Embody

Death and artifice. A hunt in the dark - but who is doing the hunting?

EMBODY

There lay a blanket of quiet across the forest, muffling the reality of the blood-sport unfolding within. That was partly a result of the snow – only a light dusting so far, but increasingly burgeoning. It had changed the quality of the air to something crisper, and more like a prison. They were running out of time. I was running out of time.

The shadowy bluff I chose was perfect for watching. Here, I could see across all the spruces and pines without the distraction of the ill wind coursing through the heaving branches. True, some of the more densely overgrown areas were blind spots to me, but this did not matter. Eventually my companions would make themselves known – and my hunt would continue, just as theirs did.

“Get away!” a voice shrieked from somewhere below, and I could see the tell-tale hot pink of Emily’s jacket, flashes of warmth under the canopy. Other yells followed her, more belligerent. Determined.

I decided to move, conscious that I could not afford to let them see me. I wore the forest like my own jacket. They were distracted, in any event. Always distracted. In my flight I heard a desperate, low wail: “We’re running out of time.” Male this time – not Emily. Emily had escaped from the scene.

I moved quickly, but with fluid certainty. As time was running out for all of us, precision was key. I flitted between the whitening boughs like a lengthening shadow. Emily was there, a gleaming beacon.

She did not even have the time to finish her accusatory, surprised yell before I had fallen upon her. Even in that half-yell there is something…artificial. Something I did not quite believe. Her neck sliced fast, blood splashing across the powdered roots of the forest ground. I savored the sight for as long as I dared, before moving onward, manifesting as shadow once more. My hunt continued.

“We can’t let anyone leave alive,” another voice spat, as I darted. This time a woman, but evidently one of the aggressors that had been chasing Emily. I did not know this one’s name – not yet – but it did not matter.

Their group was nestled together, and they had not seen me. Crimson smears mottled the white detritus at the base of the wide spruces: tell-tale signs of their own sport. There was an otherworldly incandescence behind them, but they did not appear to notice or react to it at all. There were too many of them in this cluster, my weapon sheathed for now. I moved on away from the group, spying a solitary man whispering in aggrieved tones to something small and black in his hand – something not from this forest. My forest.

“Goddamn it, where is Emily? We need her for the next scene. Before we lose the light.” There followed a long pause and all I could hear from my obfuscated position was a crackle from the blocky item in his hand, before he continued. “Yes, I know. She’s not great. I don’t know where they found her. Rich kept telling her to embody the character, and he’s still not happy. But it’s whatever. I want to get this done and get the fuck out of this nowhere shit-heap.”

I did not allow this to continue any longer. This charade. I fell upon him with my weapon. I allowed him a brief groan, but otherwise the death was immediate. To oblivion with him.

There was movement in the direction of the group, near the terrible, unreal light. I did not care for that light, or the hum it produced. Otherworldly. Alien. Before I retreated into my shadow-self, becoming one with the air, I felt another sensation. More of a fragment of a memory than anything else. I looked paces away from my victim, to the construct lying crumpled on the floor that once had been hung from ancient branches.

Yes. That construct – one even more ancient than the tree to which it had carefully, a long time ago, been attached. Feathers and bone and power. A dreadful power.

One which had kept me caged for so long.

The nearby group materialized from the darkness of the wooded path – my darkness suddenly burnt away by that horrible light. I shifted away quietly, but decided that I would let them see me, complete.

The footfalls ended, and a scream resounded across the snow. I delighted in it. It had been too long since I had heard such a beautiful scream.

“What the fuck is that?” All terror and tremor, a voice slick with the sweat of fear. The air – my air – was suddenly wet with it.

Another voice joined it, but it did not matter which of them beheld me. They were mere playthings in my demesne. “Are those antlers? Is that a bear or a fucking deer? What…what even is that?”

I moved forward, withdrawing my weapon of bone and delight, ready to introduce it…

But I staggered. The light had turned to face me, and seared like sharp fingers into my not-flesh.

“Keep the light on it! Don’t let it out of your sight!”

I fled, my never-skin burned and molting, allowing the shadow and frost to shelter me, beneath them all. That light had power here, perhaps greater even than the ancient binding construct. The totem, its protection lost. What even was that light?

But I listened, beneath them. Babbling, frantic and dazed. “Keep the light on. Jesus, is Ben really dead? We need to get out of here. Where’s Emily?”

I could wait. The night swallowed us all, but even if their “game” was over, my hunt could still continue. They were out here with me in my silence. I had one more night before I would become disembodied, torn from this realm. But so long as the totem remained broken, I could wait for their light to fade.

They were actors upon my stage. And I would move them as I pleased.