Adam flinched as a sharp sound echoed, firewood split, followed by a sudden burst of glowing sparks that leapt into the air. His eyes shook as he watched the sparks scattering like fireflies before fading into the darkness. The festive sounds around him sounded like screams of horror. He realized it was a bad idea watching the winter festival from his fishing boat on the lake. Distant laughter and music were carried by a cold breeze. He sat in solitude as he watched his visible breath drift and vanish. Adam's fists were clenched tightly. His skin under the gloves started showing purple, he suddenly realized.
The festival was celebrated in Aram town every year, marking the start of winter, a tradition of gratitude and communion. The townspeople invited him every year, insisting he at least share their tradition. The bonfires lit the townsfolk's faces as they danced, sang and spoke about stories and adventures, mostly about some dangerous hunts. Children ran around, playing in the snow, their laughs echoing like bells. Elders sat on a wooden built pedestal to overlook and organize the festival.
It was a scene of joy, one that Adam felt alienated to, even after eight years. He had always told himself it was because he didn't belong, but part of him felt guilty for such thought. The people of Aram had always been kind to him, taking him in when he was a shivering, half dead child washed ashore in a lifeboat. But memories haunted him, memories that were seldom clear. The fires in the square overlapped with the memories of the flames that consumed his father's ship, the laughter too much like screams he still heard in his dreams.
Another burst of sparks made him flinch, again. His heart raced, and for a moment, he thought Tammer was on the boat with him, his voice echoing painfully: "Row Adam, just keep rowing."
He clenched his fists tighter, the leather of his gloves creaking under the pressure. His trembling hands felt a dull pain as nails dug into them. But the pain was a welcome distraction. It pulled him back into reality, grounding him into what's real and what's not. Guilt flashed in his eyes, a constant companion these past eight years. He reached to the knife that hung on his hip. A reminder that his nightmares were real, and his haunting memories were not something he conjured up as a child. Tammer's knife.
The cold breeze in the lake conjured a chill that penetrated his entire being, bringing with it the scent of burning wood from the festival, evoking the memories of smoke and ash from his father's burning ship.
Adam realized he needed to pull himself away from his thoughts. A distraction of sorts. He knew how to hunt, he spent most of the last eight years exploring the northern forest. All he needed to do was to drift with his boat up north and track some prey to sell its meat or roast it for tomorrow's lunch.
Adam's hands trembled as he gripped the oars, the cold biting into his skin even through his leathered gloves. The festival's laughter and music faded into the distance as he drifted, replaced by the rhythmic splash of water and the creak of wood. He rowed with purpose, visible breath fading in the frosty air, each stroke carrying him further from the warmth of the bonfires and closer to the silhouette of the Endless Forest.
It was unknown where the northern edge of the forest lied, and so, due to the dangers lurking there, everyone agreed that it shall remain unexplored. Thus giving it the eerie name of the Endless Forest.
Adam had made the south eastern part of the forest his hunting ground. He enjoyed hunting, and it saved him from owing the village people more depts.
He didn't know why he kept doing this. Maybe it was the way the sparks from the fire made him flinch, or the way the laughter echoed like twisted deathly howls in his mind. Maybe it was the survivor's guilt, gnawing at him like a hungry beast, or the loneliness that never seemed to fade. Whatever it was, he was tired of it. Tired of the memories, tired of the nightmares, tired of feeling like a ghost in his own life.
As the townsfolk's joyful sounds faded away, the forest ahead of him loomed closer. It's trees swaying gently from the distance. Mist curling under their snow-laden branches, swaying them lightly. The forest had a different atmosphere in the dark than Adam was used to in the day. More ominous, as if it has a will of its own, shrouded in a pale veil of mist and moonlight.
As he came close to the shore, he reached out for under his seat, slung his bow over his shoulder, and adjusted a quiver and Tammer's dagger to his hip. Adam's moves were precise and practiced, his hunting area felt more like home than the shack that was in his father's name on the other side of the lake. He had spent some nights on a few trees here, even. He even overheard some kids call him a freak for that, in whispers of course.
As he pulled the boat ashore on the soft sand, the crunching of sand assaulted his ears. It sounded too loud in the eerie and quiet night. The shadows of the trees grew deeper as he got closer, making the white puffs his breath made look even colder.
His heart pounded in his chest as his senses grew sharper, scanning for tracks of prey. He couldn't be hasty, as he heard too many stories of hunters getting lost and never coming back from the forest. Too many bizarre creatures dwelled here, and the more one ventured north, the more dangerous and terrifying the beasts became.
