It was the shadow of a man, that was unmistakable, but there was something terribly wrong about it. It had been tall and thin with gnarled limbs like the branches of a leafless tree and atop the shadow's head, Jorgun remembered catching glimpse of what looked like a crown of antlers, tall and spiked like a grown stag. He had waited behind a rock, peering at the tree the shadow passed behind, waiting for it to emerge but it never did, seemingly vanishing into the bitter, winter chill.
Since that day, Jorgun never strayed to far from the cabin, his gaze peeled towards the tree line as he kept alert for any strange sounds or sightings though he never saw anything. The memory made the hair on Jorgun's neck stand up, the adolescent clutching his piece of dried meat till he released another breath and tore into the food with short hesitation after his stomach had angrily rumbled in protest.
Jorgun felt no satisfaction when he finished his dinner, only a need to eat more and the meager handful of snowberries he had foraged earlier did little fill that empty pit in his stomach. There was still a bit left in the stores, just a little bit, maybe enough to sate his hunger for the night. He snapped himself out of that thought. If he ate everything tonight then that would be it, he would have no food till he could hunt another beast in the forest and if he couldn't do that then it meant starvation.
He distracted himself from his stomach, a familiar bubbling reaching his ears as the snow in the cauldron had finally melted and reached a boil. The Nord boy carefully pulled the pot away from the flames, the water settling down to a gentle simmer as it rapidly cooled. Jorgun could no longer count how many times he had done this, how many times he had scrubbed himself raw at the end of the day. He could still feel the crimson eyed beasts ichor on his skin, cloying to every hair on his body like a suffocating layer and no matter how many times he washed and scrubbed and scratched, it still felt like it was there, cloying to his body, cloying to his soul. Whenever he turned his hand towards the light of the fire he could see it, the glint of dark red on his skin, thick and hot to the point of boiling.
The boy let out a shout of frustration, fear tinging its edges, and threw the course material he bathed himself with away. It was always like this, every night since that cursed day and since then, Jorgun had lost count of just how long it had exactly been since then. All he had to look forward to telling the days, were the pains.
They happened every night when he lay down to sleep, an ache so deep he felt it in every bone in his body. It would cripple him, the young Nord able to do little else but curl up into a ball and pray for the pain to subside till he'd drift off into a light, dreamless sleep.
At first, Jorgun did everything he could to stay awake, to avoid sleep as much as possible, but soon, he found that he could do little else but face it with courage and, as time passed, and Jorgun grew used to the routine, he began to notice other changes, not to his surroundings, but to himself. He felt...bigger, far bigger than he thought he had been. Growing up in the cabin, he had always needed to crane his neck to see the taxidermy trophy of the stag his father had hunted a lifetime ago. But now, Jorgun seemed to be finding his gaze uncomfortably more level with the disembodied animal head. He now had to duck to get in and out of the door, the boy finding this out the hard way after his forehead smacked against the upper frame one too many times and, when he did finally lay in bed to sleep, his feet poked out from under the heavy furs.
The whole cabin seemed to be shrinking in around him, and with it came an uncomfortable feeling of being trapped, locked in a cage he was too afraid to escape from because of the what unknown monsters lay outside in wait for him.
His stomach let out a loud, angry gurgle.
Gods above he was famished, his dinner seeming to have done absolutely nothing to sate the emptiness he felt in his gut. Jorgun gripped his belly, squeezing it tight as he resigned himself to bed, hoping that at least his bodies night pains would distract him from the pains of hunger.
He stopped suddenly though as his gaze snapped to something in a dark corner of the room. It was subtle but he could still pick up a feint, earthy smell and as he approached the dark corner of the cabin, he saw a small break in the wood where a cluster of small, brown mushrooms had grown. Jorgun's mouth watered at the sight of them, his stomach growling greedily and, without a second thought, the boy reached down, plucked them from the earth and swallowed them, his face scrunching up at the bitter taste that overwhelmed his senses.
It did little to calm his angrily rumbling stomach, but it was at least something.
