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The slush-covered ground squishes under your boots as you gently push past some brush–its frost-caked leaves tickling your cheeks with icy moisture. The breeze is crisp. Dry. You’re downwind for the usual reasons.
It’s been slow-going, but you’re starting to get the hang of navigating: small, slow steps at first, slow strides today.
Baby steps.
Pausing in a clearing, you take stock of what little information your senses can provide: the air is ripe with alien cheeps and trills like any other forest, but you couldn’t place any of them if you tried. And the scents, well…
Taking a knee, you gently probe the forest floor until you find what you’re looking for: an oval of half-formed ice roughly the size of a curled-up man… the condensation at the surface coming off on your gloved fingers thicker than water.
You lift your finger to your lips and taste.
Blood, no doubt about it, but nothing like you’ve ever tasted before: instead of a coppery flavor, you instead get hints of… <span class="mu-i">tartness</span>?
It’s almost <span class="mu-i">invigorating</span>... Like a post-run shower. Licking your lips clean, you take a quick swig from the canteen on your belt before taking a few more cautious steps.
Another puddle. Your frown deepens as you ponder the whole situation: the way your quarry’s been moving for the past day or so… there’s barely any strategy to it. No doubling back, no crossing waterways, the scent’s been consistent, if anything.
Has this creature ever been <span class="mu-i">hunted</span> before?
Your thoughts are cut short by a faint sound at your back: flapping of the leathery variety. Big, too. And they’re approaching <span class="mu-i">fast</span>.
“<span class="mu-i">HEY-</span>”
Your stalker only manages one syllable before you let your hardware do the talking, sending a resounding <span class="mu-s">CRACK!</span> into the air!
And down the would-be attacker goes. Rising to your feet, you take your time making your way over to the kill–its pathetic gurgling making it all the more easy to locate in the darkness. Kneeling behind the creature’s writhing head, you draw your knife and cradle its chin like a baby’s.
It’s okay, you whisper as you bring your blade across its scaly, knobbled throat,
It’s over.
Waiting until the flying fiend goes limp in your grasp, you let them down gently into the snow and watch the light slowly fade from their eyes.
Green, you think as you wipe the gore from your blade, and glowing. Like a Halloween decoration.
Where the hell did Anton lead you <span class="mu-i">this</span> time…
<span class="mu-r">END OF PART 4!</span>
