by Charles D. Pompenhop
I am a man of many names. Some call me Bearhunter. You can call me Amchuck.For hundreds of years my people have lived here, at peace with the nature. My Great, Great Grandfather lived off this land, and
then his son, my father and finally, myself. When the cold winds blow from the west, I find shelter in the ice. I wrap myself in
animal pelts to stay warm, like so many of my ancestors before me. I hunt, fish, and cook what I trap. Hibernation is not an
option. If I fell asleep for long, and the windchill dropped below -50, I'd be a dead man.
Here in the frozen wilderness, time moves at a much slower pace. The sun never sets...but that doesn't mean it's never dark. I live in a realm of infinite twilight, teetering on the edge of the world. The silence is deafening. The loneliness...soul
crushing. I have heard stories of people traveling four-hundred miles out from the city to "find themselves" here. Me...I came
here to lose myself. I haven't seen a television screen in eight years. I haven't heard my own voice in three. There is no reason for me to speak. Words freeze instantly and shatter in midair.
I am writing this in the hopes that others might learn from my mistakes. When it is man-against-beast, you can't afford to be foolish. The beast, in my unfortunate case, was a true monster: a twenty-foot-long bird of prey with razor sharp talons and feathers so white and pure, they put the surrounding landscape to shame.
I had first encountered this abomination in the Fall. Journeying from a hillside reservoir and down into the valley below, I set up camp with a mind to do some hunting before the season began to turn. For days, I hunted wild elk and rabbits with a spear I had fashioned from a wild dog's jawbone. I ate like a king and life was good....for a time. However, as the nights began to grow colder, I found success to be more and more elusive. The elk had retreated to the hills from whence they came, and the rabbits returned to their burrows for the winter. Things were looking bleak, and I still had a long journey ahead of me and back up the mountain.
And then, one day, I saw it. What appeared to be a massive eagle's nest hovering on the skyline just above the trees. I climbed the tree to retrieve my treasure...three fabulous eggs, each the size of a man's head! What a feast! I packed up my camp, and began the uphill journey back to a more hospitable climate. My adventure was cut short when suddenly, the sky grew strangely dark. Flapping it's gargantuan wings above me was an enormous snow white owl! I was filled with fear and awe and was unable to move. It screeched with such ferocity that my blood curdled. Fearing for my life, I held out the newly acquired nest in offering to the creature, assuming this was just a mother looking for her young. Selfishly, I did not return every egg to her...I kept one hidden in my yak skin pelt. I was afraid that if I surrendered all I had, I would starve before making it back to the mountain's peak. The mother bird retreated, her vengeful spirit quelled...or so it seemed.
Three days ago, after returning to the mountain top, the beast returned. As I was stoking a fire to cook the egg I had hidden, I heard her bone-rattling battle cry. With a screech, the great white owl swooped down from the sky and snatched up her lost child in her powerful, razor-like talons. But she wasn't done yet. Circling back around, the giant bird lunged at me, claws outstretched. I had no time to react. The pain felt like I had been hit by a truck covered in knives. My stomach burst open like an overcooked sausage, staining the snow around me a striking red color. I was barely able to drag myself back into my cave before the monster was able to strike her death blow.
And now here I sit...huddled, freezing, slowly bleeding to death. Gut strings from rat carcasses can stitch wounds only so well. Yes, I write this in the hopes that anyone who find my remains will realize my errors and refrain from making their own similar ones.
I have only one final
THE END
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