Fear fill me

I cannot pierce the darkness, though I strain with all my might. My back is to the fire, yet still I shiver. A crown of tension encircles my head, my eyeballs burn, incessantly searching the tree line, desperately striving to perceive that which cannot be seen. A leaden snake sits in my intestines, grating my guts; it writhes and lurches, gorging itself on my agony, slowly shredding my sanity. War drums pound within my chest, a beat unnaturally fast, uncomfortable, unsustainable.

I listen with outstretched ears, probing the limits of my world, and I hear... my jagged breath, the crackling of the fire... and further out... every single sound that emanates from the obsidian shadows, each of which could be either a mere crumpled leaf, or else the footstep of my destroyer, ready to bring devastation . Here I remain: sitting, shivering, staring into the abyss, unable to penetrate the black curtain of death, at the threshold of which even this moment crouches my doom, a hideous face, snarling, licking its lips, saliva dribbling from the corners of its mouth, grinning inwardly, contenting itself with delight at the anticipation of my destruction.

How much longer until dawn? Oh my god... help me.

I am no coward. But I cannot shake this terror. A coward is scared for his own life; I fear failing them all. If I fall asleep, even for the briefest moment, our perimeter might be penetrated, and they— we— would be massacred. I know this to be true; I know it as a fact; I've seen it before...

The scenes replay themselves perpetually in my imagination— pools of blood, thicker than oil, impossible to staunch; limbs twisted in impossible directions, bones visible beyond skin, exposed to the air; the char and ash of burnt flesh, and the smells... the smells are even more tightly tied to my memories... and the sounds… echoes of screams, of women's high pitched shrills, and the peculiar cries of men, sobbing, pleading futilely for a hopeless mercy, great warriors reduced to mumbling idiots, beggars, broken. It is these phantoms that truly torment me. Memories made manifest. Nightmares incarnate. On this night, every crackling twig is a presage of a tidal wave of devastation, a horde of monsters preparing for feast.

But nothing happens.

Moment by moment, these thoughts haunt me, an unending barrage of torments, a ceaseless succession of horrors. They keep me quivering, keep me awake. At this hour of the night, it feels like days have passed since the sun set. I feel an exhaustion that is almost overpowering, a fatigue that has buried itself into my marrow. If I dozed now, I could sleep for a week.

But the fear is good. The fear is the fire that ignites me, it singes my senses, it bubbles in my blood. And caustic though it may be, it keeps me awake. The fear keeps me alive. The fear is my friend. I accept it, let it wash over me, let it enter me. I let the fear fill me.

I shiver again. In the glint of the moonlight, I can see snow shimmer on the peaks of the distant mountains. The vanguard of the coming winter. A scouting party, just like the men crouching over the hill, lurking beyond the trees, waiting for me to rest my eyes, to drop my head. One enemy follows another. There is no reprieve.

I stand up, pace the edge of the camp, quietly, to avoid waking my people. I raise my spear in defiance of their cowardice. I point the sharpened tip to each one of them, then make a slitting motion across my neck. But there is probably no one there.

Still, the war drums accelerate. I believe I hear more rustling than before. Is that movement? Or is it just the wind? I freeze. I try to stay still, but the trembles reverberate up and down my spine, my legs shake, my teeth chatter. The adrenaline is hitting. The snake tears through my stomach, and I all I feel is a void there. I can't breathe.

I am anticipating it all in this moment... the whistle the spear that will soar towards me, the sprint to close the distance, the tense strafing in circles, the inevitable grapple to the ground, the metallic taste in my lungs as I languish for air, the searing of my muscles. Fighting is grueling, always, every single time, a life or death dance where each second is an eternity, the world loses its level, and everything hurts. Just thinking about these things makes me sweat, in spite of the freezing temperatures.

The breeze picks up again, and it feels frigid to my exposed skin. I have not heard anything in a minute. I have no choice but to return to the fire. Else I will lose my stamina, quivering here, confronting nothing but the distortions of my mind.

This will be a long, cold, dark, and miserable winter. The days are shorter; food is harder to find; fires refuse to kindle; dry wood is in shorter supply. The cold will kill the old. Many will die of starvation, or sickness, even if we never have a war. And that will kill more. Other tribes will feel the same famine, the same shortage, and desperation will bring murder into their minds. Death is inevitable. The question is merely how many.

There is never enough. No place is safe. And it never ends. If we find a place plentiful enough to provide for us, others will want it, and will jealously try to pry it from us, whatever the cost. Nothing will stop them. There will be no mercy. Should we face the same decision, we would make the same choice. Kill or be killed. Take or be taken. This is law.

Father and I argued about it... when was it?... it seems like days ago, but it must have just been this morning. The old man is growing weak. He cannot move so much as he used to. He wants to wait out the winter here. I want to return to our hunting grounds from last season. But I know that both our plans are foolish. Neither choice is right.

But I have to respect his decision. His word goes. To dissent would be to splinter our tribe. There are many who would follow me, but not all. And we cannot spare a single soul, so many will be lost this winter.

To argue is to die. More terrible than all my fears is this— I would rather be strangled, rather starve, rather freeze, rather rot from disease than this— to be rejected by the tribe, to be abandoned. This is certain death. No one can survive alone. Our only hope is each other.

Crack. What was that?! Plunged into these ruminations, I have forgotten to scan the horizon. My pulse quickens again, eyes sharpen, rapidly racing around the edge of the tree line.

But I see nothing. I hear nothing.

I turn back to my camp. Day is near. In the grey light of dawn, I can just distinguish the figures of my family. Each body, large or small, male or female, old or young— each of these is as much a part of me as are my limbs. I would die for them. I tremble still, I am more exhausted than I have ever been in my life, and I have little hope that we will last another year. But my heart is filled with love. These are my people. These are my family. These are my reason. I don’t need another.

I will keep watch another night next week, and another after that, and so on, deep into the winter. And if I’m lucky, the winter after that. It never gets easier. The fear will grip me again, hold me in its sway throughout the nights, which only grow longer and darker and colder. But I'll do it. I’ll let the fear fill me, because there is a terror more terrible than any of the demons that prowl at our perimeter, the infinite phantasms that fill my imagination, whether man or monster, animal or adversary... it is the fear of dying alone.