The Hunters

He truly was his father's son, who had taught him that every bullet made him more of a god. And as he walked through the woods with this man he felt that he owned it. But things hadn't always been like that. He remembered how the forest looked so dead that night, he had walked through the forest before and could only think of life. Even in the winter when the trees were dead there was a natural presence that held his attention. There would be animals all around him with little fear, for he was a visitor and fear it seemed wasn't an explorer. But his time it was different, there were no animals there was no more life in the place that seemed now more like a no mans land. That's when his father showed him the art of the hunt. "They know that we're here, sometimes silence is louder then a shot".

Andrew remembered this at the present moment as his ears were deafened by a silence that made him wonder what it would be like to be dead.

His thoughts went back to his father and the first hideout that they had built together. They ripped apart a near by thicket, stripping it of the bushes and various vines that made it. While they were doing so a fox ran briskly from his solitude, his father grabbed his gun instinctively that was hanging on his shoulder strap and fired a shot. It missed and the fox escaped. Andrew asked his father why he had shot at the fox when they had come to shoot deer.

His father said "It doesn't make a difference; there is no difference when it comes to hunting, anything that exists only has value measured in strength which is why we can never be to powerful".

Andrew didn't really understand at the time but he always remembered his words. They had recreated a thicket under a tree and sat in it waiting, he wondered why they didn't just sit in the thicket in its natural setting. But then he remembered another quote that his father had told him;

"The only thing natural on earth is what man creates, the world is our forging ground and we can do no harm".

This made him feel special and he smiled confidently. They had been waiting for an hour with nothing in sight. He wanted to break the silence and speak to his father but was afraid to disrupt anything, so he waited to be spoken to. As the time progressed it seemed that the forest was coming back to life. There were birds chirping and singing waiting for a new dawn, deep down he had always liked birds, the sounds always made him laugh. They reminded him of his little sister who was taken away by his mother all those years ago.

So cute he had thought. She would make little noises when she laughed and even when she cried that sounded like chirps or a song that wasn't finished yet still enlightening. Being only 2 years old she cried allot, his father hated her. The night that his mother and sister left his mother was an unforgettable one. His father had left to make his bi-monthly trip for gasoline. Andrew sat in his room with his sister on the floor playing with building blocks that his father had made them when his mother came into the room. This was a strange thing indeed for he had never seen her out of her chains before. Since he was old enough to remember she had been chained to the wall in his father's bedroom.