Chapter 6

Chase was working like a dead man. There was no thought that occupied his mind, no will that guided it. Only the instincts of an animal remained. He made rope for his snares, wrapping the fibres round and round mindlessly.

He would place a finger on his tongue. Nothing.

When he finished with the rope, he sharpened sticks, first one, then a dozen. Not safe. Need more.

He put a finger in his mouth again. Nothing.

Chase ground a stone into the shape of a bowl, he didn't stop until he squeezed blood out from under his skin. He stared at the drop of red with some hope.

And put a finger in his mouth. Nothing.

The familiar taste of iron that he normally hated was gone. He wanted to cry but nothing came out, another instinct telling him to preserve water. All he could do was enjoy the faint aroma of his bloodied hands.

Their shelter for the night was the same as last time. Chase had already uprooted the vine and renewed his bedding. Each of the sharp sticks was buried into the ground, their pointed ends deterring anything that approached. He uses some of his precious rope to make a trap just outside the entrance. He made sure to seal the entrance, leaving only a tiny gap by their feet for fresh air to enter.

Both of them went to bed hungry and tired. Elie fell asleep as soon as she got inside, but Chase didn't let sleep take him. He lay in the dark, eyes wide open and bloodshot, unable to see. He held his bone dagger flat on his chest, ready for anything that might come during the night. He waited, blind to everything but the black of night, his eyes started to play tricks on him in an attempt to remove the uncomfortable sensation of staring into the shallow void around him.

He could hear rustling around him, but he couldn't tell if it was the sound of the river flowing serenely, the trees swaying in the midnight breeze or something rummaging around nearby, looking for its next meal. The pounding of his heart was so loud to him that he was scared that something would hear it. His breathing eventually slowed and the beating of his heart grew more silent. As if he really was a dead man.

All that was left was the knowledge that there was something out there watching them.

When the faint morning light penetrated the shelter, Chase got up. Nothing had happened, but he couldn't sit still and peered out of the entrance to see if there was anything outside. He looked left and right but all he could see were the stakes he had put out yesterday. He was about to step out when something grabbed his ankle, making him jump out of his skin.

"Daaaaad, I need to pee." Said a groggy Elie.

Chase let out a sigh and put the bone knife back under his belt. They both went to relieve themselves before making their way to the river. Chase washed his face with the icy morning water to get his blood flowing again.

He tried to put what happened for the past few days at the back of his mind, he had a lot of time to think when he was laying beside Elie last night. They hadn't spoken a proper word the entire day yesterday. There was a lingering sense of guilt for leaving her alone in their company, for being a father that was there for her, and yet, not present.

"Today we are going to set traps. Elie, you have to listen to everything I say when we are in the forest, got that?"

"Umm hum!" She nodded.

Elie was quite excited to do something else instead of collecting firewood or watch her dad poke the river with a stick until he caught a fish. They were going to go hunting! She took out her... knife, boner, and started waving it around, imagining herself catching a squirrel. Chase gave a look of mild concern at his daughter before wrapping the rope around his shoulder to carry it. They didn't have a water skin so they would have to come back during the day to drink.

As they made their way into the forest Chase kept looking for signs of predators, scratch marks, prints, droppings or dead animals. He held his fishing spear with both hands, his hands didn't normally sweat like they did when they stepped into the woods. But something in his gut told him that there was something dangerous in there. The way the trees moved, the fact that he could hear birds, yet couldn't see them, and that the forest seemed to change on a whim and without warning.

He marked the trees with his bone knife as they passed them, he even backtracked at the start to make sure they didn't suddenly disappear when he wasn't looking.

Elie held onto Chase's tunic with one hand and had her... knife in the other. Seeing how tense her father was she started to get nervous. After about half an hour of walking Chase found what he was looking for.

There was a burrow hidden by the roots of a tree, it was only as wide as his palm but the location was distinct enough that he recorded it into his memory without too much trouble. It was too small to be made by foxes, it was likely a rodent of some kind. He made a snare that would tighten if they tried to pass through it, the more they struggled the more the snare would clamp down on them, squeezing the life out of them. He found several such burrows and put down a snare in front of them every time.

It was much brighter in the forest than he had expected, he had heard many stories of how dark it was inside that, besides the obvious strangeness, it was eerily... normal looking. As if it was trying to imitate the forests in his memory. There was shrubbery and dead trees and light streaming in from above, if not for the fact he hadn't seen any animals so far, it would feel like he was in any other forest.

As he was taking in his surroundings, he came across a small mound. The faint smell told him what it was. Droppings, and not just any, it was deer droppings. As he got closer the smell got stronger until it was pungent in the air. Elie couldn't take it and stepped back whilst Chase inspected it. He held his hand over it and felt a faint warmth, it was very fresh, there should be a trail nearby.

After a minute of searching he found what he was looking for, a game trail. The faintly worn down path of dirt was perfect. He found two trees on either side of it and set up a snare with most of the remaining rope; it was larger and yet mostly the same as his other snares. If they were lucky, they might be able to feed themselves for quite some time off just a single catch.

Elie was starting to get tired, it wasn't as exciting as she had anticipated.

"How long until we go back?"

"We'll go back once I set this one up."

"Didn't you say that last time?"

"Just give me a minute." He snapped.

As they were walking back to their campsite Elie kept sulking, "Are we there yet? My feet hurt."

"Mine hurt too, just bear with it."

"..."

