The scorching sun vibrantly beat down upon planet Earth from a bottomless, blue sky. As I took a gander around I noticed almost complete solitude. The calm, cool, thin air floated vastly around me as my feet plunged deep into the frigid snow with every step. The brilliant evergreens, once majestically green, now barely hovered above ground as the fresh crystallized powder held them back. The sounds flowing from the pounding diesel engines gave a background noise to the calming sounds of Mother Nature. The slight aroma of gas and the fresh scent of winter seemed to mix well for my careful senses as I found myself engulfed in the smell. As I continued to stroll about I could almost taste the fun that the day had to offer. All I could do now was wonder what the rest of the day would bring.

Wandering through the woods, I found myself standing in an opening in the forest and I could only make out what looked to be red. Hastily running towards the color, my eyes caught a glimpse of something in the far distance. Coming to a halt, my brain started racing with ideas, questions, thoughts and concerns about what it could be. I thought to myself, is it dangerous to move forward? Or is it simply my brain over thinking its own self, making me nervous about the upcoming moment? I decided to move. As the object in the snow grew larger and larger with every step I took, I became increasingly nervous. I was able to start to make out that the red splotch on the ground could be blood and that the item lifelessly lying there could be the carcass of an animal. Only 30 meters away from the now evident carcass, my nose picked up a raunchy smell that almost made me want to puke. The smell was so bad that I had to take a couple of steps back, even though that didn’t help.

As I stood over the carcass and examined the animal I wondered to myself what or who could have done this and why? I noticed that the face of the animal was almost completely ripped off and the stomach of the animal had been sliced open too many times to count. It looked as if the poor animal was thrown in a meat grinder for five minutes. The blood was scattered everywhere and there were signs that the animal had been dragged across the ground for some 80yards out from the tree line. Whether it was killed deep into the forest or right near the tree line will go unknown. I stood there in deep thought and then found myself becoming an oscillating pillar of eyes just staring into day. With curiosity and concern for my own health I reached for my shotty and loaded it with a full clip. For some reason, I am not sure why, I had the feeling that the situation was becoming perilous and preternatural.

I dashed into the forest to get out of the open area where anything could happen to me. I picked a tree that I thought would be a great lookout point for me to perch myself up in while I tried to locate the monster that caused this anomaly. I remembered that I had a little bit of meat in my trench coat pocket that I was going to eat later on. I shoved my hand into my pocket and grabbed out the solidly frozen chunk of meat and quickly unwrapped it. I untied my boots and hung the hunk of chicken from a lower branch using my boots laces. My hands felt like ice cubes, making this even more arduous and time consuming, which is not what I wanted or needed. Finally set up, I pulled myself into the tree and started making loud calls and yells in a frantic attempt to lure out the beast.

Minutes later I felt a tremble in the earth and looked around for any signs. However, there was nothing. I had an ardent wish to kill this wild beast, so I continued to make my calls. Without surprise, out it came. This unbelievable monster was so big and powerful that it ran over trees like an avalanche crashing through cabins. I became concerned, thinking that I had maybe messed with the wrong creature.

I named this beast Paulo just because I needed to call it something in my head when I thought about it. Paulo did not look like any ordinary beast from the angle I had on it. He easily stood eight meters tall and could have weighed well over 600 pounds. His face was rugged and scarred from his right eye across his nose and down his left cheek just barely hitting the neckline. Paulo had a freakishly hairy body but strangely, nothing on his face. His fur looked like it was clumped and slimy. I thought it possibly could have been a layer of blood covering it. His hands were huge, probably the size of a basketball and had claws the size of ten inch nails. His feet were easily the size of a standard school size backpack and they too had crazy looking claws on them, only they looked like butcher knives or small daggers. At this point I knew that I had to be perfect with every shot that I took and if I wasn’t then it could easily be the end of me. I knew that without my gun I had no chance of survival whatsoever.

Paulo stood only about 50 yards from where I was perched and he looked to be staring right at me. As I found myself lost gazing into his face, a chill shot down my spine like a bullet out of a gun barrel. This was possibly a good thing though as it told me to wake the h*** up and get ready for the battle that I was soon going to endure.

“AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! HEEEYY! AHHHH!” I started yelling at the top of my lungs. I was bobbing the hunk of chicken up and down in an attempt to catch the eye of Paulo. He immediately started my way taking branches, bushes and full trees with him. I frantically swung my gun to my chest and clenched it with an iron grip. I took a last deep breath and prayed to whatever was above me asking that I be looked after for the next couple of minutes in my life. “CHICK-CHICK!” I cocked my shotgun and told myself that Paulo was absolutely no match for me.

Now only about 20 yards from me, I took the gun and pointed the barrel right into the belly of the beast. I shot once, twice and finally a third time. I saw thick, dark red blood shoot out in all different directions. This did very little to Paulo as he still charged towards me. I knew that I was pretty high into the tree and that I had picked one that was as thick as a concrete pillar that supports a freeway bridge. I had only five shots left, unless I would be able to reload, which I highly doubted. Paulo stood at the bottom of the tree pounding, pushing, kicking and scratching it with ferociousness. I pointed the gun towards him and took two shots into the skull of the creature. Blood splashed everywhere and even soaked into my trench coat, pants and socks. I could tell that Paulo could feel the ramifications of those two shots as he backed away from the tree and put his hand to his head. He pulled it away and saw blood covering it completely. It was as if this creature had the mind of a human but the super powers of a mechanically armed robot or something along the lines. He came back to the tree and look up into it staring me in the face. I took the line that I tied to the tree, with the chicken on the other end, and untied it. I took the line and brought the chicken to rest just out of reach of the creature’s angry looking face. I secured the line so I would be able to shoot Paulo if I had the option.

This was the first time I got a good look into his face. His eyes were the size of tennis balls and they were the color of the blood still pouring from his gut and head. The scar was as big as I had thought it had been and his claws were definitely intimidating. I got him to look up at me one last time and I knew that this was my only chance. I shoved the shotgun as close to the face of Paulo as I could and fired three shots. They were all very effective as each one pushed holes deep into his face, head and neck. This time the blood was extravagant. Flowing in waterfall like streams, the blood continued to come for quite some time. I flipped my gun around and pounded it into his face just to add to the damage. The creature toppled over and made an outstanding concussion as it hit the ground below me. Without thinking, I climbed down from the backside of the tree and just started running. All I wanted was to be out of that area and back to my car. It was a long trek and I had hoped that I would not encounter anything else on my journey. It had already been crazy enough and I was ready to be away from the woods.

After constant running for ten minutes I was happy to see my car resting on the side of a winding road where I had parked. However, I soon found out bad news. My car had been smashed in on the driver side as if Paulo had jumped on it or a semi truck swiped it. My thoughts were unclear and my mind was flowing with as many thoughts as it could possibly hold. This was an uncanny situation taking a turn for the worst. I knew that I had just encountered something preternatural that nobody would ever believe. I had no clear idea of what to do next except walk, so that is just what I did.