The projectile sped away like…well, like an arrow from a string. Our human, though fully intending to fire the arrow, was nonetheless shocked that he’d released it. It left a faint trail of light in its wake, which he noticed in the slowed time that accompanies such moments. The arrow was off-course.

But then it curved against all probability, as if of its own accord, towards the deer, which had looked up but had not yet run.

The arrow struck the beast in its side, staggering it, burying itself little less than halfway. A golden shaft and fletching, the entry wound ringed with a dark rouge, stuck out.

“Yes!” the human said breathlessly. He had struck a blow against his first enemy. The stricken deer stood wobblingly, fighting the wound and weakness and gravity. And then in front of it, a card appeared with a picture of a pair of bull’s horns.

“Gore twenty?” the human read, puzzled. And then the deer righted itself, the arrow melting into pieces and blowing away. With the vanishing of the card, the deer’s antlers shimmered and grew. New points appeared, and the mass was looking less and less like tumbleweed, and more and more like a blossoming bear-trap. It snorted, pointing its new weapon at its opponent.

“Oh,” the human said, paling, “Oh no.” He turned and ran.

There was nowhere more favorable to run, his fear-stricken mind decided, than the other side of the pool. It looked deep, and the deer would be unlikely to catch him if it had to jump in, swim, and climb back out again. It would be – probably – equally unlikely to catch him if he could put the pool between it and him.

By the way the deer now galloped behind him, this was proving a defunct theory.

“Uhh!” the human said, feet pounding, trying to get a glance at the cards without slowing, “Kick five!”

The Kick 5 card flew into his right bracer, which the human was beginning to call the Discard, and immediately felt a surge of tingly energy in his feet. He did not, to his dismay, feel like he was running any faster.

On the second lap around the small pool, the deer steadily gaining, the boy noticed a low branch on the edge of the clearing. He had never climbed trees, though he knew it was possible, and the center of his brain for making quick decisions, overwhelmed with paperwork at the moment, was stamping everything that crossed its desk with “Approved”.

With the only sounds in the clearing being the human’s breathing and the deer’s occasional braying grunt, he leapt for the low branch with a huff.

The branch, being described as low in this context, was only merely lower than those of the other surrounding trees. It was still half a foot above the human’s head. But he leapt and reached and grabbed the branch anyway, hoping desperately to pull himself up.

He kicked about, trying to do his very first chin-up.

It was taking longer than he had originally expected, and it wasn’t long before he felt a searing pain engulf his lower body. This caused him to cry out.

The deer, like a nasty telling from a nasty fortune teller, had gored him as predicted. It felt like thousands of little needles piercing the meat of his legs, and then were suddenly all dislodged at once.

He flailed in pain, only barely registering it when he felt his foot connect with something. He could hold on no longer, and his legs hurt too much to climb. He released the branch and fell bodily to the ground.

When he wasn’t immediately eviscerated by vengeful venison, he took a look around while lying supine.

The deer was lying a little ways away on its side.

The man blinked, and then to himself said, “I kicked it. I must have kicked it right in the head.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The power of the Gore gone, its antlers had returned to their less menacing form. It wasn’t moving, aside from short breaths, possibly like those of one stunned by a hit to the head.

“It’ll get back up in a moment,” he reasoned. His body hurt.

Through the pain, he experienced a zen-like clarity. He selected the Punch 5 card. The third gem winked out and the card was discarded. He felt the same energy as with the Kick 5, but this time in his arms.

“I can crawl over there,” he thought to himself through gritted teeth. The human did so. The surge of energy didn’t help him move, but when he was within arm’s length of the hart, he thumped it on the chest. That was when the energy was expelled.

It was a meaty thud, and he heard the deer breathe out sharply from the blow. A tiny fountain of blood welled up briefly from the earlier arrowshot.

The human tried a second punch, but without the force of the card behind it, and with his strength sapped from the earlier horn attack, didn’t do nearly as much damage. But he punched the beast many more times.

And he yelled at the creature while he punched it. He screamed about how truly real this game felt. He screamed about how his legs hurt. He screamed about how he was screaming. He screamed his fears about dying in this grove all alone.

He even screamed about how he hated this game now, all while beating the creature over and over.

Once the therapy was fully realized, he stopped beating the motionless deer. It, and he, and the ground, were all slippery with the creature’s blood now. There was a more modest streak of his own blood behind him, as it had been streaming out of his legs.

It had grown dark, in a way, since he had arrived at the pool of water. The daylight was gone. But there was still a light illuminating the clearing. A soft blue light.

Not bothering to lift himself, he looked to the water. There, indeed, was the source of light.

“Maybe I can get to the pool to wash myself up,” he said wearily. “But I’m so tired.”

Still, he tried to stand up. As expected, his legs disagreed with the action. All the little holes where the horns had pierced him screamed out. He just screamed back at them.

Limping, he made his way to the pool. “The cold water will at least numb me to it,” he said resolutely. The man all but collapsed on the edge, swinging his legs into the water.

The tincture of blood spread out into the clean water, as though seeking the middle. With it seemed to run his aches and pains. The pool became cloudy as his mind began to clear.

“I killed a wild deer with my own hands,” he said to himself as he splashed the water over his arms and thighs. He splashed some on his face and rubbed his eyes.

When he pulled his hands away, there was something different about the pool. A figure had appeared in the middle, the cloud of blood stretching out from it like a formless shadow. It was lit from below by the shining waters, revealing it to be a woman with waves of hair billowing darkly behind her. She was wearing a white cloth like him, though in slightly different fashion as far as he could tell. The parts it covered were different for sure. She was looking at the dark strip in the pool, and her face seemed sad.

“Who killed my celestial hart?” she asked. The tones of her voice were like crystal, hollow and sharp.

An expletive, as light and corrosive as a silent fart, drifted its way from him to her. They locked eyes.

“It was you,” she said icily. “My pet is dead because of you!”

She raised an accusing finger and started gliding towards him quickly over the surface of the pool. His eyes grew wide as saucers and he crawled away from her. He bumped into something large and covered in fur. The apparition from the pool, looming over him, gasped and covered her mouth. It was the body of the deer.

The human put his hands up in supplication. “I didn’t know! I thought I was supposed to-“ The words caught in his throat, as though he was being throttled by his own guilt.

Tears were streaming from the woman’s face now.

“There’s only one thing to do,” she said. Her words were small and tinkly. She waved an open palm in front of her, purple cards appearing in front of her with the passing of her hand.

“Oh no,” he said. He said it many times, in fact.

The woman drowned him out with her words, which filled the clearing, reverberating off the surrounding trees which stood as silent witnesses.

“Curses,” she said. “I curse thee, human, for thine insolence and depravity. A curse upon the one who raised their hand to my sacred pet. A curse upon the one, for each blow struck.”

The human felt light as the space in front of the woman – goddess, he began supposing now – filled up with purple cards. He couldn’t see names or pictures. He almost couldn’t see her behind them, the grid of shadows growing as large as it was.

He was floating now. And the corpse of the deer, too.

He felt a lightness about his arms. He looked down just in time to see his bracers disintegrate.

“Atone!” she decreed. Two new bracers, dark purple with aggressive designs stitched on them, appeared and clamped down, one on each arm. And with that, the cards flew towards him. Or to his left bracer. The box opened, sucking in each and every purple card like a hungry vacuum cleaner.

After what seemed to him like an age, consisting entirely of a torrent of purple cards streaming into the recesses of his left bracer, the box closed with a sinister snap. Then he was merged with the remains of the celestial hart. Then blackness.