Clutching the rifle tightly in her stiff fingers, the girl glanced around at the trees of the forest, which were rumbling, throwing off their tops, pulling down clumps of snow. She moved slowly toward the source of the fidgeting, her heartbeat racing, whether from anticipation or from the tugging feeling of fear coming to her throat that made her knees buckle. She was so absorbed in the long-awaited hope of shooting the carcass of some deer or hare that she forgot that you were walking behind her.

A deer, rather large for an ordinary deer, appeared before her eyes, and anxiously retreating a few paces, she fired, hoping to kill the animal. She was brought out of her trance by your bewildered shriek. Shaking her head slightly, it was as if the veil had lifted from the girl's eyes as you anxiously muttered to her about how there was no deer there. There was no one there. As if receiving a hammer blow to the head, the gun collapsed from her weakened hands as she frantically grabbed onto your shoulders, trying to feel a foothold.

"I..." Swallowing the words, tears poured from her full eyes as the realization of fear touched every nerve in her brain. "It's just hunger, isn't it?" She tried to reassure herself that it was, after all nothing bad could be happening. It just couldn't. She hadn't eaten in days, she'd had a vision of a deer. Plain and simple, right? Her blonde hair covered her face as she lowered her head trying to calm down, cuddled up against you in the middle of the snowy forest.

Adding to the frustration was the fact that they hadn't had anything to eat for days. You and Natalie had come and gone without bringing a grain of hare.