Hall of Infinite Doors
Gathering your weapons, you grunt a terse farewell to your family and emerge from your cavern. Your home is in a bowl-shaped canyon sparsely grown with aromatic bushes and the rude remains of attempts at agriculture. A path between two dwindling arms of rock leads down a rocky slope to a distant tangle of trees, and its down this slope, accompanied by a footpath and acquired memories of the way, that you progress.
Hunting, as of late, has been exceedingly poor. The only things you've been able to kill with any reliability have been the skinny black jumping squirrels, and even these have been seen in much reduced quantities than previous years. The formerly plentiful deer, birds, and wild canids and felines have all but vanished, leaving in their place an overgrowth of weeds and several stunned and migrating predators that take every chance they get to pounce on and kill a hunter. Something has either driven away or killed all the game; you have often found nests where animals have lived or spots where combat has taken place, but even if some other carnivore had eaten the animals, there are no remains or carcasses to be found anywhere in the once-full forest.
Still, you can't just abandon it. It's been the steady source of meat for your tribe for uncountable years. You penetrate the thin eaves of evergreens and begin walking deeper into the woods, adopting the smooth, catlike, silent walk that your acquired memories tell you will help you remain unheard. You know that hunting has been traditionally better in the thicker parts of the forest, though they're often far away from home.
Soon you enter the deeper woods and have to maneuver your way over fallen logs and clumps of thick underbrush. Here, the formerly evergreen wood gives way to mixed firs and deciduous trees, littering the ground with a thick mulch of needles and crunchy leaves, and making your attempts at silence harder. Still, it is your noise which gives you your sudden burst of luck: spying movement to your left, you turn to behold a large, brownish rodentlike creature zip between the trees with eerie speed. You didn't manage to get a good look at it, but it was large, and resembled a cross between a rabbit and a kangaroo, and any way you ran after it as soon as you saw it move, motivated by instincts you don't understand and a hunger you do.
The rodent is much faster than you, though, and knows the forest much better. You have something it doesn't, however: projectiles. Gathering a firstful of sharp flints, you lob them one after the other as you pursue the creature, at any instance of movement you see. At first it seems as if you've lost the beast, but before long you hear a high-pitched squeal and a thump in front of you, and draw yourself up beside the screeching and crumpled body of a quick, large-legged forest-running mammal of a distinctly furry and primordial appearance.
The thing is large, almost the size of a pig. Your sharp flint has hit it directly in the side; it's bleeding very badly and won't last much longer. You've killed it; it's just a matter of time. However, as you bend to snap its neck, a thought occurs to you. The creature just won't stop SCREAMING... and any predator in these woods, hungry after so long, could not ignore that sound, or the carcass left here.
Hunting, as of late, has been exceedingly poor. The only things you've been able to kill with any reliability have been the skinny black jumping squirrels, and even these have been seen in much reduced quantities than previous years. The formerly plentiful deer, birds, and wild canids and felines have all but vanished, leaving in their place an overgrowth of weeds and several stunned and migrating predators that take every chance they get to pounce on and kill a hunter. Something has either driven away or killed all the game; you have often found nests where animals have lived or spots where combat has taken place, but even if some other carnivore had eaten the animals, there are no remains or carcasses to be found anywhere in the once-full forest.
Still, you can't just abandon it. It's been the steady source of meat for your tribe for uncountable years. You penetrate the thin eaves of evergreens and begin walking deeper into the woods, adopting the smooth, catlike, silent walk that your acquired memories tell you will help you remain unheard. You know that hunting has been traditionally better in the thicker parts of the forest, though they're often far away from home.
Soon you enter the deeper woods and have to maneuver your way over fallen logs and clumps of thick underbrush. Here, the formerly evergreen wood gives way to mixed firs and deciduous trees, littering the ground with a thick mulch of needles and crunchy leaves, and making your attempts at silence harder. Still, it is your noise which gives you your sudden burst of luck: spying movement to your left, you turn to behold a large, brownish rodentlike creature zip between the trees with eerie speed. You didn't manage to get a good look at it, but it was large, and resembled a cross between a rabbit and a kangaroo, and any way you ran after it as soon as you saw it move, motivated by instincts you don't understand and a hunger you do.
The rodent is much faster than you, though, and knows the forest much better. You have something it doesn't, however: projectiles. Gathering a firstful of sharp flints, you lob them one after the other as you pursue the creature, at any instance of movement you see. At first it seems as if you've lost the beast, but before long you hear a high-pitched squeal and a thump in front of you, and draw yourself up beside the screeching and crumpled body of a quick, large-legged forest-running mammal of a distinctly furry and primordial appearance.
The thing is large, almost the size of a pig. Your sharp flint has hit it directly in the side; it's bleeding very badly and won't last much longer. You've killed it; it's just a matter of time. However, as you bend to snap its neck, a thought occurs to you. The creature just won't stop SCREAMING... and any predator in these woods, hungry after so long, could not ignore that sound, or the carcass left here.