Y Ddraig Goch

June 20 2025 - Alone

Prompt - I'm setting the scene and giving you the opening line and you're writing what happens next: It's evening and there's a mist rolling in this small town. Begin your entry with-- I've never felt so alone.

***

I've never felt so alone, or perhaps that's a lie.

I'm not a social butterfly like my sister. I don't surround myself with others. I don't like people. I do not have friends - a completely useless social endeavour. I'm certainly not the type of girl... woman... to giggle over gossip and spill secrets while sipping tea and delicately biting into cucumber sandwiches. However, I confess that at this precise moment in time I can see the benefits of not being alone - if only so I could trip someone up and outrun them. Does that make me a bad person - perhaps. It also makes me honest, which is a rarity around here.

I have no hope of out running the beast before me. It looks like it's built for running. Powerful hind quarters designed for quick acceleration. It would be on me instantly. But a person. Another human being. I'd definitely have a chance then. It's a pointless thought. There is no one else here. Just me and the giant, bear-like creature that's currently stalking me like I'm its next meal, which is a very high probability all things considered.

It's not a bear. I’ve seen bears. It’s not a wolf either. It’s too small. And the cats – all the big ones died out long ago. Though there is something definitively feline about it. Its muscular shoulders twitch and ripple under its black, dense fur as it bears down to a pounce. Its paws are hidden by the thick fog that’s rolled in from the across the lake, but even I can guess that its claws probably resemble a fist full of knives. Sharp, piecing, the type that can easily strip the flesh from my bones. I doubt I’d be difficult for it to unwrap.

Its eyes watch me to track my every movement – or they would if I were stupid enough to move. I’m not stupid, nor am I brave enough to chance it and make a run for the rowdy tavern across the shingle beach.

It's a stalemate. The beast is waiting for me to break. To run. To become its prey. I’m waiting for a miracle or a magical intervention. I’d settle for a drunken one – where are those blithering, mead filled idiots when you need them. Surely one of them could stumble out to take a piss and divert the creatures attention.

A small fishing boat beaches on the shore. The fishermen are loud, barking orders to each other as they unpack their catch. It’s enough to break the creature’s focus. On my own, I’m an easy target. A convenient walking, talking happy meal. But the arrival of my saviours makes me more hassle than I’m worth.

The beast turns and runs. The small pebbles under its feet flick up like the sprays of the sea as it bounds back into the forest and melts into the shadows of the trees.