Excerpts from the recovered Journal of Eidurn, child of Eimik and Arudurn, hunter

My name is Eidurn, child of Eimik and Arudurn and I am hunting a monster. I came prepared, but I don’t know if it will be enough and I fear I will not survive this ordeal. But I have to keep going. I’m recording this in case I don’t make it back, so there is at least something, ANYTHING to remember me by. If you are reading this let it be known I am tired and did not go quietly into the dark.

The monster is near. I can feel it….

I’m out here alone in the dark and the quiet. I can feel the greatness of the mountains above me and the shadow of the bridge above. Gran used to tell me the story of how we came to the mountains, pursued and hunted by a great unknown--our ancestors driven from the base and far into the sky. She’d say “Eina, we were almost gone. They hunted and fed on us and we are safe here.”

I didn’t believe her until I saw the markings on the wall. Old and half worn away but I could still see them. They showed us fleeing up high towards the bridge from dark and repeating patterns I’d never seen before. 

I miss the sound of her voice. I haven’t heard another person speak in so long, not even myself. I’m beginning to forget the sound of my own voice. 

I broke my bow today. I’ll be able to fix it eventually but… I can’t hunt it like this. I was shooting game when the wind overtook me and I fell and cracked it. There’s a hairline fracture in it, I’ll need to mend it before I can use it again or I’ll break it for good. 

I also lost my knife today. The one my mother gave to me, the small one. I can carry on without it but how many more attachments to my family will this monster take?

But I did see it today. Through the snow and the wind I saw the looming beast and fired upon it. It screeched a great roar before charging at me. I hid deep in a fallen log but it’s claws slashed through it and tore at my skin. It didn’t break through my leather but I can feel a bruise forming around the area. 

I managed to hide until it gave up on me for the day. 

I find myself in a daze, working each day, tracking, hunting, preparing, all while my mind is as blank as the snow. It’s as if I am no longer a person but an animal working within these woods and mountains. I am living life through a haze of a dream and when I prepare anything extra it is immediately lost. I smoked some extra meat from a bird I shot and a wolf claimed it from me. 

It's as though I cannot upset the balance and I must find my place within this world. I find myself dreaming of my life across the bridge. I wake in the morning as always and am greeted by my family. We navigate our caves and harvest the birds from the silken webs outside the cliffs. 

Our knives were  sharp and sliced easily through the strands. We laughed and sang as we worked and took our bounty inside to the hub of our city. We passed the miners carving new homes in our caves, and the weavers dying new silks from the spiders. But I saw it in the patterns of the walls and the gaps in the nets, the symbol, the warning of repeating patterns and diamonds. 

It stalks me even in my dreams and I awoke with the words, “ I will find you Wren,” echoing through my mind and I spoke to it aloud, “And I will kill you, Vulture.”

Rotten, all of it was rotten. All the fish from the river rotted away, after I had spent hours fishing though the ice. I think that maybe I am not supposed to take from the river…. There isn’t much else to eat. I’ll have to go further down the mountain to find more deer or something. I will need to re-enter the treeline. 

I don’t understand why it came that far up the mountain to begin with. Why was it here? Why did it… why did it begin to hunt us again? We won’t be safe until it’s dead. Even if I can’t end it… I’ve hurt it, others will come. It’s been…  too long since I’ve seen the faces of those I love. 

I pray that I won’t find the burial pit. I’ve steered clear of that side of the mountain, where we drop our bodies. There were too many that day and I ran out of rope to bind them. We tossed them off the side and I could see them unravel on the way down. 

People were too afraid of the Vulture to gather food. Too many starved and the bodies piled high. She tried to fight it but it clawed and snapped its terrible beak and she went down.

I saw the face of my little sister as she fell, the silk unwrapping around her. The Vulture snatched her body too from the sky. I had never regretted working with the dead until that day. I will kill that thing before anyone else will starve.

I have found a bush of holly berries, poisonous to all things. I know even the beast cannot survive this and I will use it to coat my arrows.

The snows have driven me into a small cave. I cannot hunt in this weather. I was lucky I found it at all… I have gotten better at using the pendulum… but I still have trouble telling which way it wants me to go. I lose focus sometimes… but it led me to this cave and it has led me to the Vulture more than once. 

I took it from my sister. She was much better at using it than me. I took all her gear except the lost knife. The heavy axe, the bow, the clothes that barely fit, all of it was her’s. It’s almost too much and the axe, invaluable as it may be, is too much for me to swing. I have enough firewood for a while.

The nightmares have returned each night I am in the cave. I see it each night, the Vulture returning to the city, with its horrendous shriek and my sister with her shining axe facing it. 

It shrieks and I awake each night with the same thought in my mind, “ I will find you Wren.” 

I can hear it in the wind in the mouth of the cave and I try to remember a better time: my sister stroking my hair and sharpening her axe. She used to say something to me, or maybe sing, but I cannot remember. All I hear is the wind when she opens her mouth.

The cave is snowed in. I cannot leave. I sit here clutching my sister’s axe and fingering my bow, the only weapon I know how to use. The only one they teach to everyone in the city. 

I think back now on why I couldn’t stay at home. I miss her. I miss everyone. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Let my family know that I love them and that I should have listened to them.