Prologue - Red Blood, White Snow, and A Doe

Warning: Violence, Death, Blood, and Pain

Proceed at your own risk

The freshly fallen snow coated the ground and piled on spindly leafless tree branches surronding the clearing. The sun was just beginning to rise over the mountains in the distance, casting the scene in a surreal peachy glow. However, if one looked hard enough at the small stand of young oaks bordering on the west, an almost impercetible motion between the saplings could be seen. Under closer analysis one would discover the perfectly camoflagued figure to be a youthful doe, the agouti brown matching the flecked tree bark to a T. Even the black nose and eyes along with the white belly were perfectly disguised as snow and shadows in the early sunrise. The doe, however, was far less at ease with her disguise. Despite the limited motions she made to peel tender bark and new buds from the spritely saplings, she could not help but feel exposed and vulnerable. Even the slightest pressure on her right foreleg reminded her vividly of her last encounter. It had been nearly a week of sunrises and sunsets, but the doe had not survived as long as she did by being brash or foolhardy.

One night after sunset she had been returning to an evergreen with particularly low hanging branches, but before arriving she sensed the region had been disturbed. Immediately the deer bolted the way she came, but alas it was too late. The hunter had begun to lay his or her trap in the preceding days, only returning after fresh snow fall to hide on traces of foot-prints made while locating a position. Even though the deer was able to note the subtle differences in ground that had not be leveled out by the snow, the hunter had spotted her. Fleeing the scene, the hidden human had aimed at her hind legs, in attempt to hobble her. Making a leap to avoid the arrow while twisting to the side, the doe had tried to side-step the crossbow bolt. Instead of landing in her rear, it had pierced her front leg, throughly breaking it as her forelimb twisted under her upon landing, albeit causing the bolt to break leaving only the tip embedded. Despite her misfortune she had been able to escape, and any normal hunter would have long given up the chase, especially as her wound had closed over and was no longer bleeding, but the doe could not help but feel cautious. 

Suddenly, the doe felt a sharp spike in adrenaline, and even though no obvious signs were present, she felt the feeling of caution morph into that of acute danger. The mature deer had not survived her previous three winters by ignoring her senses, especially in such as region as this one where there were too few evergreens to support any herds during the winter, in fact, most of the deer moved to the evergreen groves to the east to wait out the winter. After surviving the first winter in the western forest, she discovered that although mostly barren of food, there were far less threats in these woods. Yet at this moment, her survival instinct triggered once again in the same month, and the doe bolted as well as she could on three legs, leaping over the snow to help avoid her feet sinking into it.

Behind her the doe could hear her attacker rushing forward. At first the doe thought the human had failed to find an appropriate position before she sensed the hunter. Yet, as the crunching contuined behind her, the doe was shocked because even at close distances a human could never outrun a deer, and every second would lead to a wider gap between them, even if she was badly injured. The doe relaxed in confidence until she realized the distance between them was shrinking, not expanding. Her eyes caught flickers of motion showing a humanoid figure behind her, and the footsteps were definitively that of a hunter, yet the speed at which the person was traveling surpassed the does expectations. Surely, the doe thought, my wound has not slowed me down to be able to be caught. Confused, she pused all her energy into her legs ignoring the sharp pain in her broken forelimb as she placed weight upon it. However, the deer soon realized the problem was not her overestimating her own speed or underestimating that of a hunter. It was simply the human behind her was running at an unnatural pace, defying any and all expectations regarding human limits. 

Fearing once again for her life, more acutely than she ever had before, the doe lept. . . and then tripped. A rock hidden behind a fallen tree branch quite literally proved her down-fall and her broken leg once again twisted in pain. The approaching figure was now rapidly advancing, and the doe failed to reconcile the humanoid nature of what she heard and saw with the power and velocity behind the the figure. The doe refused to believe the figure was the hunter who hurt her leg, no, she refused to believe was a hunter at all and instead an unknown predator she had never encountered. Despite her feeble state, the doe propelled her body upwards with her back legs and turned away, making a futile attemp to walk away, but her legs gave out and she collapsed.

In the next moment, the figure reached her, with unnatural agilty it jumped over her and landed in crouch on the opposite side. Vicious eyes and bared teeth snarled as it grabbed her neck, before the doe could defend herself. Instead piercing her jugular, the blunted teeth with tremendous force shattered her wind-pipe as the creatures hands pinned the doe to the ground.Her brain, still trying to reconcile her world view of threats, failed to register the pain before the shock caused her to faint. Over the next few minutes, the lack of oxygen would slowly shut down her body, leading her heart, muscles, and brain to shut down one by one. In this way, the doe was spared by her loss of conciousness as the shock and speed of the attack prevented her from processing the pain, and now unconcious would not reawaken. Meanwhile the figure above the dead body bit down harder and the creature's incisors finally cut through the tough hide, drawing blood. A smile curled on those infernal lips.