As his eyes caught a set of deer hoof tracks in the snow, a thin smile drew itself on Adam's face. A lucky catch, if he can manage to catch it before the other predators. He licked his lips in anticipation, finally having something to focus on.
As he dove deeper into the dense weave of the trees, the image of the forest became even more clear. Snow clung to the bark of the trees in uneven patches, and the ground was a frozen mosaic of white and brown. Even the wind seemed to move more slowly, as if weighed down by the serenity of the frost.
It was quiet- too quiet actually, the only sound was the occasional creak of a branch swaying under the weight of snow, and the nerve clenching crunch of snow under his boots. Hours passed in that state as he continued tracking, the deer must have been desperate to venture this close to the lake. Driven by hunger and thirst, or by some other predators contending for its meat.
The track's imprints became deeper as Adam ventured further, fresher, he realized. The edges of the prints still sharp despite the cold. He crouched low, his gloved fingers brushing the snow as he examined the trail. The deer was close. He could feel it. A deer in such cold winter would raise eyebrows in the town, and hunting one would normally require a few days of tracking.
Today he was indeed lucky
He adjusted the bow on his shoulder and tightened his grip on the quiver. The forest was unforgiving in winter, and every step had to be deliberate. One misstep, one careless sound, and he would be surrounded by all kinds of abominable beasts.
A while later, Adam paused at the edge of a small clearing, his eyes instinctively scanned the trees on the other side of it. And then he saw it, a flicker of movement in the trees. He crouched low, and steadied his breath. He couldn't allow his hands to shake when aiming his bow.
A deer lingered at the opposite edge of the clearing, clearly exhausted by some long pursuit. It was thin, its ribs visible even from a distance, and moved with a grace that belied its hunger.
Adam drew the bowstring back with an arrow, slowly, and with a steady breath. He allowed himself to take a wide stance before shooting the arrow, the same stance he found in his father's notebook.
The deer lifted its head, its ears twitching as it scanned the clearing. And right before Adam released the arrow, the deer's eyes met his. The fear in those eyes tugged at his heartstrings, as he felt a sort of kinship. But the deed was done. The arrow flew true, striking its target with a soft thud. The deer whimpered desperately, stumbled a few steps away, then fell. Its hide rose and fell, as steaming breath struggled to enter and exit the deer's punctured lung.
One arrow wouldn't normally be enough to take down a deer, at least not this fast, but this one was tired from a long pursuit, already on the brink of exhaustion.
Adam hung the bow back on his shoulder, then unsheathed his knife. He decided to cross the clearing and get his prey before some other predator snatches away his hunt. He would need to be careful on his way back, a deer was a heavy load on his fourteen-year-old back.
As he crossed the clearing, he was greeted with a gentle breeze, a cold reminder that he was far from his normal hunting grounds. He had tracked the deer west of the shoreline, but he made sure he didn't go too far west in his hunt. For at the western edge of the forest, lies a beast driven out of the northern side of the forest. Dubbed by the town's hunters as 'Fenrir', it has been the apex predator in all the known side of the endless forest. Adam heard of rumors about its size and might, that didn't tempt him to check it out himself though. Some horrors are better left unknown.
He knelt beside the dying deer, as it tried to gasp for air futilely. Adam took out Tammer's knife from his belt, a hint of fear seeping into his mind.
As he stared into his prey's eyes, he caught his own reflection in them, and for a moment, he saw himself rowing the little life boat as Tammer shielded him from a rain of arrows with his injured body. In that moment too, he saw the reflection of his mismatched eyes' in Tammer's cornea.
Shaking off the unpleasant memories, Adam tightened his grip on the knife, plunging it into the deer's throat. "May your suffering end with me." He whispered, as the deer's dark eyes turned unfocused and glassy.
Adam then went about field dressing the carcass, then strapped it to his back with a tight rope. The deer was lighter than it should be.
'The winter had starved it, just like it starved everything here.' The thought he didn't quite fancy.
And true to his thoughts, as he stood to get back, he heard it, a faint crunch of snow coming from far behind him. Too deliberate to be a falling tree branch, and too heavy to be the wind.
"Breathe slowly, and don't look behind…" Tammer's haunting voice echoed in his brain again. 'Twice in the same day huh?'
Adam froze in his place, trying to discern the number of his pursuers with sound alone.
'three four-legged creatures, too small to be anything but mundane wolves, but too dangerous to face alone.' He thought as he gripped the dagger tighter.
The wolves already knew his scent. He was not ready to give up his hunt yet, but they had already blocked his way back, spreading wide for an encirclement. Even if Adam decided to ditch his hunt, he doubted the starving wolves would let him pass. So Adam decided that he was not the wolves' opponent for today.
