It begins on the heights,
where the air cuts thin and sharp,
a blade against the lungs.
The fleeing shape streaks through brittle stone,
claws scraping grit,
its breath a shallow rasp
dragged from the unyielding cold.
Behind, something larger descends—
a gaunt silhouette, ribs taut like scaffoldings,
its strides pulled tight by the raw command of hunger.
No fury found in it, no malice—
only the hollow, grinding need to chase.
Each bound closes the distance,
each breath carves away the body that draws it.
Muscle tautens, bones grind,
but it cannot falter.
It will not.
The hunted stumbles.
A single stone shifts beneath its frantic weight,
a ripple of imbalance
that nearly topples the fragile line between survival and failure.
But forward it surges—
not with strength,
but the refusal to surrender.
Behind, the shadow presses closer,
its breath a low rasp,
its limbs too precise for mistakes,
its gaze fixed on the fragile promise of life ahead.
In another world, on another path,
where bellies were full and shadows were safe,
the hunter might have seen the fleeing shape
as a partner in the play of limbs and leaps,
an echo to its boundless motion.
So too, the prey might have paused
to watch the hunter bound through snow,
no longer a threat but a spectacle,
both content to share the same wide sky.
But this is not that world.
Here, there is only the *****,
the strain,
the brittle thread that pulls them both taut.
Below, the frozen plain stretches wide,
its surface a gleaming wound,
its tension barely concealed.
The hunted reaches it first,
feet skidding across the brittle crust,
fractures snapping out in frantic bursts.
Behind, the larger shadow follows,
its weight heavier,
its steps forcing splinters into the surface,
the distance collapsing with every bound.
The leap comes—violent, inevitable.
Two bodies collide,
a tangle of limbs and intent.
Then the ground answers,
not with a roar,
but a sharp, final crack.
The surface gives way.
They fall together,
pulled into the black water below,
where the cold rises to meet them.
It—like the hunter—is not cruel.
Cruelty would demand intent,
and it has none.
In any world, in any place,
it takes.
It hungers for nothing, needs nothing,
but claims all that enters its grasp.
Breath. Motion. Warmth.
All are sifted into stillness.
It threads itself between muscle and marrow,
pressing out life with an indifference
too vast to name.
Above, the plain smooths over,
its scars vanishing into pale perfection.
The ***** watches in silence.
The wind moves on,
carrying no memory of struggle,
no whisper of what was lost.
Only the stillness remains,
a quiet that lingers heavy and final,
where nothing flees,
and nothing follows.