With a gulp, Jorgun swallowed the last mushroom before making his way towards his bed, tucking himself in pulling the heavy furs over his body while he stared at the fire burning in the hearth, the crackle of wood slowly lulling him to sleep, his eyes gently closing as he prayed for a restful night.
Jorgun snapped awake with a retch, the Nord leaning over the side of his bed as he vomited onto the floor, his stomach twisting into knots as it felt like it was ripping itself apart. He puked again, adding more to the reddish brown sludge piling onto the floor till Jorgun had nothing left to add but violent coughs and dry heaves. He rolled back onto the bed, laying half covered by the thick furs while his hands shakily wiped the budding drops of sweat beading on his blonde brow.
Blessed Mara, what was happening? Jorgun's vision blurred in and out and he suddenly felt another heave of his stomach, the boy retching as he turned over to his side once more and curled into a ball, his face screwed tight in pain till the cramping slowly began to ease its grip on his guts.
Finally the pain began to fade and as Jorgun let out a sigh of relief and slowly, carefully uncurled his body. He wiped the dewing sweat from his face with cold, clammy hands and pulled the blankets around his body tighter, suppressing a chill that coursed through him as he watched the slowly dying fire, with a half lidded gaze, waving and flickering in the hearth. The shadows had come out from their places of hiding, casting long shapes across every surface, and, with every crack and flicker of flame, they danced in an almost mocking rhythm, speaking harsh whispers that Jorgun struggled to understand.
Every hair on his body suddenly rose, and Jorgun choked on a breath as he felt the familiar sense of unease that he had felt out in the forest, the sense that something was watching him, amplified tenfold. There was a quiet scratching sound outside, a shuffle of many feet as something outside shuffled through the thick banks of snow and cracking ice while it emitted a low, muffled growl...and then a second, and a third and more and more soon joined till it was a cacophony loud enough to be heard clear as a bell through the thick, wooden walls of the cabin.
"Go away!" Jorgun tried to shout but the sound died in his throat as all that came out was a hoarse croak.
The scratching grew louder against the wooden walls, more intense, starting in one small point before more joined in. It was the sounds of claws ripping at the bark and soft wood as the monsters of the dark desperately tried to get into to the cabin, wild screams and barks that could not be distinguished from demonic laughter filled the air so loud that it made the boy's ears hurt. Jorgun pulled the furs closer to him, his eyes wide in terror as he just stared at the walls around him, his body beginning to tremble when he looked up towards a sound on the roof. It was a flapping of wings at first before the familiar, ill omened call of a crow sounded out from it and a sharp tap immediately followed like a stone of hail smacking the wooden shingles above the boy. More upon more followed till the flapping of their wings was like a roar of thunder, their cries joining the chaos of the frantically clawing monsters outside his walls as the though the forest itself was converging onto Jorgun's home, seemingly intending on reducing it to mulch with him inside.
It was so loud, so unbearably loud, and Jorgun lay trembling in fear as the beasts outside the walls of the cabin tore desperately at the wood, yipping in their animalistic laugh, while the murder of crows above screamed out into the night making Jorgun's head vibrate with the noise. The boy clutched his pillow to his ears as he shut his eyes in fright. The sounds grew louder and louder, the wood splintering into pieces, the roof crunching above him till the door suddenly began shaking as something banged against it hard, the iron bar groaning in protest as it was pressed and beaten over and over, whatever lay outside trying with every fiber of its being to get inside.
"Go away, go away, go away." Jorgun thought as he gently rocked himself, his eyes shut so tight it hurt till, in an instant, everything suddenly stopped. There was nothing, no noise, no scratching, no screeching, no laughter, no banging. A deep, tense silence filled the room and Jorgun turned to look towards the entrance of the cabin...only to find that he was entirely frozen still. He found his eyes could still move though, and they flitted around desperately, terrified and confused as to what was happening to him.
He paused in fear when the silence was finally broken by a sound like rendered fat dripping into a cook fire, sizzling with every strike of the coals as the liquid burned and evaporated filling the cabin with a coppery, metallic stench. Jorgun slowly moved his eyes towards the fire, and his body turned cold as death at the sight of the Stag head mounted upon the mantle.
