In Your Hands #3: You go toward the river.

You bend down a little to fit your head under the arch of the hollowed-out log. You carry your pack in front of you in one hand, your bow in the other. Brittle wood brushes against your hunched shoulders; a chunk falls on the ground behind you.

Out on the other side, the clouds begin to part. Sun rays filter through the trees in angles you can read which tell you it’s early afternoon. You step into and out of its warmth as you walk down the trail.

An annoying thing about being in sunlight, even briefly, if that you start to feel like a person again. Images from the morning come back to you in waves: an old scroll, alchemical formulas, a beaker in the rotten center of a stump, a westerly gust, an explosion.

That voice in your head felt familiar, even though you’d never heard it before. A woman’s voice. Whatever it was is gone now. You feel the absence. You only hear it like an echo from around a bend.

The river becomes louder. The trail gives way to a pebbly bank. Rocks shuffle under your step. You look at where you step and see blood drop from your face. Right. The blood. You need to wash your face.

You squat at the edge of the river, stick your hands in. Cold. The black clouds trails from your hands in the water. You make a bowl with your hands, watch it fill up. Tossing the water onto your face feels nice, refreshing. You wipe your hands across your face, brush your hair out of your eyes. Combing your hair with your fingers, you see red droplets fall from your knuckles.

You get a glimpse of your face in the moving water. A cut above your right eye, connecting your temple to your hairline, about the length of your index finger. You dry your hands on your jacket, dig out a bandage from the bottom of your pack, and dress the wound.

The sun’s rays lose shape, diffuse in the late-afternoon mist. Your stomach growls. No food left in your pack.

Downstream, dots can be seen in the windows of buildings in town. You could probably get there by nightfall, in time for a meal at an inn.

Upstream, a similar rustling sound from earlier can be heard over the river. There’s a good chance a deer or something similar could be hunted there.

You hunt for food.