The thing that had once been a man stood motionless in the middle of the forest.
Snow gathered across the folds of its enormous body without melting. It settled inside the deep cracks of its frostbitten skin, clinging to open sores that had long since stopped bleeding. Its stomach sagged over the waistband of a pair of torn jeans, pale flesh mottled with patches of black decay and angry red bite marks where baseline infected had tried chewing on it before learning better.
One ear was gone.
Its nose had rotted away months ago.
Every slow breath rattled wetly inside its chest, sounding less like lungs and more like meat being stirred together.
It tilted its head.
Listened.
The woods answered.
Not with birds.
Birds had disappeared a long time ago.
Instead…
Laughing.
High.
Low.
Manic.
