...the little death, girl.

Crawling, creeping, creaking along, she let the world ease beneath her. Grass and leaves, they littered the floor- the latter swallowing the former. There was a certain sort of irony to that, too - one that didn't go unnoticed. Soon, the world would be white, snow in thick drifts. Bleats would turn into beats, hooves stamping in the snow, and she knew it would only make them easier to catch.

The little lives here were nothing but figments of an overactive imagination anyway. Soon, it wouldn't matter one whit.

The snow would come and snuff out all of those lives.

It would have help.

She would stalk and slither after them, one by one, effective adversary to taking out all those little lives.

She wouldn't lose a lick of sleep over it, either. She wouldn't stay up and stare at the starry sky, wondering why, Gods, why? had she done what she'd done. Why had she ended such sad little stories before they got started?

Sad stories about a deer and a hunter, a picker, a perfect personification of all things wrong in the world. She knew it better than most, and even then, she didn't feel the need to stop herself.

A few feet away, a fawn was nosing at some leaves, searching for the barely green grass hiding beneath it. Just another day, another meal, another five minutes of fame it might have felt the second she snapped her teeth around its throat.

So much for playing in the snow.