Cádo’s POV: Day 2

It wasn’t a big bear, maybe five hundred pounds at most, but it felt like one. Felt like a really, really big fucking bear. Brown furred, not black, and coming at me about as fast as something you’d compare a really fucking fast and pissed off bear to. It had claws, teeth, probably rabies and definitely a searing hatred for me and my entire bloodline. I, on the other hand, had a big stick I’d taken from the firewood pile. Two feet long, maybe three or four inches wide. My choices were clear.

I dived to one side and desperately tried to scramble away.

The move must’ve been well timed, because the bear stumbled past me for a few feet while I clawed my way back to a standing position. It turned, and I moved on instinct at the sight, bringing the log down hard against the horrible thing’s face. The skull wasn’t where I’d guessed it’d be, though, and the angle was shoddy. It all but bounced off, then the bear was on me.

Back home, back on earth, I’d seen a few documentaries and survival tips on how to handle a bear attack. What were they?

Ah, yes. Play dead, they said. Too late for that now, its jaws were closing in on my face. I had nothing to stab it with, fuck I didn’t have the space to even hit it very hard with my stick, and half a second of pushing against it told me exactly what my odds of physically holding the thing back were, none. I had just barely enough time to go calm and realise, really realise, that I was about to die.

Then Bernard was behind it.

By now the bear’s head was halfway to my neck, jaws wide to clamp down and end me. Bernard might have tried stabbing away with his little pocket knife if he’d been a normal person, might’ve even pissed it off into switching targets, but he wasn’t and had never been normal. Instead Bernard, with utmost care, took one of the bear’s ears in one hand, calmly moved the edge of his switchblade to just under its base, then leaned into it with all of his weight.

Edged, modern steel carved through skin and gristle like it wasn’t even there, and the bear’s ear dropped down to the ground so easily that the knife’s trajectory wasn’t even slowed, blood soaking into the cloud white snow beneath.

The bear screamed, rounding on Bernard just as he took off at a sprint, already having started it the moment he saw blood drawn. As the creature tore off me to hammer after him, I took an instant to thank whatever god might be watching for making my friend so weird.

And then I was standing up, stick back in hand, muscles tightening with anticipation. Because I wasn’t going to leave Bernard to the fate he’d saved me from.

Problem was, he was being chased by a bear, and it was closing fast. I sprinted after, Kenny falling into step alongside me, both of us calling out to the shrieking paranoid.

“Veer right!” Kenny yelled, already panting from the exertion. Bernard must have heard, because he made a sharp turn when the animal was only feet behind him, just barely avoiding a mauling. The bear dug its heels in, slowing, turning, rounding on him just in time to catch my stick hard across its snout.

This swing was better than the first, and I couldn’t suppress a grin as I saw the animal stumbling back.

When you’re lucky enough to land a good hit, land another one before the other bastard can get his senses back. I acted on Bernad’s old brawling advice before it even registered, bringing the log down again with a sharp thwack. The bear snorted, groaning, and I hit again, again. Every blow sending blood to fleck out of its face, adding, in some tiny part, to the crimson streak that already ran down its head and neck where Bernard had taken the ear.

Bernard and Kenny did their parts, too. The former with his knife, the latter with the largest rock he could manage.

Stabbing quickly and sharply, Bernard put his steel in and out of the bear, holding the blade to protrude directly out ahead of his closed fist and punching it into the animal like a boxer working a bag. It barely seemed to do anything at all, but it was a distraction.

Kenny’s approach was clearly less practised, but I was no less grateful for it. He just brought a big rock the size of Andre the Giant’s fist down into the thing’s back while it focused on me, snarling with a mix of fear and fury all the while.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

We kept it stunlocked for a while, just wailing away, killing it one irritation at a time. The problem with death by a thousand cuts, though, is that there aren’t many weapons that can survive being used a thousand times when their wielder is an olympian and their target a bear. I brought the log down one last time on the snout, catching it right between the eyes, and this time a great snap ran out, sickening me to my stomach for all of a second before I realised what it was.

The log broke, and the bear was stumbling back, recovering fast. I swung again, using the remaining foot of wood I still held, then swearing as it bounced off with its length and torque suddenly halved.

I wasn’t able to move before the bear did, this time.

A paw the size of a coffee table caught me in the side, and the entire world toppled over. There was wind, and snow breaking against my face, then I was upside down somehow. Around that time, the ground decided to punch me in the back. I’d flown easily half my body length before even hitting the snow, and I slid and rolled another half a Cádo before stopping.

