Merlin stared at the rabbit in his hands.
How am I supposed to eat this?
He swallowed. "I guess I'll have to cut it first," he muttered, though he had no idea how. And even if he did—how would he cook it?
He scanned the forest floor for fallen branches. Nothing. Only damp earth and roots.
Something shifted against his palms.
Merlin froze.
The rabbit moved. Weakly. Its chest fluttered, breath shallow but present—still holding on to what little life it had left.
A sharp jolt struck his chest. Every muscle in his body tensed.
I have to set it free.
His jaw clenched. Slowly, he lowered the rabbit to the ground and drew his dagger, positioning the blade at the back of its neck.
He stopped.
The rabbit trembled, letting out a faint, broken sound.
Merlin's lips shook.
"Fine," he whispered. "I'll count."
One.
He inhaled and held it.
Two.
His eyes locked onto the dagger. His hand trembled. He reinforced his grip with the other.
Three.
He pushed down.
The blade sank halfway through in an instant.
Merlin stared, stunned by how easy it was.
Realizing it wasn't finished, he shook his head. "Sorry," he said, and forced the blade the rest of the way through.
He lifted his head. Sweat ran down his face like he had just finished a marathon. He looked at the sky.
It was the same as before.
He hadn't expected anything to change, but the stillness felt like a quiet disappointment. For a moment, he thought punishment might have made this easier to bear.
He lifted the rabbit by its hind legs. Blood poured from the severed neck. He covered the head and the dark patch on the ground with sand.
The scent might attract something.
Merlin looked at the rabbit again.
No fire.
No tools.
No idea what he was doing.
His stomach growled, sharp and impatient, but he ignored it. He tore a strip from the inner lining of his coat and wrapped the rabbit carefully, tying it shut with trembling fingers.
"Later," he said.
The word felt fragile.
He tucked the bundle under his arm and stood. His legs felt stiff, his head light. The forest stretched ahead—tall, silent, indifferent.
A bird suddenly took flight somewhere deeper within.
Merlin flinched.
He adjusted his grip on the dagger and began to walk.
He didn't know where he was going. Only that standing still felt worse. He stared at his shaking hands as if they were still stained red.
Back to the river, he told himself.
He knelt by the water and lowered his hands into the current. The cold bit at his skin, sharp and numbing, but he didn't pull away. He watched the blood loosen and spiral off, thinning into pink threads before disappearing.
He scrubbed until his fingers ached.
The dagger came next. He turned the blade so the current could carry the stain from the steel.
When he was done, he sat back on his heels and listened to the water sliding over stone.
Then he stood.
If the river was here, it had come from somewhere—and he probably wasn't the only one using it.
Merlin followed it upstream, keeping close to the bank. The ground grew firmer. The roots thinned. The forest opened slightly, as if the river had carved a narrow path through it over time.
Not far ahead, something caught his eye.
Half-buried near the water's edge lay a length of dark cord, frayed and stiff with age. Merlin crouched and pulled it free. It resisted, then tore loose from the roots.
A snare. Broken. Abandoned.
He turned it over in his hands.
Someone had known how to survive out here.
Nearby, lodged between two stones, lay a shard of blackened wood. Charred. Light as bone.
He brushed the dirt from it and frowned.
A fire.
Old—but not ancient.
Merlin straightened slowly, suddenly more aware of the forest around him. The river kept flowing. Birds called overhead.
Whatever had been here was gone now.
Still, he slipped the cord into his pocket and kept the charcoal in his hand as he continued forward.
Then the thought struck him.
He wasn't alone.
He followed the river until he reached a clearing marked by a scatter of pale, flat stones. They formed a natural circle—an ideal place to sit, but little else.
The previous spot had been better.
Merlin hesitated.
A sharp screech echoed through the forest.
It wasn't loud by the time it reached him, but it carried enough to tighten his chest. He looked up.
Birds burst from the trees in the direction of the sound.
Merlin glanced at the river. Small waves rippled across its surface, disturbed by something upstream. Moments later, fish began rushing past him, swimming hard with the current.
He didn't panic.
He made his decision.
Merlin turned and headed back the way he came.
He didn't rush.
Running wasted breath. Noise wasted safety.
By the time he reached the earlier spot—the one with the charred wood and the broken snare—the forest had settled again. No more screeching. No more fleeing birds.
That didn't mean anything.
He stepped into the clearing slowly and listened.
Wind through leaves. Water against stone.
Nothing else.
Merlin crouched and examined the ground more carefully this time. The earth near the old fire pit was packed flatter than the surrounding soil. Used repeatedly. Not recently—but not forgotten either.
He moved a few paces away from it.
If someone returned, they would return there first.
A fallen branch lay several steps off, long and mostly dry beneath the bark. He tested it with his weight before snapping it against a rock. It broke with effort.
Good.
He gathered what he could find—smaller sticks, brittle twigs caught in roots, bark peeled loose from a leaning trunk. He kept the pile modest. Carrying too much made movement slow.
Near the base of a wide tree, its roots rose from the ground in a rough arch. The space between them formed a shallow hollow, half-sheltered from the wind and angled slightly away from the river.
Not perfect.
But defensible.
Merlin cleared the hollow with his hands, brushing away damp leaves and stones until bare earth showed beneath. He layered the driest leaves he could find over it, then laid branches across the roots to break the open angle above him. Crude. Uneven.
Temporary.
He sat back and studied it.
It would not protect him from everything.
But it would force something to make noise before reaching him.
That was enough.
The light above had begun to thin, the sky shifting toward evening without asking his permission.
Merlin placed the wrapped rabbit beside him and rested the dagger across his lap.
He did not lie down.
Not yet.
Sleeping before understanding his surroundings? It didn't sound like a good idea.