scp-9809 [does not exist] wish i knew.
Somewhere in the dim, two bears lie in slumber. The larger, the mother, protects the cub from the harsh world ever encroaching. They know not of what is outside their narrow slice, but to them it does not matter in the least. The roaring blizzards snuff out any wonder in this sickly white world. It was only a couple weeks from spring, and this year the cub would be learning to hunt.
When they burrowed out of their slumber, the mother took the cub to hunt for a deer, upon finding the innocent animal, she showed the cub how to kill, biting down on its neck to kill it instantly. She then motioned to the cub to eat with her.
“Mama,” the cub said softly, “why do we need to end lives to survive?”
The mother bear stood there in silence..”wish i knew, kid.”
Time marches on without a care in the world.
The mother walks the snowy expanse with her cub on her back until she sees something and stops, an elk with its back turned to her and its head down as if it was grazing, but off in a way.
“Why mama? Is it dangerous?”
The mother’s mind runs wild of her father encountering…that thing. It wasn’t bloody, but it was quick, and she could never explain it with her feeble words.
“Kid, run. Back home. I’ll handle this…but you won’t ever see me again. Try to make it out alive,”
The cub shivered in fear, slowly nodding and sprinting frightened back to the den. The mother looks back at the elk, the instinct flowing in like water as she knew the words forced out of her throat.
“I am stuck in a loop of humiliating defeats.”
The elk, now sideways, rose its head up to stare at the mother, with no face…
She could hear it in her mind.
“This time, it’ll be different,”
Time branches again, exponentially in all directions. There is no mother bear, there never was. The elk stares at you.
It stares at you with no face…