Her strides were becoming more chaotic as she continued. They had been walking for several hours at this point and the noon sun was starting to go down. Chase was irritated by Elie's constant complaining, and was also beginning to feel a headache developing from his lack of sleep, his eyes stung and vision flickered as if the world was illuminated by candle light.

Eventually they made it to the riverside and Chase let out a sigh of relief. Although they hadn't come across any game, they also hadn't run into any danger.

Just as he was walking up to the riverbank he saw something that was impossible. In the distance, on the other side of the flowing water was their campsite. All the hairs on his back stood on end and the relief he felt earlier flew away.

"Dad, why is the river the wrong way?"

Chase tried to laugh it off, "This river is a bit... indecisive, it can't pick if it wants to go up or down, left or right."

"Do we have to cross the river to go home then?" she said in the most dramatic voice she could manage.

"That's what it looks like."

Elie picked up a rock and threw it at the river in frustration, "Bad river!"

Chase tried to stifle his laugh and instead picked her up and put her on his shoulders. What was the big deal? He could walk across with her, the deepest part of the river didn't even reach his waist. He would be fine.

With these thoughts he waded through towards the other side, the entire time Elie looked down at the water in excitement. Both her hands were holding onto Chase's hair, so that if he swayed, she pulled on it to stay put. He was almost across to the other side.

"Can you not pull on my hair. Wrap your arms around instead."

"Like this?" she asked whilst, hugging his head and wrapping her arms around his eyes. He stumbled against a rock and almost sent both of them sprawling into the river. Elie held on even tighter after he swung around unexpectedly trying to keep his balance.

"Stop- no- around my forehead, no, higher. That's better."

Eventually they made it to the other side in one piece, walking through the river felt far more draining than he expected. They made a fire and he put his trousers out to dry, he looked around the campsite and everything seemed normal as far as he could tell. However, when he went into the forest a bit he noticed a cut in the bark of a tree, the same mark he left to help them make their way back.

He gave up trying to make sense of it and focused on fishing. After starting another batch of rope and taking a bath in the stream with Elie the sun was already setting. The stone he had hollowed out into a makeshift bowl was being heated over the fire. In the middle was a few handfuls worth of hot water, once it came to a simmer Chase scooped up some of the hot water with a cup and handed it to Elie.

Chase took a sip from his own cup and felt the warmth spread in his belly, but he couldn't fully enjoy it. He had never thought about the taste of water before, that faint flavour was something he had grown so accustomed to that he hardly noticed. He couldn't get it out of his mind. Now he felt like a part of him was missing whenever he drank it.

Elie burnt her tongue on the first sip and had been blowing on it for the past minute. Chase took another scoop to warm himself up.

Night fell and Chase found himself in the same position as last night, tired but unable to sleep. He listened to the sound of Elie breathing as she cuddled up to his side for warmth. He closed his eyes hoping that he would at least be able to get some rest that way, but the fear of what he would see in his dreams prevented him from falling asleep.

His mind wandered about, trying to solve all the strange happenings of the day. How did they appear on the other side if the marks were still on the side of the campsite? Either the entire campsite moved, or without their knowledge they had crossed the river. Neither made sense.

When Chase got up the world started to spin like it did when he had a hangover. He washed his face a few times before finding that Elie was squatting down next to him copying his actions. After splashing her face once she furrowed her brows.

"It's really cold. Why would anyone want to wash their face in cold water?" she asked.

Chase didn't have the energy to respond and instead started getting ready to check the snares. He didn't want to waste his time if he didn't catch something, so he hesitantly did what he had been putting off. Testing the plants.

He broke out into a cold sweat whenever he thought of the pain that engulfed him when he started chewing the leaf. He might have been saved from more torment by having his throat healed, but in exchange he gained a more sinister and permanent kind of pain. He didn't want to do it. But he didn't have much other choice. What if he didn't catch anything? How would they find food whilst on the move?

This time he picked a dandelion-like plant with small pink flowers. He took a leaf of it with him, but tore off a tiny piece to use for testing. He had to be doubly cautious after last time, going as slowly as he could and testing it out in larger quantities over time. It was a stupid mistake not to test the juice of a crushed leaf on his skin first, as well as putting an entire leaf into his mouth. He could have avoided most of this with some forward thinking.

As they dragged themselves through the same path as last time Chase checked the traps, the first few hadn't caught anything, but he got excited when he saw something trapped in a burrow snare. As he got closer his enthusiasm died. Whatever had gotten snared had already been picked clean, there was a faint stain in the dirt where its entrails had been ripped out and dragged along the ground.

All he could do was throw away the carcass and set up the snare again. However, after finding the third such snare, he was uneasy. They were all nothing more than bloodied bones, maybe there was a fox that had found their trail of snares, but he hadn't found any signs of them. There were no footprints, no droppings, not even a tuft of fur. He couldn't tell what was killing all his catches.

He was checking the leaf that he had picked in the meantime, there was no reaction so far, but he hadn't put it in his mouth yet. He decided he would leave that for later when he was close to the river.

They finally arrived at the last trap.

Chase stood there frozen, inside the trap was a deer, or at least the remains of one. It hadn't been picked quite as clean as the other catches, but the fact that it had been completely torn apart was unsettling. From the tracks it looked like a herd had passed through here, the vegetation had been cut down and the ground was gouged by dozens of hoof prints. But no matter how much he looked he couldn't find it. He couldn't find the tracks of what had killed it.

The image of the demon flashed into his mind. Maybe... maybe they didn't need to leave prints behind. Maybe, like ghosts...

Chase kept looking for tracks. He might have missed something. But no matter how much he looked, he couldn't find them.

He couldn't find them.