A Bad Memory
faceless-content v1
Adapt story
Readyv8 · sonnetOne Set of Footsteps
A fifteen-year-old hides in a tree above a dying deer and watches something ancient feed — and understands, too late, that it already knew he was there.
- 1hook
She said she didn't like being watched while she ate. She said it to herself — in two different voices — and she never once looked up at the tree I was hiding in.
Visual: POV from high in a bare winter tree looking straight down — a pale hunched figure crouching over a dark shape on a gray forest floor, flat November light, the figure's head never tilting upward - 2setup
Fifteen years old. November, Northern Ontario. My cousin Jensen went back for the deer sled, leaving me alone in a shallow dried creek bed with a dying buck. The sounds it made weren't cries. Weren't breathing. Something in between.
Visual: A pale teenage boy alone in a narrow forest trench, gray leafless trees pressing close on both sides, a dark-antlered deer barely visible on the ground beside him — everything brown, gray, still - 3rising
Voices reached me first. Two of them — bickering, getting closer. Then footsteps. Just one set.
Visual: Close-up of dead leaves on a forest floor, a single line of crunching footprints, the boy's face high above in the trees — head tilted, listening, expression wrong - 4rising
She stepped into the creek bed — pale, almost gray, completely barefoot in November. One shoulder lower than the other. A limp that looked permanent. Necessary. She walked straight to the deer. No hesitation. As though she'd known exactly where it was before she ever rounded the bend.
Visual: A tall barefoot woman with a shaved scalp and grayish skin moving between dark bare trunks — mismatched shoulders, deliberate limp, face turned away — the deer a dark shape she's already locked onto - 5rising
Both voices were coming from one mouth. One deeper — a woman imitating a man. The other flat, obedient, repeating itself. She dropped to her knees. I was fifteen feet up, pressing both hands over my face. My legs shook hard enough I thought the branch would move.
Visual: Tight profile of the woman's face at ground level — lips moving, two expressions cycling across the same features, small scabs on her bare scalp; a boy's white knuckles gripping bark visible in the dark upper corner of frame - 6twist
When she stood to leave, dragging the deer by one hoof, the deeper voice said — quietly — 'She doesn't like being watched while she eats.' A pause. The other answered: 'I don't like being watched while I eat.' Back and forth. She kept walking. She never looked up. She didn't need to.
Visual: The woman's bare back receding down the dark trench, one arm extended dragging a carcass — the boy's knuckles white in the top-right corner, frozen — her head perfectly level, never rising toward him - 7climax
Jensen came back hauling the sled. Saw the blood. The drag trail. Kicked through the leaves — and froze. The organs, cached underneath. He looked at me. Fear lasted half a second. Then understanding. The safety clicked off his rifle. 'We need to leave. Right now.'
Visual: Jensen — mid-thirties, hunting gear, rifle raised — standing over disturbed leaves at dusk, scanning the tree line, expression grim rather than scared; the boy half-fallen from the tree behind him - 8payoff
Next morning: strangers at the table. Conversation stopped when I walked in. My uncle's cold hand on my shoulder. 'Some places aren't meant for everybody.' One thing left unsaid: before she found the deer, the deeper voice called her a name. Old. Like it was listening when spoken. I still remember it exactly. I won't write it here.
Visual: A teenage boy in a kitchen doorway, two unknown men at the table gone silent, morning light flat and cold; an older man's hand on the boy's shoulder from behind — everyone watching the boy; the boy staring at the floor