THE DISPLACED
The first thing he felt was the cold of the snow.
It was not the only thing, however. A splitting headache hit him like a truck next, impairing the man's attempts to come to his feet. The uncaring chill of a particularly windy day seemed like daggers to his sensitive skin. His eyes seemed glued shut, and he was unamiable to opening them to make his headache worse.
However, his curiosity won over his pain. He took quick glances and rapidly blinked, probing, like a child getting used to the temperature of their bath. After a good minute of that, wincing from the pain, he looked around.
It was a surprisingly picturesque clearing, in a forest. It seemed to be the dead of winter, with ankle-deep snow gathering around his feet. Towering, thin pine trees surrounded him, and several misshapen clumps of snow belied the location of a few boulders. The man looked above, at a significantly more diverse group of stars then he was used to. A full moon was overhead, which let him estimate the time at around midnight.
His first thought was: God, I'm so hungover.
He instinctively reached for his phone in his right pocket, fumbling with cold hands, only to grab a handful of suspiciously soft material. With no pockets.
"Shit!"
His mind backtracked. His voice wasn't that high-pitched, not that raspy. He produced a few small vowels, finding that his voice seemed the opposite of what it normally was. Perhaps it was the cold air he'd been breathing for however long?
The man was put off-balance, and he took a moment to examine himself.
"Wait…am I in pyjamas?!" his voice reverberated through the woods.
He wore a thin linen shirt and pants, with golden embroidered cuff links at his calves and wrists. The garments seemed as fresh and bright as the snow around his shoe-less ankles.
"Gah! Fuck!"
He pranced a few times, as if getting his feet off the ground for a few seconds would protect against the redness and numbness that spread through them. Stumbling, he leaned against a snowless, near-vertical tree trunk and put his feet atop a large root twisting above the snow. Reaching up to grab a stick for support, he noticed that he did not reach a branch that he would usually have no problem getting to.
He looked up and down his body. Maybe he was still drunk, or his perception was off. The man assured himself that he definitely wasn't supposed to be that close to the ground.
He was beginning to freak out, and suspect that maybe he was lucid-dreaming. Why would he be wearing pyjamas in the middle of woods, in the dead of winter? It made sense that he wouldn't have access to his phone. Did he spend the night with a crazy woman who dumped him in the middle of the forest, with no discernible footprints to show her exit? With no roads? Or was he just in the middle of a substance-induced-dream-turning-nightmare, about to freeze his ass off?
Why the fucking fuck was I this short? The man was hyperventilating.
His voice did not return to normal. He began pressing into his throat vainly, making a mess of
sounds in the hope that his voice would be normal, that the dream he was most likely in would fix itself.
He recalled vaguely hearing that focusing on elements of the dream would help him wake up, or even take control of it. Describing what he perceived out loud, repeating his name…
The man paused in the middle of his thought. He was truly afraid and panicking now, stepping up and down on his branch in restlessness. He tried to remember.
It was like grasping an air current just above him, fleeting, yet its previous presence was confirmed by its absence.
He paced back and forth. "Alright, alright, maybe I can't remember my name in a dream? Alright, calm down. This is fixable, I mean, maybe you took something bad? You're a lightweight, don't get freaked out. Maybe everybody that's ever had a bad trip's forgotten their name?"
The man struggled to keep his composure, getting colder by the second from inaction. Taking a moment, he took a deep breath. He focused on the smell of the pines, how their vague sharpness caused a peculiar feeling in his nose. He focused on the feeling, or lack thereof, in his feet. His eyes peered up at the full moon.
However, now that the man took a proper catalogue of his surroundings, the silence finally hit him. Not a single animal could be heard. He heard nothing from his surroundings other than the crunching of the snow beneath his feet. There was no wind. His ears seemed to get less used to the near-emptiness of the environment as time passed, the unnatural silence consuming his thoughts. The more still everything seemed, the more nervous he got. His heartbeat quickened, blood pumping noisily through his eardrums.
