The melted ice dripped off the tree like tears, as if mourning the passing of winter. A hunter walked out of his tent, slowly going about preparing his morning. It was cold enough that there was damp snow, but he had no need for the comfort of warmth. He had chosen to come here on his own and hunt in discomfort, leaving the comfort and safety of the office.

He took the rifle in his hand tenderly, as if handling an old man. It was the old man’s rifle. He imagined how his father would have reacted to how he handled the gun… It’s a gun, and a damn good one - use it. Those words echoed through his mind again. Those were the only instructions left for him in his father’s will. With an irritated resolve, he put the rifle over his shoulder, strapping it on with a deliberate disrespect, as if it were a common tool he had owned since birth, and began the hike into the woods.

~

He found a boar on its own, moving brusquely - it was its mating season, nearing midway through January, its frustration making it unwary to the wrath of two legged creatures and their handheld cannons. Bringing the rifle up, he watched the movement of the boar and aimed for its heart. A slow exhale out, and a slow pull on the trigger - only for the click of a bolt to ring through the clearing, the gunshot it was supposed to cause ringing through the forest all the same with its deafening silence. Checking the rifle, he sighed in frustration. Old ammo. He had not prepared for this He was not the only one to notice the failure to fire - the boar had heard and seen him, and began its charge towards him.

He grinned - where most men would feel the urge to run, climb or frantically reload and fire, he felt the urge to fight - perhaps that was his response to fear, like his father said. Laying the rifle gently on the ground, he picked up his spear off the ground.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

He watched the Boar approach, his spear tipped down, waiting until the last possible moment to stick the pig. When the boar was less than a meter away, he stepped back and brought the spear up at the same time, left hand at the front, right palm against the flat stump of the spear. In an instant, the boar’s momentum carried itself into the spear, its head going all the way up to the crossbar two feet along the blade, dead before it stopped its charge.

What was life but a chance to risk, he thought, staring at the dead bore. He dreaded the return back home. To his drab office job, of neutral grays and whites without contrast, of figures and safety - it was not life to him. This - he thought, looking at the dead boar and feeling his stomach where the boar would have gored him had he mistepped - was life. How could life exist without death? How could you truly feel alive if you don’t live in any sense except that of food and water? Starting to gut the dead boar, he pondered these questions he had no intent of answering.

When he went back to the office - not if, he knew - he would be returning to a death of sorts - except, instead of a full living existence being extinguished in an instant by another, it was a slow decay of limbo into death. Once again, he considered simply staying. The rifle fired, its propellant finally deciding to detonate, as if it had been deliberating this entire time.

Packing up the dead boar and leaving the entrails for the animals, he mourned the inevitable loss of this sensation. He knew when he went back he would forget this life - and he mourned that kind of death for himself. The drive back was resigned, but at the very least, he had committed to hunting once a month like this.

“The first of many hunts.” He chuckled, driving through the snowy terrain. He drove home with tired joy.