Consumption

I don’t know if she means to be cruel or if hunting is simply her nature and she can’t help it, but she is destroying me.

I don’t know this animal, I don’t think she was tracking me from some previous meeting. I don’t know where she came from. She is beautiful and terrible and I can’t look away, yet I loathe her as she rips me to shreds.

I am but a young woman lost in this cold, uncaring wilderness. Separated from anyone who loves me and trying to find my way through this nightmare when she beset me with no warning. Her claws are long and vicious, her roar deafening.

She is a ferocious bear, no doubt a mama to several cubs and fiercely protective of them. She is simply out foraging for what she needs and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I feel the life draining from me as I helplessly grasp for any escape. I know there is none and no help is coming for me. I will surely die here, but with any luck, release will come quickly.

“What do you mean you’re OUT?” she asks. “This is RIDICULOUS! Can’t you do a simple job? You looked EVERYWHERE?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I reply. “There’s nothing in the back room.”

I pray she goes for my neck.

The writing prompt today is “Out.”