The Hunt

The Branches slice the moonlight into thin shafts that shine on the ground in broken fragments.
The trees and the bushes shift and shake as a cool night breeze whistles through them.
A mere instant passes and they are still again.
Silence bleak and total soon descends on the still forest.
The slow creak of branches in the night sounds morbid and forboading.
Yet eyes are watching the motionless shapes that wait unmoving in the silent forest.
The sound of a snapping twig echoes around the twisted shapes of the trees.
Suddenly a black shadow bounds from the bushes.
It's feet thundering against the forest floor.
It's body smashing through branches and bushes.
Crashing, creaking, cracking branches smash the eerie silence.
The sounds of pursuit rapidly draw nearer.
Exhaustion, exertion...desperation, emotions and feelings course through the prey.
The deer erupts from the bushes as it dashes into the clearing.
Jet black like the deepest shadows the wolves stand waiting, the deer already in their trap.
The paniced deer turns to run, but more wolves leisurely stride from the forest from which it emerged.
A shadow obscures the moon for an instant.
With unnatural speed the wolves are on the deer, tearing, cutting, bitting.

The fire lingers still growing faint as it grows late.
Images of a dream linger also.
A check of my bow, a check of my quiver shows my apprehension.
The final sights of the deer fill my vision, unnatural red eyes darker then blood filled with an insatiable hunger.
In the night wolves howl to the moon and red eyes watch.