The Park was surprisingly quiet and it made the atmosphere very eerie. Usually you’d here people scurrying around but all he heard was nature at this point. He almost felt like he was being watched. Darren knew he needed to stay on his guard; otherwise he could end up having a hole the size of a walnut gaping through his skull. He then cautiously kept his hand on his gun holster just in case. Times like this he wished that he had some sort of fucking rifle but the bastards at the Children of God rounded up most of the heavy weapons during the beginning of ‘The Apostate’. He was lucky to already have his Glock pistol since start. He already owned it before the whole event. However a pistol is not a viable weapon when it comes to hunting or a gunfight with the Children of God. Nevertheless, having some sort of weapon is better than nothing. There are many deadly creatures in this world now. Wolves, bears, cougars roam the ruins of civilization looking for some poor sucker to prey on. 

Darren tries to think too much on this thought otherwise he’ll get distracted. He continues walking through woods, stepping over massive roots and scattered leaves. There uses to be a pathway in Central Park to follow but it’s slowly being drowned by the green grass ever since ‘The Apostate’. Ever since then you just make your own path through. The trees are so tall that if it wasn’t for the skyline of New York City, you could get lost forever. In the middle of his train of thought, he heard the slight snapping of a twig. Darren looks around with vigilance. As far as his eyes could tell there was no one around him but the woods hold many blind spots for attackers both animal and human. He takes his fire axe off his back-holster and carries it with his right hand. All of a sudden, he has this odd eerie feeling that he was being watched by some sort of predator. It feels like death is trying to set his sight on his soul. Darren wants death come. 

Some of the twig snapping started to mutate into slightly louder noises. A human would have shot him by now so this must be creature but what could it be? A wolf? A bear? A cougar? A lion possibly? He needs to take it out before it kills him. He lets the fire axe hang limply from his hand as he scrapes it slowly at some nearby rocks. He wants the creature to show himself. Most animals have better hearing than humans, so the sound of metal scraping rocks would encourage it to show itself to get rid of whoever is making the sound. Darren can feel the danger lurking by the trees. It’s watchful eyes peering almost into his soul. He continued to scrape the axe, the unbearable noise is quite ear-piercing, not many creatures have a high resistant to it. He felt like the wind had stopped and that the world around him has frozen just for this moment. 

Within a quick instant he turns around swings the axe in the air. It was like the moments before a car crash where time feels like it has stopped for only a few seconds and you are stuck in a freeze frame looking at death. It came in the shape of a grey wolf, its sharpened teeth are like daggers in the night and it’s eyes give the soul a grimly chill as you look into them. Its fur was grey but a dark grey, dark as night it is and this gives almost a representation to the wolf’s own soul. This few second freeze frame shows a lone wolf jumping in the air at Darren, with Darren swing his axe towards its necking before it pounces him. This symbolism of this makes it feel like Red Riding Hood. Darren, the Woodsman against the Big Bad Wolf. It’s a shame that there’s no Red Riding Hood here to save. 

As time proceeded the axe brutally became stuck into the neck of the wolf and the force of the swing brought the wolf down to Darren’s side. The blow instantly killed the beast. Blood splattered over Darren but he wasn’t some pussy that would freak out over it. Those people died long ago. He wiped the blood off his face and jacket and placed his hand on the axe that was stuck in the wolf. It was shoved pretty deep and it took some strong pulls to rip it out. Doing so caused more blood to stream out the dead animal. He then went down onto his knees and took a small knife out from one of his pockets. He stuck it in pretty deep into its stomach and rigidly and with force cut its stomach open. It was a disgusting and brutal process but predatory animals these days have known to accidentally ingest important survival items when they attack humans. The stomach was finally pried open ad blood and guts just fell out of it like something out an old horror movie. The stomach contents were mostly animal parts but there was compass, which he proceeded to take, and a badge that represented the Children of God logo. 

It seems to be some grunt from the extremist group got himself taken down by Mother Nature. He didn’t care about whoever died. All he is thinking to himself right now is: Are there more wolves in the area and are there any Children of God soldiers scouting the park? Regardless, Darren didn’t dwell on these questions; he continued to cut off some bits off the wolf and placed it in his bag. He finally found some meat; all he had to do was skin it and cook it. He stood up and proceeded to walk away from the dead beast. He just needed to find himself some fruit and get out of this forest. Something tells him that his fortunes awaits him something or someone in these woods. He just hopes he’s wrong.