Mirrors.

The Arizona Mule deer was quite a popular hunt among the local hunters and Lieutenant Terrance Holt longed for the head of a Mule deer to be the next victim of his taxidermy. The Santa Teresa Wilderness was always famous for the abundance of population of the deer and it was the first piece of land to be delved by Terrance Holt, who took up hunting after retiring from the army. His heart could never let the warm feel of the gun to the chest go away. His father, who was a famous hunter in the locality, always wanted Terrance to be like him and Terrance never let his father down. After serving the nation, he took up the mantle of the “Harrowing Hunter”, a name given to his father and always lived up to the name.

After missing a few shots, Terrance realized his aim was not what it used to be. He looked at the sky, which was now slowly beginning to drape itself with stars and dark clouds and realized that it would be dangerous for him to wander around the forest alone. But the predator in his soul didn’t give up and so, he chased the deer into the dark, scary forest. Soon, the moon appeared and Terrance came to the shocking and spine-tingling realization that he had ventured too deep.

The bare branches spiked into the sky- no sign of life to be found anywhere. It was so dark that he was barely able to see where he was going. Accompanied by his rifle, Terrance was beginning to feel eyes on his back. There were only small sounds of rustling bushes and the wind howling. Even the soft susurration of the leaves felt heavy to his ear. The sense of smell was sensitized, the loam in the earth and the decomposing leaves made the atmosphere close and thick. The narrow path, which was uneven by the knotted roots that crossed it, branched at intervals. Terrance could not just turn around and go back- he was lost. There was no map to follow, but even if there was, the perpetual dark would prevent him from using it. Terrance stood in his track, thinking and analyzing his next move. And that’s when the boom rolled across the forest, announcing the start of what the brooding cloud layer had promised since dawn. The sky grew dark and low with ominous thick clouds and the wind picked up, howling and crying, like a wolf in the night. Soon the rain fell, slow to start, splattering the ground haphazardly. Then it fell as if from buckets, cascading like a waterfall from the heavens. Terrance ran and didn’t stop before he came across an abandoned cabin. Since it was normal for anyone in the state to own a cabin in the woods, he did not think twice before rushing to the cabin for shelter.

When he entered the house, he realized that it was much smaller than it looked- it was not much of a cabin, actually. A roof and some paintings, nothing more. The oldest residents were the spiders. Many generations had laced the place with cobwebs of intricate beauty, though they laid in old rags. Terrance looked around the small place and could feel eyes on him. Shrugging it off as his paranoia, he continued to look around. He knew that he could not return, even after the rain stopped- it was too dangerous with the wildlife around. The house was in a bad condition- fragments of plaster lied damp over a long untrodden floor, dust laid over every surface like dirty snow and the floor was awash with detritus of wildlife. He laid down on the damp floor and clutched his rifle close to his chest, keeping it at arm’s length in case someone or something showed up. He looked at the side of the wall and noticed something peculiar- something he did not notice before. He got up grumpily, with each muscle in his body tired and stretched beyond limit and walked towards the wall.

The first painting was of a man, whose expression threw Terrance off of his calm and relaxed demeanor. Eyes shot with blood and cuts on his face, the man in the painting stared into Terrance’s soul and dug deep. His lips had curved into a eerie smile which cut from ear to ear. His teeth were not normal- they were cut into a sharp shape, identical to a shark’s teeth. Donning a vermilion shirt which one could debate was once a white shirt now plastered with blood, the man stared into Terrance’s soul. Deeply unsettled, Terrance ran towards the next painting which was even more harrowing. He couldn't believe his eyes. He didn’t want to anyway. He never saw something like that even in his worst nightmares. The adrenaline flew over his veins like a carp through the river, but he couldn’t move a single muscle, not even to scream. The absolute horror completely paralyzed him. The man in the painting was missing an eye and the other one was dangling across his face, like a yo-yo. He held a knife which was coated with blood and his face told nothing. He just had a very unsettling expression, which scared Terrance to sleep. He ran back to his old spot and clutched the rifle closer than before, for now his poor soul had been violated by some malevolent force he never had come across in his life.

When the morning sun hit his eyes, the old man got up in a rush to hurry out the house he was stuck in. When he turned around to give the place a glance one last time, he was paralyzed and his face grew pale. The paintings which tore his soul and faith apart the night before never existed. Instead, in their places, all there were just open and free windows, an entry for the cool and damp breeze to flow around.