From even the most refined human beings of the world, there will always exist that gnawing, foreboding in them for those moments of silence. The shadows that appear at the end of long, dark paths, which disappear when you approach them. The shining of a light into the forest, with hundreds of eyes reflected back onto you. The feeling that you are not alone.
That you are being watched.
The man was gripped with the ape instinct to flee, and the knowledge at the back of his head that, to not freeze, he should begin moving. He did just that, stepping back into the primeval woods, eyes fixed on the other side of the clearing, walking backwards for several paces. The snow shocked him once again as he walked, but it was ankle-deep everywhere. He skipped over furrow-like indents in the snow, making sure that only his feet were exposed to the snow. Though he was not sure, he thought it a good idea to roll up his linen pants, preventing them from wetting and extracting more of his precious body heat.
For ten minutes, which felt like an eternity, the man, obsessively cataloguing his surroundings in his mind, still walked. He still believed it was a dream, but focusing on the sensations of pain and numbness did nothing to ease his mind.
SNAP!
His neck, nearly done in by whiplash, looked directly behind him into the gaping darkness. There was no mistaking the small noise, barely audible, in the hollow stillness. It reverberated through his neurotic mind, occupying his thoughts and imagination.
The man quickened his pace, from a meticulous tip-toe to a cautious stride. His upper body kept itself on a 180 degree swivel.
His constant alertness caused him to notice the change in the environment over the minutes. The pine trees grew thicker, with patches of exposed permafrost being visible on the forest floor. Only the smallest glimmers of moonlight were visible through the thickets. Peering through them seemed to be pinpoints of silver, akin to eyes focused on the man's every move.
His body was now experiencing the beginnings of hypothermia. He hunched over, trying to keep the cold from reaching his core, leaving his extremities to the mercy of the windless chill. The man was gasping for breath, holding it in his mouth to warm the air that replenished his lungs.
He gulped. Marks were cut into the trunks he passed by. In the near-darkness and with his addled mind, they seemed deep, bleeding the smell of potent tree sap. His imagination matched them as claw marks, which did not help.
At that moment, he abandoned all pretense of control of the situation. He broke into an erratic jog, the occasional thin twig stepped on, or large root tripped over seeming a necessary evil to his brain. His feet had long since gone numb, and he avoided looking at any possible damage, fear keeping a grip on him.
Ever since the clearing, something had been bothering him throughout the night. It was something formless, in the back of his mind. As the night continued, it festered, growing on his fear. It seemed to take over his faculties, pushing him forward in a way that he had never experienced before. Perhaps he had never been in a life threatening situation until now. Regardless, the only thing he could do now was advance.
He had never felt more like prey than in that moment.
For many minutes, he continued on, the only sound penetrating the suffocating woods being the smashing of his battered feet against the snowless ground. Suddenly, his head exploded in pain. He stumbled in his running for only a second, stopping momentarily. However, a horrifying realization overtook the man. The forest did not remain silent. Faintly behind him, the sound of running came from the darkness.
The man let out a yelp, pain pulsing at the front of his skull.
He single-mindedly moved forward on the path. His surroundings blurred together around him as he broke into a run. The night was still silent, apart from his footsteps and those of his pursuer. It was jarring, in a way, that even in this danger, silence was still prominent. The man did not seem to notice over the adrenaline that the somewhat treacherous forest floor had flattened into a path.
Taking quick glances on either side of him, the pines now swallowed all visible light. He could only run forward, the thing in the back of his mind screaming at him all the way. The rustling seemed to duplicate, surrounding him on either side as well. It was getting louder.
All rational thought the man had was gone, in favour of pure instinct. However, even his addled mind noticed he was slowing down. He was tiring, running for more than a few minutes seemed out of reach.
As he moved down the worn path, a faint, unidentifiable musk wafted out from in front of him. It seemed akin to the smell of wet fur, of rotten food and of blood. His nose crinkled reflexively. His assailants were still not visible, and neither was the full moon above or its light.
