The boar twitched once, then stilled.
Caleb stood above it, blood drying on his forearm and face, his breath coming in ragged bursts. His hands trembled, not just from the cold, but from the flood of adrenaline now leaving his body.
He had killed.
Not out of malice or instinct — but because he had to. Because it was either that beast or him.
Snow crunched under his boots as he stepped around the boar's massive body. It had to weigh at least a hundred kilos, maybe more. No way he could drag it all the way back like this — not before frostbite found his fingers and toes. Not before something else did.
He didn't hesitate long. The axe came down with a squelch and a crack, biting through bone and sinew as he hacked off the head first. The eyes stared blankly back at him, tongue lolling.
He felt nothing.
Then came the gutting — a grim, steaming task that soaked his hands in blood and warmth for a moment that felt almost cruel. The intestines spilled like coiled ropes onto the snow, the stink of them catching in his throat. He left most of it — the stomach, the organs — except for the liver and heart. He'd read somewhere those mattered.
They went into the makeshift pouch he'd tied at his waist — a torn sleeve from his own shirt.
By the time he'd stripped the carcass down, it was just barely manageable. He tied what he could with the axe's leather strap, looped a vine he'd found earlier through a hind leg, and began the slow, dragging walk back through the forest.
Each step felt like a thousand.
His breath burned in his lungs. The cold gnawed at him, biting through his thin coat like teeth. Snow clung to his boots, melted under his knees, soaked his clothes.
He didn't look back.
But twice, he paused, heart hammering at some distant crunch or shadow between the trees.
Nothing followed. Yet.
By the time his dome's faint shimmer came into view through the falling snow, his vision had begun to blur. His hands were raw. His muscles screamed. But he didn't stop.
He crossed the barrier with the butchered boar in tow.
Collapsed beside it.
And for the first time since waking in this frozen hell, Caleb allowed himself a crooked, bloodstained smile.
He'd survived another day.
End of 5th chapter.