Barrier Gulch [m] Asp

as the world stepped into the long shadows of night, it was not so unusual to hear cries. night brought its own terrors on the world; hunters, predators, oblivion. all scrabbling while the things in their jaws fought their last breath. 

these screams were different; qiao paused from her slow scouting and followed them until the air was thick with blood. 

she came upon a small figure withering under the sorrowed cover of a bare tree. if this figure was alive, qiao could not yet tell — she listened for the pulse of blood beneath the waif’s throat, knowing by the roundness of her condition that she’d met motherhood’s most brutal cost.