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Between Yes and No; [Single Post]
Topic Started: Jan 20 2014, 04:41 PM (189 Views)
Czernobog
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Best Influence.
[Takes place the day after Should I Kill Myself, Or Have A Cup Of Coffee?]

He awoke cold and alone on the third day, cocooned inside his sleeping bag. It took him a good long while to flex life back into his fingertips and toes. It hadn't yet snowed, but the nights were getting colder. If this had been at the height of summer, he might have managed it better. As the last many-colored fall slid into dead winter, though, he found the woods to be hostile and dark. Every falling leaf was the soft padding step of a predator. Every wind-shaken branch's shadow was an accusing hand.

Naoya came into the mountains to find a revelation. He found that there was only himself.

Maybe that's what every hermit found: the desert places weren't haunted by gods and monsters, but only by your memories and intuitions. Still, the city had felt confining, like a supermarket with too-narrow aisles, where walking down it threatened to spill the jars and bags and bottles that sat upon the shelves. He had felt like he would brush against someone -- friend or stranger -- and they would fall, would shatter apart like glass and everything inside would come spilling out.

There was much that he could do, Naoya reflected, eating a handful of granola and drinking powder-mixed juice out of his canteen. He looked at the hanging rope that dangled not far away: much that he could do, and more that couldn't be undone.

The sky was gray and low that day. The clouds rushed above like currents hidden in the depths of an ocean. He thought about the rivers that poured into the sea: did they follow their courses still, beneath the waves? Did they carve riverbeds into the sediment of the sea floor, or did they simply dissolve into nothing when they met the greater mass of water?

He went to check his snares, walking a way down the mountain. Maybe he would have meat this evening. The first snare, however, was empty.

Both his shadow and his persona were silent on this mountain. He wondered what that meant.

The second was also empty.

His stomach growled. He was used to eating more than this. He had prepared much for fleeing into the mountains, escaping the fate that staying in the city would impose on him. People were no doubt angry with him. He had watched his uncle search the mountain from a hidden vantage point yesterday, but he had left before finding him.

Naoya had been hoping for a few more days. Hopefully the medallions of intentional metal he had scattered about the mountain would confuse any scanner that dared to try and find him. He would appear to be in dozens of places at once: on a good day, the human mind might be able to hold on to nine things at once. Hopefully they wouldn't be able to find him if they had twenty or thirty things to check.

There was a rabbit in the third snare.

The small animal tried to flee when Naoya approached, but its forepaw was caught in the snare. When he drew his knife, it began to tremble. Its beady eyes looked up at him, and he saw his reflection: that sallow face he had been trying to forget the existence of for so long.

It almost made him plunge his knife right in to it.

But he couldn't.

He would be out of food soon, and the weakness that hunger would bring might make it impossible to return. He needed to keep his strength up. He needed to open up the rabbit and let the blood out and eat it's flesh. It was only a dumb animal, right?

Right?

He grimaced, and lowered his head. His shoulders shook with frustration. How could he be so weak?

He cut the rabbit free and it bounded off into the underbrush, then sheathed the knife back in his boot.

Sighing, he looked up at the sky. It looked like rain. He hoped it wouldn't.
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