Duck Lake little dark age

He was hungry, he was half-starved, or even three-quarters of the way there. He was shaking not with anticipation but with the effort of fighting his instinct. His mind knelling like an ambulance. But he remained rooted to his foothold. Shared a quarter second of duck-wolf eye contact.

There, too close. Perhaps only two or three centimetres that made up the difference between life and possible death. That was enough for him. 

What he feels after his legs tensing up is the air parting in front of him. And then the water, ice-cold. So cold he doesn't notice the moment when his mouth closes around the duck's thin neck. When they start wrestling in the shallows. 

An eyeful of lake water. Feathers and blood in his mouth, the metallic taste filling his nose. The duck lurches in each cardinal direction— north, south, east, west, each time weaker than the last, before it finally dies.

His head snaps to the stranger. His lips, peeled over his teeth, are beginning to turn blue. Vete, he thinks, but he knows this is in vain.