Never Trust A Survivor Until You Know What They Did To Survive

• Caitlyn Donnelly, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2021

Fear changes people.
Even good people, who wouldn’t even think to draw a sword or notch an arrow, can change.

The adrenaline seeped into his veins, hot and flowing, and drowned out the world, focusing only on the danger. His eyes followed, concentrating on the hazard like a robot aiming for a target. The background noise drowned out by the loud thumping of heartbeats thrashing fiercely against their chest as though it was beating against a cage, willing for an escape. The hushed sounds of panting breaths left cold clouds of moisture in the air, drifting like miniature clouds. Everything else blurred, obscuring into a dreamlike state, the controls being switched off, the body moving only with instinct and need, its only thought being survive.

His eyes locked onto the target with a predatory gaze.

The world sharpened back into focus around him, eyes wide as he saw the person below them struggle in their last breaths. He found himself slumped over a bloodied, glistening body, listening to the sickening sound of the sharp weapon thrusting into the chest.
The injured body below them, covered in red, eyes filled with malice and hatred and… fear. But then they faded into a hollow and empty state, their last breath drawing out as though it had been whisked up by the wind and tossed into the air like a leaf. The lifeless body looked hollow, like an abandoned building or an empty husk. The mere skeleton of someone who had originally been moving and free, reduced to a rotting, empty cocoon. The laughs and cries that had just been thrashed away.

The life he had just gouged out with a knife and watched with a keen smile as it had drained out into the dirt, creating pools and swirls of shining gore that reflected his blood-streaked face.

His breath quickened, chest heaving as he looked down with dazed eyes, almost as empty and lifeless as the dead as he took in what he had done. His gaze fell and averted to his hands, dripping with crimson, smelling strongly of metallic. And he wept. Tears fell into his blood-soaked palms, as though trying to wash way his misery. As though trying to undo what had happened. And he let his tears fall… Mixing and mixing… Washing away. The sound of his anguished cries, screaming hoarsely into the sky like a wolf howling to the moon as it begged for forgiveness for its sins. But there was not a moon to return his melancholy calls, no whisper or echo or sway of trees to answer his cries.

Never trust a survivor until you know what they did to survive.