Very abruptly, the man bursted into a clearing. The difference from the pitch black woods could not have been more accented. It was a cleared, shallow pit, about his height, stretching out for multiple paces on either side. Several felled trees lined the sides, along with small boulders here and there. As his feet carried him into the center of the misshapen circle, they would have felt the smooth touch of pine needles, torn fur and fresh dirt, had they not been in their present condition. The moon shone unfiltered overhead.
However, the objects occupying the man's attention were the multitude of animal skeletons sticking out of the dirt, throughout the pit. It would be more accurate to describe them as piles of crushed and pulverized bone, vaguely resembling kills. A quick deduction of the indents near the center of the pit allowed him to understand that this was a den of some kind. And he suspected the animals were not far behind him.
He was right. He turned his head to the sound of crashing branches and shifting snow, his breath caught in his raw and irritated throat. Right behind him glowed two leering blue eyes, looking unblinking, straight into his.
The man was in terrible shape. His feet, now exposed to the moonlight, were covered in cuts and abrasions, and his toes had turned cold and white. His clothes were covered in mud and debris. He and the shadowed figure in front of him appeared in stark contrast. One was serene and severe, the other chaotic and cowering. He was too frozen in place, literally and metaphorically, to take a step back.
The animal then stepped forward, silently placing a padded foot in front of the other. This did not coincide with the sounds following the man as he reached the nest. Perhaps the animals were toying with him? Did they want terror? Thousands of pointless thoughts stumbled through his mind. The silence was broken as a pile of crushed bones was turned to dust under the creature's massive weight. The sharp sound put the man on edge even further, and he began to shake uncontrollably. Whether from fear, or the cold, was unimportant.
Seven feet of pristine, white fur stepped into the moonlight. Thick torso, leading to a limp tail. Glinting claws and too-large teeth in a gaping maw. It appeared beautiful and extremely disproportionate all at once. Forelegs and backlegs, or perhaps, arms and legs, were all too long. It ceased to appear a large wolf as it raised itself far above the man's height, strangely splayed claws curling atop a mound. The man could see the muscles hidden under the monster's thin legs, twisting and curling grotesquely under the light of the full moon. There was something uncanny about the way it moved… like a dog put in shoes, it seemed random and uncoordinated at times, like it was unused to the ligaments under its skin. But then, each step interlocked perfectly with the creature's hypnotic eyes, almost gyroscopically. Its gaze held a weight, giving the situation an air of certainty, as if everything in the man's life had built up to this moment, and that everything was all right with the world.
However, the man knew better, and wished to project the same certainty towards the beast. Brown eyes looked up with mountainous effort, meeting blue. The beast stopped in its tracks, its terrifying stride stopped mid-movement.
His mind began to come to a surprising clarity. Searching the creature's deep blue eyes, he found solace. So blue as to get lost, dark, like the sea at night.
The man's head was pulsing in increasing pain, yet it felt distant. He felt like he drifted further and further from his body, into the clutch of the creature in front of him.
While his eyes were locked in place, unblinking, he felt other presences melting out of the deep forest. These were the others. In the span of a few seconds, he was surrounded.
He couldn't move.
His eyes were frozen, his limbs stiff and his heart racing. He was only a passenger in his body, hearing the creatures approach closer, lost in the deep, blue eyes of his pursuer.
The more time that passed, the more he began to accept his position. In direct contrast to the cold, he felt incredibly warm, and began to feel very sleepy.
But, the pain in the back of his mind only increased.
It felt like needles were being driven into his soul. Every possible horrible feeling and thought was brought to the surface, like a malignant boil on his being, swelling with pus. His pain, his fear, the creatures closing in on him. Each only added to his torment. Then, the deep blue eyes that were his only comfort, the only part of his fleeting existence that were not pain, got closer.
And closer.
And closer.
And the man's head burst.
