I breathed in and out very slowly, taking deep breaths to steady my shot. Not a hundred yards through the pine timbers stood tall a proud, ten point buck. It had taken me a full hour to make myself a find like this, not even talking about the fact that I had been camped out for three days, but it was all worth the wait. The buck was completely unaware of my presence, being that I was crouched low in the tall grass that surrounded me, keeping well hidden by my Zonz woodlands camouflage. I was wearing a Zonz under armour shirt and tights under my sweat shirt and pants. Yeah, I call them tights for the simple lack of better word. It was a little chilly, so I also had on my face mask and fingerless gloves to go with the rest of my outfit, keeping me completely unseen. The only thing that wasn't camo were the black Bogs that I wore on my feet. I personally rate Bogs as the best hunting boots, but that's just me. Keeping out of the eye's view, however, wouldn't cut it for deer hunting, so guess what I brought—spray-on, doe pee—gross, but effective.

Anyway, the oblivious deer was still just looking around with its head held high before putting its massive rack down to a salt block left on the ground as a special treat for it. It was considered illegal to bait deer because of the 'unfair advantage' compliant, but tree huggers will hug trees and hunters will hunt. For crying out loud—its my food, and I need it, so I decided to use the brain I was given to my greatest advantage, and today, that meant baiting. Fortunately, I was down wind as well, so the buck didn't get too weird about the whole doe pee thing.

I took one last deep breath as I made sure my arrow would make its mark. The arrow I had notched was of the very best—Toxic three-blade broadhead—made to burrow a gaping hole through any large prey animal, making it bleed out much quicker than any other typical broadhead. I always had six other arrows in my arrow holder on my bow. Two back up Toxic broadheads, two G5 Havoc two-blade expandable broadheads, a G5 small-game head, and a G5 Montec CS broadhead. It was a pretty reliable arrangement, though, I still had at least a hundred different kinds back at camp. The bow itself was a Diamond Archery Deploy SB R.A.K., mossy oak, seventy pound draw, compound bow.

With my shot to be sure, I let the arrow fly. It made a clean course through the buck's heart, making it leap to the air in fright. I let it skip along a bit before I stood from my hunkered down position. I watched as it ran among the bushes of the forest until it slowed to a walk, which slowed all the more to a lousy stumble until it finally fell over.

"Well, he didn't make it too far, now did he?" I mumbled to myself through my short and curly, scruffy, blonde beard in compliment to the maker of the Toxic broadheads.

Throughout my three day camp out, I had to take in small things like rabbits, coons, squirrels, and even porcupines. They weren't much, but they did just fine. But now, I could finally get back home with enough food to last me a few months if I was sparing with it. Fortunately, this buck was too weak to be running around after the first hit. Hunting between going to the store was actually a nice way to go for me, and considering the fact that I'm not a full-on survivalist man, in-town things are quite convenient.

I made my way through the brush to my new kill with a smile on my face after retrieving the arrow. "Goodness gracious, look at you," I said aloud as I took a better, close-up look of the buck. I was a nice, fat whitetail with a rack big enough to make a decorative coat hanger. I really wasn't in the mood to try and heave that big beast on my shoulders, so I opted to head back to the camp for my ATV. The forest was thin enough to drive it around and there was hardly any luck going for me if I chose to carry my kill or even drag it.

Making it a quarter mile back to the camp, I put my bow and it's arrows back in their case in my woodlands Stealth Hunter 4 ground blind. What I found odd though, was the fact that my tent was opened. I figured I accidentally left it open for one reason or another, and just didn't zip it back up. Not thinking much about it, since no one lived around where I did anyway, I went to go start up the ATV. Just as I was about to head back out on the ATV however, I heard a grunt from out behind the tent. I killed the engine of the ATV and quickly went to retrieve my Barnett Ghost 415 Revenant crossbow. Boy, oh boy, I'll tell you one thing right now—this Barnett Ghost is really expensive, not to mention that it's my bear killer. Yeah, I bought it just for that. I've never used it, but I always had it just in case. But at that moment, I needed it. There's only one animal that makes that kind of nasty, little grunt—grizzly bear.

With my crossbow out and a STK-3 broadhead bolt notched and locked, I scurried out of the tent and slowly peaked out behind it. Oddly enough, I didn't see anything. Hopefully, the bear decided my stuff wasn't interesting and left. With a sigh, I lowered my crossbow and turned around to head back to the ATV. It was then that I jumped back in fear. I was a little confused, but no less afraid that there was a massive, blue grizzly reared on it's hind paws. I didn't hear, smell, or see anything when the bear came up behind me, which didn't help to lessen my fright.

I reacted by flicking my crossbow up to take a shot at the underside of the bear's head, but the beast moved with unbelievable speed as it brought it right paw down on my left cheek. I didn't have the chance to pull the trigger, nor did I hardly even have time to register the fact that the bear hit me, but once it did, I blacked out immediately.

Now there's one way to go out.

Author's Note

Alright, so this is a side story I'll be working on it when I need a little break from my main story, Brothers. I hope you enjoy this one as well, and I'll also be taking suggestions from commentators on how this story should go since there is really no foreseeable end to this story...or...I guess until the main character dies or whatever, but that ain't gonna happen any time soon. Oh yeah, short prologue as well, but chapters will certainly be longer.