A Giant's Hands [ON HOLD]

Chapter 6 [THE SURVIVOR] - The Price of Freedom (part 1)

The Survivor stood tall among the leaves of the underbrush, the expression on his face unreadable, as he looked down at his kill.

Once, not too long ago, there had still been a last remnant of softness about him, a hint of uncertainity in his features, a last bit of childlike roundness to his cheeks, the slightest stoop to his posture.

But that was when he still had a name.

He had none now, for there was no one left to call him by it, and all that was soft and insecure had been burned away with the loss.

He stood tall now.
Fierce and determined.
His body was lean and his muscles taut - he had no room for excess fat - his once so young face now a picture of sober strength and masculinity, the stolid look in his eyes belying his true age, his disenchanted air making him seem, in a way, like a fifty year old battle-worn soldier, inhabiting the body of a seventeen year old.

That was okay.

There was no one left to look into his eyes.
He had no need to seem anything but what he had become.

He was The Survivor now.

Because, that was all he did.

He survived.

And, he vowed, he would continue to do so.

The Survivor looked up through the dense foliage of the underbrush, judging the sky.
There was not much time left before dusk set in, and he still needed to build a fire and be ready to either hide or extinguish it by the onset of darkness, lest the glow be spotted.

He gripped his makeshift spear, and, giving it a powerful yank, pulled it from the dead rat at his feet.

The survivor got to work.

***

It was, when the first snow of that year came much earlier than expected, bringing with it the harsh bite of nightfrost that the survivor wasn't yet fully prepared for, that he decided to make a temporary settlement within a human's habitation.

As was his custom, he had already scouted out likely places for use in an emergency, but he had never intendet to stay at any of those places for long.
Now, however, he would settle in one of those houses for winter, so he would need to make preparations to get ready for such a lengthy stay.

When he was done adjusting and repairing his gear, aswell as assembling a surplus of all the items he might not have ready access to while he lived in a human's house - there might not always be a risk-free way to enter and exit as he liked - the Survivor sat down for a moment, to make his decision.

So far, he had two viable options.

One was a smallish house where an elerly couple lived.
Residing there, would give him relative freedom for most of the time, as, from what he had been able to discover, neither was very attentive, and they kept so much old stuff - clothing, furniture, memorabilia - in their attic, that it was almost too full for a human to traverse, making it an ideal place for the the Survivor, as husband and wife did not appear overly keen to even enter the place anymore.

However, they frequently housed what the Survivor supposed was their grand-child in their guest-room, and she always brought her cat.

The animal wasn't supposed to roam the attic, since the owners feared (rightly so, nasty things) that the cat would damage or destroy some of what they kept there, but cats always found a way, and accidents happened.

The Survivor was confident that he would be able to deal with the beast should it invade, but he did not fancy having to stay on cat-watch day and night.

The other house belonged to a familiy of four. The father was a middle aged man who, as people with desk-jobs will, had already started to become somewhat chubby, his hair not quite grey, but on its way there.
The Mother looked to be about the same age, but where he became round, age started her towards becoming bony.

They had two daugthers, both having inherited their mothers thin and sharp figure, but their fathers friendly feautures.
The survivor guessed the younger to be about ten, while the elder sister was probably closer to his own age, although, thinking of someone so.. young and carefree like that, as anything like himself felt wrong, and made the Survivor feel old beyond his years.

The accomodations weren't as secure or as easily accessable as those in the other house.
There was a suitably large space between two walls that the Survivor could claim for himself, but he would have to traverse the large bookshelf in the fathers study to reach it, and would basically be forced to expose himself to plain view for a short bit, whenever he left for a supply-run or returned.

Still, that was a small sacrifice to make in exchange for not having to watch out for a cat.

What decided him in the end, suprisingly, was the livelyness of the family - who were called the Jenners.

Things between the elderly couple were often calm and silent, while there was noise and mess and light and laughter at the Jenners house.

The Survivor had been on his own for what must have been more than three years now, and as the days grew darker and colder, the light and the warmth of the Jenners home drew him in.

And so,

he went.

***

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