tomahawk

Sylvia, I see her standing on a dirt mound pushed to the side of an unfinished road on the outskirts of my neighborhood. I see her slim figure rise to the summit. Raven black hair cascading down the small of her back, she plants her feet wide and stares down at me, a queen surveying her kingdom. In her right hand: a tomahawk fashioned from a thick branch a wedge-shaped stone and some twine. Wearing moccasins, khaki shorts, and a fluttering crimson tank top, she is backlit by the sun, which appears like a golden halo around her darkened face. I am transfixed. She descends, revealing pale skin untouched by the sun and a stoic expression and black eyes that extract information from my startled expression. She approaches, and I inhale her strangely pleasant scent of sweat, campfire smoke, and pine straw. Her voice is soft but subtly threatening, and she keeps a tight grip on her weapon. I share my name and she hers. It rolls off her tongue like the sound of something slipping over the edge of a chasm. I tell her I'm a runaway; she nods and leads me to her camp. At dusk, she leaves for far too long. I search in the twilight woods and soon am lost, but I hear the crunching of leaves nearby and, frightened, I crouch behind a boulder on the hillside. The sound stops right next to me. I squint but cannot see. Instead, I hear a baby crying, so out of place in these dim woods, then from the gloom emerges a spotted fawn with golden fur, limping, glancing around, lost. Its leg hangs off the ground, twisted at an unnatural angle. The creature cries again and fresh goosebumps fill my arms. It freezes, and its face points at me, and I am anchored in its pure black eyes until a crow caws above us, and the creature looks up, and a larger shape rises from the ground behind it. I shrink back, the fawn glances at me, and I want to scream a warning but there is no time, only a quick whooshing, and the fawn's gaze disconnects as it falls. The dark assassin raises its arm again and again, chopping into the creature as it squeals and struggles, and a finger of blood rises several feet into the air, splashing down onto the dead leaves. With one final blow, all is silent. I back away as the shape rises and her sweet voice calls out my name. What'd you do that for? I respond. Dinner, she says before pulling her tomahawk out of the fawn's throat. It is madness but I fear her, love her more.