What does silence sound like?
Silence was the language of the wilderness, that is, in the winter of Rainy Hollow, a small, forgotten town near the Minnesota border. It hung in the air like frost, sharp and brittle, broken only by the faint crackle of ice beneath an occasional wayward step. Snow drifted softly and that muted even the whispers of life.
This was a silence that consumed, that bore down on you until your breath felt loud, intrusive. It was absence. And within that absence, something waited.
A boy, no older than fourteen, stumbled through the snow, his boots sinking deep into the drifts with every weary step. He had strayed too far during the school break, chasing something he could no longer remember. A rabbit, maybe. Or was it a crow? The details blurred, and now only cold and hunger remained, with the sky that darkened hours ago.
He called out once, early on, when he realized he was lost. Since then when it was swallowed by the forest, he hadn't dared to make another noise.
His every exhale froze in the air, mist quickly vanished as quickly as it appeared. He clutched his jacket tighter when frost clawed its way into his bones, turning his fingers to stone and his legs to lead.
The trees are watching. No… just the cold. Just the cold.
Paths in the snow couldn't be retraced. Every tree looked the same. His stomach ached. Which way was the town?
The snow embraced him like a grave when he fell to his knees. His body trembled, a voice whispered in his mind. Stay still. Rest. He felt a strange comfort in the idea of lying down, letting the snow cover him like a blanket.
But then… a sound.
It wasn't loud of sudden. It was a crunch of snow like something far off had shifted its weight. The boy froze, his breath hitching. His eyes darted around the mist, but there was nothing to see.
He pushed himself to his feet. The instinct to survive flared briefly, cutting through the haze of cold and despair, as the sound came again. Closer.
He didn't dare turn around. His heart pounded, each beat in contrast to the sound he now identifies as a whistle.
A shadow passed between the trees, long and sinuous, moving with impossible reflexes. He stopped, his breath caught in his throat.
A wolf? A bear? No, it didn't move like an animal. There was no sound of paws, no sniffing, no growl. Just that faint crunch of snow, as though it wanted him to know it was there.
His breath quickened, fogging the air in bursts. He turned his head slowly, the motion stiff and mechanical, he already knew he shouldn't look.
It stood at the edge of the clearing, half-hidden by the trees. At first, it seemed like part of the forest itself, a trick of the light and shadow. Its limbs were too long, taller than any man, its body too thin. Its fingers ended in claws that gleamed like ice. Antlers crowned its head, jagged and gnarled which mocks deer and a mirror to demons, like roots torn from the earth. And two pinpricks of coal fire that pierced the night and held him captive.
His legs refused to move. Mind fractured. Thoughts scattered like leaves in a storm, leaving only instinct: run, fight, scream.
He was a rabbit before a wolf, frozen by the gaze of something far older than fear.
The creature slowly tilted its head and moved closer.
Snow didn't crunch beneath its feet. It flowed over the ground, the antlers on its head scraping against the low-hanging branches.
"Lost,"
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. The sound of cracking ice. The groan of a tree about to fall.
The boy tried to speak, but his lips trembled too much.
The thing stopped a few feet away, towering over him. Its body folds in on itself like a spider, crouching. A hand reached out, and he wanted to flinch but couldn't move away.
"You are hollow." No mouth moved. The voice was a rustle of leaves and the snap of brittle bones, filling his mind rather than the air.
The hand touched his chest. A shock of warmth spread through him, but it wasn't his warmth. It was something being taken. His vision blurred, his heartbeat slowing. He wanted to fight, to scream, but the amber eyes held him still. He saw his reflection in those eyes, saw himself fading, unraveling like thread pulled from a spool—
The boy slumped forward, his body falling into the snow.
—until there was nothing left but an empty shell.
Moments later, the boy's head rose, his eyes snapping open. The soft brown they had been was no longer there, replaced by a red glow. A smile that didn't belong to him curled on the lips. The cold no longer bites and the hunger no longer gnaw. His body was whole again, but it wasn't his.
The Wendigo turned its gaze to the woods, the boy's face a mask it wore. And somewhere deep inside, the boy screamed.
And the forest?
It swallowed the sound whole.