—-
The sense of falling over a large precipice, the smell of airbags after a car crash, the clarity after an orgasm. Each experience swam through his head as he ran from the clearing. He found himself in the same forest, yet not surrounded. It was strange. He no longer had any pain, and as such, felt relief. Yet, a pervasive sense of emptiness was also there.
He no longer took in any stimuli in running through the forest. He felt like a robot, going through the motions to try to preserve its existence. He was completely calm.
He did not remember what had happened in the clearing. The night air was as crisp as before, his aches as prominent, his feet as numb. Any thought he made about the events at the clearing, and the blue eyes that tormented him slipped away, like water cupped in his hands.
He knew the wolf-like creatures had caught him at a disadvantage. They cornered him at their den for easy killing. Yet, he had somehow escaped, with not even a scratch. That was their endgame.
Humans were once hunter-gatherers, who triumphed with their stamina. All he had to do was put one foot in front of the other, and not be led into a trap.
Of course he could hear them behind him. Yet their presence seemed…quieter, more subdued. There were less of them, and they were slower. The man felt optimistic for the first time since this nightmare started.
He knew that his feet were badly injured. He was also suffering from hypothermia and incredibly fatigued. But, he rode the wave from his strange experience, trying to remain detached from his body's senses as long as possible.
The forest backdrop gradually got sparser, and the snow gradually got deeper. Then, the man reached a large clearing, with nearly a hundred metres of undisturbed, waist-deep snow in front of him. He stumbled and crawled through the seeming mountains of white, emerging thirty metres in after a few minutes. Popping his soaked and shivering self out of the piles, he saw three dark shapes moving awkwardly through the snow, clearly impeded. They were each heading in his general direction, toward the centre of the clearing by an old, dead tree.
There was a clear way away from them, to move forward. Yet, the man now knew better. Whatever form of providence that had saved his life had not done so in vain. He would not be tricked into running blindly into another killzone. As such, he began to move towards the third dark spot, about a ninety degree angle from his original position. The creature paused, then began to move forward with renewed vigour. The man did the same, determination filling the emptiness inside his person.
As the two beings came closer and closer together, the 6 foot monster began snarling and slavering over the snow. Anger was clear in the only reflective part of its body, the fangs.
The man's face remained as cold as the rest of his body. Calmly, without making direct eye contact, he traversed a circle around the beast. Eventually, he emerged on dry ground, the monster still trapped in at least a minute's crawl away. It howled again in impotent rage as he dashed away.
He ran almost uneventfully for the next period of time. Sometimes, he thought he could hear the chase still going on. But, even through his quickly developing paranoia, he felt a sense of security in the constant movement. Still, he was tiring. His wounds were now open sores that bled on his feet. His pants were torn off from the knees, his hair soaked and frozen into dozens of spiky little icicles. His eyes were red and teary constantly from the cold. He could not ignore these conditions any longer.
He had to stop soon. That's why, when the earthy smell of uncovered moss and the rush of moving water reached his ears, he rejoiced. A source of clean water, and possible hiding places from his assailants. He came upon the stony shore to a massive river, at least two hundred metres wide. It had a strong current and seemed shallow, at least from his point of view.
He touched his face and picked at his wrists for the first time during this night. He could feel neither. The habitual motion brought some comfort to him, that he was not dead yet. As he walked mechanically to the river, he thought of the possible presence of people nearby. He really needed some warmth.
His thoughts came to the party he had been at last night. It felt like a lifetime ago. He tried to remember the heat of the people sprawled around him, the rhythmic music drowning all voices and actions in its hypnotic tones. The beautiful kaleidoscope of colours, not just alternating blues and greys. He longed to sleep. To lie down against the hard ground, to give up. The conflict between his human desire to die, and his primitive instincts to live fought hard inside his head.
He limped towards the shore, spending a good minute manually bending his fingers to cup water in. The first drink shocked him like a shot of whiskey, the second went down much smoother. He felt at peace.
Suddenly, a white blur came bursting out of the forest. He could only begin to turn before he was thrown back against the stony shore, stunned for a second. Blue eyes looked down at him, the moon shining similarly atop their silhouette.