Everything was a maze, concussion and fatigue drowning the world out for me. The bear might’ve started chewing off my hands and I wouldn’t have noticed until a few more seconds of mewling let me regather my wits. I could only hope it wasn’t.

Fortunately, I didn’t wake up to find myself the starter in a three-course meal. I had Bernard and Kenny to thank for that.

They’d worked quickly while I was seeing stars, Kenny distracting the bear with Bernard’s knife, and Bernard doing what God had made him to do. Improvising a weapon. The bear made a single, critical mistake in focusing on Kenny for one moment too long, then Bernard was on it.

He’d taken a pair of sticks from the fire, small ones. Kindling. Perfectly sized to be clutched in a snow-covered hand, and thus kept from burning him, while Bernard inserted them up the poor animal’s nostrils. The effect was instant, and considerable.

I almost felt sorry for it, watching the bear snarl and scream and thrash around. Bernard was dislodged instantly, rolling away, scrambling back as the animal went mad. It almost convulsed, coiling and rolling about, scraping the snow away to reveal hard dirt beneath, so violently was it moving. Smoke drifted from its face all the while, burning wood still hot and searing despite the huge paws impotently smashing at the snout around. In moments the bear was up again, turning and sprinting off into the woods, bouncing off trees and rolling ever more, fleeing in blind horror at a pain it likely wasn’t even equipped to understand the source of.

It was all we could do to convince Bernard he shouldn’t sprint after the fucking thing and finish it.

For a few minutes we grinned to each other, celebrating our victory as we stumbled back to the fire, Bernard spasming and twitching himself, now that the fight was done. Then it happened.

A sudden weakness overcame me, and a sickness too. My legs folded, my head spun, and before I knew it I was on the ground, convulsing as my ribs screamed in agony. Adrenaline subsiding to let all the pain I’d not noticed before come flooding in.

What happened next came in flitting, broken-up images and memories. I remember being dragged and carried along to our camp, placed down by the fire, resting in agony. I remember hearing Kenny and Bernard talk, worried. The words just barely settled in my mind. With me hurt, we’d be travelling slower and carrying less wood. I tried to stand, to tell them I was fine, but every move I tried to make- every breath I tried to take- just had my ribs aching all over. Finally I lay still.

The night passed, and I barely remembered the morning. I was leaned against someone’s shoulder, half-pulled down the hill as we continued our trek, groaning in pain with every step before we finally made camp again.

That night wasn’t as cold as I’d feared. Kenny and Bernard had spent longer gathering firewood, which meant we’d spent less time travelling and sentenced ourselves to another day on the hillside. The hunger worsened as time stretched on.

We packed up, stood, and moved again. Cold, exhaustion, pain, hunger. And fear. We never knew when another bear might come, and it ended up being Bernard of all people who talked us down, explained how to process our fears, and calmed us.

God, was this how he felt all the time? My heart broke at the thought.

Night by night we got weaker, more scared. Every shadow was hungry, every snapping twig was a moment’s warning before some new monster lunged for us, and every step we took towards the town left us less certain it even existed.

I was lucky to have been drifting in and out of consciousness, if I’d been awake for the full trip I think it might have…Changed me. I’m not sure it didn’t change Bernard and Kenny.

But one day it ended. A gasp, a careful shake to wake me up, and then a pointing finger for my bleary eyes to follow as it indicated a dot on the landscape ahead. I grinned at the sight. Buildings. Houses, halls, thatch roofs and ploughed roads. Human habitation, with smoke and civilization breathing out into the air.

We hurried, and suddenly everything nature threw at us was less substantial. Just having the town in sight made us braver, and our hope kept the cold back. The energy of desperation seemed almost completely balanced with our growing hunger and fatigue, and the next days of travel practically flitted by.

I tried to hide my condition’s worsening, to keep from ruining the second wind my friends had gained, but they’d always been smart. I don’t think either of them failed to realise how much weaker I was getting. It seemed to only speed them up.

Then it happened. We closed in on the town, marching towards it as a limping, gasping wreck, battered, beaten, worn and ragged. Each one of us smelling like shit, and somehow looking shittier. The last thing I saw before sleep took me was the snowy ground giving way to trodden dirt paths.

And the last thought I had was a strange mix. Half relief, half fear.