The Hunted

(Based on a dream)

Me and my hatchet. It is all I need as I hack my way through the jungle. Hacking through vines and brush and hacking any creature that dares to think me as food.

The jungle clears to a field of tall grass. I enter it cautiously, hatchet at ready. You never know what hunts you in the grass till it has you.

Immediately, as my foot touches the grass, a huge python like snake springs at me and I take its head in one swing. My caution fades as I kick aside its limp body. Chances that it has a friend nearby are slim and I lower my hatchet for a moment.

Moments can be long or they can be short. Sometimes a moment exists outside of time. There is no what was or what will be, only what is now. In that moment its friend struck.

I am knocked to the ground but I maintain my grip on my hatchet. This snake is much larger than the previous, as round as a spare tire. Fast for its size, it begins to wrap itself around me, but I too am fast, my arm raised high. My hatchet is quick, it is sharp, it is hungrier than the snake.

I roll its dead mass off of me and stand up. Hatchet ready, my caution is high. The chances of a third snake are less likely than the second but a fool I am not. I walk away through the path my foe made in the tall grass.

A few yards in I come across a large area of crushed grass, trampled by something large. Snake skin is everywhere but it is not natural. Snake skin should be dry but this is wet and smeared through the grass, looking like it was partially digested. The skin was not shed, it was vomited.

I scanned the area, knowing there was something bigger about. Ahead I spot an exiting path, wide and free of “skin”, I know that is the direction it left. I back away from that path, hatchet ready. Like a speeding train it broke through the grass a yard to the right of the path it left. Three times the size of the last snake, it slowed as it focused on me.

Jet black with no tail end to be seen, I have never seen any as huge. Filling me with an icy chill, its face is narrow eel like head with pronounced skull features almost human like, and eyes that are very human. Intelligence, hatred, and surety fills its eyes and it is all aimed at me.

I continue my walk backward, never breaking eye contact. Hatchet ready, drooling its previous victims blood. The demon snake creeps forward, swaying side to side as it moves, daring me to run. Still walking backward, I know I am loosing ground. I must take control, I am the hunter. I faint a stumble and the demon takes the bait. Thinking I have faltered it strikes at me.

My hatchet is quick...

It is a moment without time.

My hatchet is sharp...

There are no thoughts. There is no life nor death. There is no fear nor anger.

My hatchet is hungry...

There is me, there is the demon, and there is my hatchet sinking into its skull.

by Gabriel Wayne Long
Copyright © 2011