Lying on his back, his body ached from the trauma he had sustained throughout the night. His legs were crushed by the clawed limbs of the beast atop him, its warm breath bringing feeling against his face, even if his fear was, again, paralyzing.
The monster looked patiently at him. He struggled vainly for a few seconds before the sheer contempt brought to him took away his courage. He did not meet the creature's eyes for any reason. Instead he gazed at the moon.
When he was in a better place, he had often contemplated its beauty from a vantage point of safety and warmth.
Here, in the wild and vicious wilderness, that beauty could be even more appreciated.
He dissociated completely from the situation, swimming in memories as his mind began to shut down.
Escaping the man's notice, the beast delicately brought a clawed hand around the man's own. Caressing it for a moment, it brought it up to its snout.
Taking a deep breath, the monster opened its maw, and took a bite.
The pain snapped the man back into reality. He left out a blood-chilling scream, his raspy breath and cracked ribs causing it to come out as a horrifying death rattle.
The monster chewed slowly, crunching the bones of three of his fingers.
Then, to the man's horror and disbelief, it smiled.
The grin was human, not animal. It showed pride, contempt, and hunger. It promised the man a slow death.
His own blood dripped onto his face, frozen in a state of shock, horror and pain.
He trembled uncontrollably, tears and mucus flowing and blocking his vision along with the aforementioned viscera. His breathing was heavy and uncontrolled, hyperventilating the cool night air, in contrast to the warm, slow, relaxed breathing of his predator.
He struggled to reach for the pain he had felt earlier. He wanted to retreat into his head, to "burst" like before. He vainly tried, yet only felt a profound emptiness and tiredness.
The creature looked immensely satisfied with itself as it chewed.
He was snapped out of his introspections by it letting go of his mangled hand. It fell uselessly to his left, limp and pale like a piece of dead flesh. Still with a bloodstained smile, the creature shifted atop his legs, taking several deliberate steps atop them. The man howled like the creature he had escaped before, his bones shattering below the monster's massive weight.
Tears flowed even more heavily, cries even more numerous. Until, very gently, the creature brought a bloody claw to his cheek. It seemed to attempt to wipe his tear away, yet only spread more blood on him, and terrified him further.
Deep blue eyes looked into his own, attempting to be soothing. They did not succeed.
The man stood - or more accurately, lay still as the creature's eyes bored into his.
Its muzzle slowly moved further down towards his shaking face. The eyes were still prominent, holding all attention.
He felt absolutely hopeless. His pain, his fear, his helplessness. All immobilized him. The eyes assured him that this was his natural state. This was the end. And there was nothing he could do but give in.
He closed his eyes. The creature took this as a sign of his surrender. Alone on the shore, the wolf brought his muzzle closer and closer to its prey's face. Slowly, delicately, almost as if to place a kiss, the monster embraced him close and opened its jaw, preparing to finish the man off.
The hunt was not just about killing and eating the prey. It wanted utter hopelessness from it. The wolf wanted utter defeat, so it could have utter victory. It wanted total and absolute control and power. At this moment, the creature believed it had achieved it.
It did not notice the smooth rock the man gripped with his one good arm. In one quick motion, the creature bit down onto a piece of smooth stone, shattering its teeth and stopping the end.
The creature jumped back, gripping its mouth as a glistening mix of two bloods dripped onto the shore.
The man crawled forward, the last bit of resistance went to assuring the monster would never have a complete victory.
With a monumental effort, he drug himself into the river by his right arm. The water shocked him briefly, and he watched the wolf grab the air around him, missing his body completely.
As he drifted away, bobbing up and down in the current, he used his last bit of energy to look behind him.
Those eyes. Smouldering with impotent anger, that drew a contrast to the man's own. He felt peace, validation, almost humour in denying his hunter's final act. He had always been stubborn.
Death was near. He couldn't postpone it any further. The man met those eyes one last time, following that with a brilliant, bitter smile.
The darkness soon followed.