Deer in Peril

For her prompt today,

I hide as my mother taught me to do. https://crispinakemp.com/2022/06/22/crimsons-creative-challenge-189/ has posted the picture of a deer.

Humans aren’t to be trusted, their guns ripping through the undergrowth against us. They hunt, stalk and never leave us alone. We cannot survive if we don’t have a sense of security.

I don’t move, and not even the wind is allowed to find me.

He moves through the grass, careful where he treads, so I don’t hear him coming towards me.

My heart is silent, its beats slow, slow, slow. It is as though I am not alive. Mum is with me. No longer can I hear the pitter patter of her hooves. One day she told me to hide, the next she disappeared into the air, her last words to me etched in my ears.

Hide, run, and tell others – the hunter has come to our woods, we are no longer safe. Their season, is our death warrant. Their guns too powerful to outrun anymore.

A twig snaps, and I have no choice but to run to the forest, towards freedom.