Chapter 56 The hunt

Chapter 56 The hunt
Morning came with that same gray light. Everyone looked like shit. Hungry, tired, and barely able to think straight.

Chen stood up and clapped her hands once, trying to get everyone's attention. "Okay. Listen up. We need to hunt. We need food, or we're dead in three days."

No one said anything. They just stared at her with empty eyes.

"We can't all go," Chen continued. "It's too dangerous if we all leave the cabin. Three people. We take weapons, stay together, and search the area properly."

"I'll go," Eli said. His voice was rough from not sleeping.

"Me too," Lisa added.

Chen nodded. "Good. That's three of us. The rest of you stay here. Marcus, you watch Sienna. Brooks, you're still..." She trailed off, not wanting to say "unstable" out loud. "You rest. Aria, you're too weak. Juno, we need you here with the camera. Document everything. And Mara..."

Mara was staring at nothing from her corner. She didn't even look up when Chen said her name.

"Mara stays here," Chen finished quietly.

They got ready. Chen took the rifle. Eli grabbed two knives from the kitchen. Lisa found rope in case they actually caught something. Marcus came over with his medical kit.

"Here," Marcus said, handing Chen a small bag. "Bandages, antiseptic, pain pills. Not much, but it's what I can spare. If anyone gets hurt out there, you come back right away. Don't try to tough it out."

"Got it," Chen said.

Around eight AM, they were ready to go.

The others gathered at the windows to watch. Mara forced herself to stand and look. Three people walking into the forest. Chen in front, Eli and Lisa behind her. They moved slowly, carefully, looking around.

The dead bodies in the forest didn't move. Sixteen corpses standing in their circle, perfectly still. Just watching with those white eyes.

Devon was there. Theo was there. David was there. All of them just... standing and waiting .

The hunting party disappeared into the trees.

\---

In the Forest

Chen led the way, with her rifle ready. The forest was quiet. No birds, no wind, nothing. Just the sound of their boots on frozen ground.

"Stay close," Chen said quietly. "Watch for anything. Tracks, droppings, broken branches. Any sign of animals."

They spread out a little, but kept each other in sight. Eli went left, Lisa went right, Chen stayed center. They moved slow, checking everything.

Nothing.

No tracks in the dirt. No animal droppings. No nests in the trees. No squirrels, no rabbits, no birds. Not even insects.

"This doesn't make sense," Lisa said after twenty minutes. "Even dead forests have bugs, or something."

"It's deliberate," Chen said. Her voice was flat. "The entity made this area empty. On purpose."

Eli kicked at a fallen log, looking for grubs or beetles underneath. Nothing. The log was completely hollow, completely dead. "Maybe we should go back. This is pointless."

"Not yet," Chen said. "We set some snares first. Maybe something will wander in from outside the entity's territory. Maybe."

She didn't sound like she believed it.

They set four snares using the rope Lisa had brought. Simple ones, the kind you learn in basic survival training. Loops on the ground, hidden under leaves, positioned near what looked like animal paths—even though they all knew nothing used those paths anymore.

It felt like going through the motions. Pretending they were doing something useful when really they were just wasting time.

Around ten AM, Chen stopped walking.

"Do you smell that?" she asked.

Eli and Lisa stopped too, sniffing the air.

They could sleep fresh blood. They looked at each other, then moved toward the smell carefully, with their weapons ready, expecting a trap.

They found a dead deer in a small clearing, lying on its side with its throat cut open.

"Holy shit," Lisa breathed.

Eli's stomach growled just looking at it. They had meat now, which meant fresh food. His mouth watered even though everything about this felt wrong.

"This is too convenient," Eli said out loud. "This is..."

"I don't care," Chen interrupted. She was already kneeling beside the deer, checking it. "It's food. It's fresh. We need it."

"Captain, think about this," Eli pressed. "We haven't seen a single animal in days. Nothing lives here. And suddenly there's a fresh deer? Right where we can find it?"

"I know it's suspicious," Chen said. Her hands were already pulling out her knife. "But we're starving. We don't have a choice."

Lisa knelt beside her. "He's right though. This feels like a trap."

Chen looked at both of them. Her face was hard. "Then it's a trap we're walking into. Because the alternative is starving to death. Now help me field dress this thing before it gets cold."

They worked fast. Chen and Lisa did most of it, they both had wilderness training, they knew how to gut and skin an animal properly. Eli kept watch, turning in slow circles, feeling like something was staring at them.

The forest was too quiet as they worked, cutting away the hide and removing the organs, all three of them felt that sensation of being watched. Not just watched, examined and studied.

The entity was paying attention.

"How much can we carry?" Lisa asked, her hands covered in blood.

"As much as possible," Chen said. "We'll take the haunches, the backstrap, whatever we can manage, and we'll leave the rest."

They worked for thirty minutes, cutting meat and wrapping it in cloth from their packs. By the end, they had maybe twenty pounds between them. Enough for a few days if they rationed it.

But the whole time, none of them could shake the feeling that this was wrong. That they were accepting a gift from something that wanted them dead.

When they finished, they stood up. Their hands were bloody. The deer carcass lay gutted and empty on the ground.

"Let's go," Chen said. "Lets go back to the cabin fast"

They walked quickly, almost jogging. All three of them kept looking over their shoulders, expecting something to follow them, but nothing did.

But the feeling of being watched never went away.

\---

At the Cabin

Mara stood at the window with the others, waiting. An hour passed, then two, then three.

"They should be back by now," Brooks said. He was pacing again, feeling agitated.

"Give them time," Marcus said. But his voice was uncertain too.

Aria sat at the dining table with the journals, but she wasn't reading. She was just staring at the pages without seeing them.

Juno had her camera out, filming the forest through the window, and documenting the waiting and the fear.

Around eleven AM, Sienna woke up.

She sat up on the couch, and for the first time in days, she looked almost normal. Her eyes were still that filmed-over white, but they were focused.

"They found the deer," Sienna said. Her voice was clear.

Everyone turned to look at her.

"What?" Rhett moved to sit beside her. "What deer?"

"The gift," Sienna said. She tilted her head, like she was listening to something. "They found it. They're bringing it back."

Mara felt ice in her stomach. "What gift? What are you talking about?"

Sienna turned her white eyes toward Mara. "The entity provided. Nothing here happens without the entity allowing it. If they found food, it's because it wanted them to find food."

"Why would it do that?" Brooks demanded. "Why would it give us food?"

Sienna smiled. That terrible, wrong smile that was too wide.

"To keep you alive longer," she said simply. "Dead things don't suffer. Living things do."

The words hung in the air for a while.

Marcus opened his mouth to respond, then closed it. Because what could he say? Sienna was probably right.

The entity didn't want them to die quickly. It wanted them to suffer first. To break down slowly. To lose hope piece by piece.

Giving them food meant prolonging the torture.

Mara turned back to the window, staring out at the forest. Waiting for Chen, Eli, and Lisa to come back.

Waiting to see if they'd really found food.

Waiting to see what price the entity would demand for its gift.