The Wendigo’s Prey

The forest is so quiet but my heart is hammering. I can see my breath as clear as the snow, I pant gasping for air. I need to catch my breath. I quickly turn a corner and slam my back against a tree. Some snow falls from its branches above me. How long have I been running for? It feels like hours. I can't even think straight with this insatiable hunger. God, what do I do? I don’t even know where it came from. Or for that matter, what it is. All I can do is replay the scene in my head again and again.

Watching it from afar. It ripped him up barbarically desecrating chunks out of a corpse that now resembled nothing of a man but a bloody pile. Blood like wine dripped from its face, staining it, as it devoured an arm. I needed to run but I couldn’t move. I stood eyes unwavering. The stench might have made me question my sobriety if I wasn’t already so high on adrenaline. It shred off some other cadaver, ready to stuff it into its face, then stopped. It stopped, not moving at all. Suddenly it snapped its head my way. It had no eyes but it looked straight at me. That’s when I began to run. I ran and ran, feet stumbling through the heavy snow. I never looked back but the picture was still fresh in my mind, a tall humanoid figure hunched over. It’s skin, rotten and thin, if any at all. Its long slender arms hung by its feet carrying massive claws that would rip me to bits in seconds. Its back, mostly covered in decaying fur, did nothing to hide its tremendous rib cage filled with ice. But the image I would never forget; its head was but a deer skull., its antlers like branches, rigid and pale, a skull full of cracks and holes. Empty.

Now I’m in the middle of the forest, lost and starving. I’d eat just about anything right now. I pause, wait, where did it go? There’s no way I lost it. Another pause. My eyes widen as I realize, the stench is still there. In fact it’s stronger than ever. As if I’m in it, but that can’t be possible. Itd surely have wolfed me down by now if it were near. I slowly take a small step and look around carefully. I falter as something catches my eye. It’s tracks. In the snow. It’s here. I quickly start to jog away still with much caution. As I speed up, my leg gets caught on a branch and I’m thrown to the ground. I land hard on some ice, that'll surely leave a mark. There’s no time. It's here. I’m quick to my feet but… in the ice. It’s there. In the reflection. Its skull looking back at me. Empty.