If they wanted to brawl with a predator, he can take them to one.
With the deer still strapped on his back, Adam rushed in a climb up the closest tree, the sound of the chasers behind him quickened, snarling and snapping as they ran to catch him.
Just as Adam thought he had climbed high enough, a wolf's maw snapped on the hem of his shirt, its weight almost yanking him downwards, before tearing out the hem. So he climbed a few meters higher.
Adam looked ahead, where the trees grew denser, and started vaulting from one branch to another. He was heading west.
As he traversed the trees, Adam had a chance of looking down to see his pursuers. Five wolves were snarling from below.
'I missed two, but at least I was right about them being wolves.' He consoled himself.
Tracking the Fenrir from up in the trees was not an easy task, but even if he got discovered by the abominable creature, he hoped the trees would be safe enough.
Lost in thought, Adam overcommitted in one of his leaps, missing his footing. A snarl sounded from below happily, as he dangled from one tree by one of his legs. As he came to a stop, one of the deer's legs slipped from the ropes, further restricting his climb back up. One wolf took the chance to leap from a tree trunk to reach him and snapped its maw on the dangling deer's hoof.
The weight of the deer was bearable for Adam, just barely. Adding the weight of the wolf on top made his young bones ache. And to make matters worse, he was dangling upside down right now. So the only sensible thing for Adam to do was to abandon the deer, or at least let the wolf rip the leg off his back.
But Adam was not the sensible type, he was the type to go hunting during the winter festival, alone, and at night.
He raised his knife, and plunged it into the wolf's eye, then grabbed its hind paw with his free hand. The wolf's pained whimper made its friends flinch, it thrashed and scratched at Adam in a desperate attempt to escape his clutches, its comrades looked in horror at Adam's blood bathed figure swing not once or twice, but half a dozen times at their friend. All while hanging upside down from a tree branch. By the time the unfortunate wolf fell to the ground, it was already dead.
Of course, Adam's display was not just for show. Aside from lowering the number of his pursuers, He hoped to scare them away with a statement.
'I'm a hunter as much as you are'
Adam wiped the blood off his face, and looked down from the tree. His back was seriously hurt from the melee, but he needed to make sure that no other wolf will try the same play on him.
The remaining four wolves were staring at the unmoving corpse of their companion, silence speaking of their shock. Their blue eyes full of unreadable emotions. Was it sadness… anger? Or fear? Adam did not want to know, all he wanted was to get back to the village with his hunt.
He would rather not meet the nightmarish beast he was heading towards right now, so if the wolves abandoned the hunt, he would gladly head back to his boat.
Alas, a few minutes passed, yet the wolves seemed more determined. And their snarls grew louder than ever. He failed at scaring them off. If anything, they seemed more hell bent on murdering him.
The rest of the chase west was unremarkable, at least in Adam's books. He did not miss a step this time, but he tried shooting a couple arrows. His targets were too nimble though, and his archery skill was not remarkable enough to shoot moving targets.
As he moved further west, Adam could clearly see marks and footprints of the Fenrir. They had finally reached its hunting grounds.
The wolves seemed to hesitate as they passed a bear's broken carcass, but it seemed the display Adam made of their comrade ignited a will for revenge that fear could not quell. Adam found that quite ironic. A cynical smile found its way on his face. "I know rage too, I know loss too, let's see whose rage will triumph over the other, beasts."
As if to answer his taunt, a guttural howl escaped from the Fenrir's cave lair, drowning the silence of the forest with a beastial scream that Adam had never heard before. A chill ran down his spine, and he seemed to not be the only one affected. The wolves shrunk back, lowering their ears, and hiding in the nearby bushes. They too did not want to pick a fight with the true ruler of the forest.
Adam felt his heart drumming in his chest, as his instincts screamed at him to run away from whatever creature he was about to face. The cave looked too vast, too deep, to be a lair of one four legged animal. The stench of rotten meat permeated the air, tempting his stomach to spill out its insides.
Suddenly, Adam realized he was drenched in sweat, and it dawned on him how grave of a mistake it was to deliver himself the house of the most dreaded creature he had ever seen.
Then it emerged, a weird mix of a dog and a hyena strode out of the cave, its hind legs shorter than the front ones. Its shoulders rose to the height of a warhorse and muscles that protruded off its slightly blackened skin. It had torn ears, and scars covered most of its visible side. A testament of the battles it had survived.
As soon as it stood outside, it sniffed around, as the forest held its breath. Then its eyes immediately locked with Adam's.
'Crap.'
The plan had backfired.