It was weeping. Long, dark streaks of crimson poured from its unblinking gaze, pooling along its chin where it drip drip dripped into the dying flames below it, the shadow of its antlered visage growing larger till it seemed to envelope the entire room with its darkness. The head suddenly moved, twitching and jerking as it moved muscles and bones it did not have, every motion echoing with a sound of breaking branches as it jerked and snapped its frozen neck till it had fully turned to face Jorgun, its weeping, dead eyes staring at the frightened boy without emotion, like a black, yawning chasm. Its jaw tensed as it split open, its maw widening in rough, jerking movements, first on its left side, and then its right, the mouth unhinging open fully as a breath of steam escaped with a quiet sigh.
"Why do you cower, Jorgun." It was the voice. The voice within his mind that mocked him as he slew the stag that had killed his brother, still as dark, smooth and gentle now as it had been before.
"Why do you resist? Why do you spurn the gift so freely given to you?"
Jorgun didn't respond, the boy unable to even open his mouth as he lay frozen in terror.
"You know what you are, little fawn. You cannot resist it any more than the flesh of prey can resist the fang. It was sealed before you were even born, you belong to me." The voice let out a silky laugh as the cacophony of chaos from earlier returned instantly with a vengeance, the cabin around Jorgun shaking and vibrating, dust falling from the ceiling as it seemed like the home would be torn apart in a mere instant, all the while the head of the great stag laughed, its weeping eyes staring unblinkingly towards Jorgun.
Animal panic quickly took over Jorgun's senses as his world around him shook and swirled, his mind deafened with the unbearable noise as his body violently shook. He needed to do something, anything. Damnit, he was weak. The same weakness that let his mother die, the same weakness that had killed his brother and now he was next, his body will be torn apart and his guts will be feasted upon by the beasts outside.
A new feeling suddenly filled the boy, a warmth like a coal blooming from his chest, slowly spreading out through his whole body, and with it came an anger he had never experienced before. His mind suddenly came into sharp focus, his eyes narrowing towards the mocking head mounted upon the mantle and, with a surge of red hot fury, Jorgun found his voice.
"SHUT UP!" he screamed, flinging the heavy furs off of his body and rushing towards the hanging trophy before ripping it from the mantle and tossing it into the dying fire, the flames greedily consuming its new kindling as the room suddenly exploded with a new surge of light and warmth.
Jorgun's breath came out in heavy pants as he stared into the brightly burning fire, the antlers of the Stag's head quickly charring black as the balls of black glass that had been its eyes quickly softened and fell out, joining the glowing coals at the bottom of the hearth and the crackle of its burning flesh was blissfully the only noise that filled the air.
It was over, it was all over.
It was just a horrible nightmare, it had to of been...only it stuck in Jorgun's mind, the echo of laughter from that dark, disembodied voice, the same laughter that echoed in his mind as he tore the antlers free from the beast that had slain his brother.
A cold shiver passed through him as he looked towards the door of the cabin. He hesitated for a moment before carefully stepping towards it and, with a slow, careful motion, he pulled the iron bar away and opened it. The darkness of the forest greeted him, the snow in front of him reflecting white from the pale orange stream of firelight that poured from the opening...but in the distance, Jorgun saw the first few glimmers of dawn begin to crest over the hill.
Slowly, Jorgun shut the cabin door till it closed with a quiet bump, his hand resting against the cold wood. He turned his head, his tired eyes surveying his family home...though to him it no longer felt like a true home. It felt like a slowly shrinking cage, filled with ill omens and bad memories and, with a deep breath, Jorgun's gaze hardened.
Nothing was said as he silently put on his furs, grabbing a dusty sack from the foot of his bed and stepping out of the cabin. With little fanfare, Jorgun took the last of the food held in the storehouse, stuffing the dried meat into the sack with all his other supplies before hoisting it over his shoulder and, without looking back, set off into the forest, away from the cage that had held him trapped for so long.