On this quiet day in August, the forest seemed to hold its breath. The trees in the evening looked yellow and weak, no frogs did ribbit, no cicadas sang their tribute to misery, and no migrating fowl quacked to the setting sun as it sunk deep in the sea.
A lone unlucky hunter starts a fire that gives a weak light that barely lets him see the small rocky beach near the sea and starts heating a can of food on it. As he looks up from the miserable small can, he sees a deer across from him. Excitement filled him as he readied his rifle. It was the first deer he saw in the week he spent wandering this godforsaken, empty forest, but something wasn't right.
Its eyes were red glass that never blinked, its fur was dirty black flax. Its skin was leathery and weak, its bones easily poked through, its fingers were long and thin, from which sharp claws grew. Its shoulders were broad and strong, on them rested his head, a deer's skull that had a drooling sharp-teeth-filled mouth.
It sat hugging its knees with its long arms across from him with its mouth open. The hunter held his rifle and took aim, but he felt a kind of fear he never felt before, a primal fear, that he was hardwired to have in situations like these. This thing, whatever it is, is something he evolved to fear.
It sat there for hours, and he sat there too, too afraid to make a sudden move, except to remove the food can off the fire, and even then it didn't react. “What is it waiting for? For me to eat? Does it want me to fatten up before it pounces on me? Or is it giving me the courtesy of a last meal? … Corned beef, I never thought it would be my last meal. I always thought it would be ice cream or something I liked at least.”
The hunter finished the can and readied his rifle again. “Well if that's how I'm going, not going down without a fight.” he says, aiming his rifle at the head of the beast, its blank stare never changing, and never moving off the hunter. The hunter loads his gun with a bullet, pulls back the bolt, says a prayer and pulls the trigger, the bullet hits the monster between his eyes, and it fell on it's side.
“Is it playing dead or is it mocking me? The bullet didn't as much as scratch it!” the hunter sat there on the hard cold rock for another hour observing the beast, and he began to understand why he felt such fear. It must have been tracking him all throughout the week he wandered in the forest, it must have been the reason he couldn't find any deer, and here it is playing dead for an hour to lure him in.
They say if the sounds of the forest stop, it means that a predator is chasing you, but what does it mean when there are no sounds in the first place. The forest felt empty when he arrived, no bugs did hum, no frogs did ribbit, and in the morning no birds sang to great the rising sun.
He decides to get closer to the beast, if it's truly this cunning, he is dead either way. The hunter loads his gun with a bullet, pulls back the bolt, says a prayer and starts moving towards the beast, holding up his rifle. As he got closer, the more foul the smell got, and the clearer how massive the beast had become to the hunter. Standing, the beast must be three times his height.
When he reached the beast he found it unmoving, “Why has it not moved? Am I not close enough? But I'm so close I can count the hairs of its fur!” in a quick fearful motion the hunter took quickly before doubt or fear could stop him, the hunter struck its head with the end of his rifle, he then realized that it was just dead, that the thing that filled him with that primal fear, was just the dead decomposing husk of the beast, a juvenile, its antlers and teeth say it was no older than 5 years.
The sun escaped the embrace of the sea, and with its first ray the beast's corpse turned to ash. That changed something in the forest, the trees in the morning look turquoise green, the song of the birds teaches man how to live in peace, and over the hill the hunter saw a stag in the forest run free.