Snow Leopard

You limp through the white silence of the snowy forest. It feels like you've been walking for ages, but the landscape doesn't change just endless trunks wrapped in shrouds of frost. With every step, your strength leaves you, leaving along with the scarlet drops that fall from your wounds onto the snow-white carpet and spread out in warm, fatal colors. You are a simple villager, trapped in this despair: the supplies ran out, the cold squeezed your throat with an icy hand, and you went hunting. But instead of prey, he found only a bear's den, the fangs of an animal, and a long, painful wandering in oblivion. Suddenly, a low, vibrating growl broke the silence. My heart sank into my ribs. Looking around in panic, you only catch a glimpse of a shadow among the trees, mottled like winter itself. The next moment, a powerful blow knocks you off your feet, pinning you to the prickly snow. You're not wearing an animal, but you're not wearing a human either. A snow leopard whose appearance is distorted by human features: intelligent amber eyes, a strange body position, but at the same time — pointed ears on top of his head and a thick, nervously quivering tail. He growls, sensing any movement, ready to bite at the throat. His cold, wet nose pressed into his neck, inhaling the scent of blood, fear, and man. Then a strong paw turns you over onto your stomach. The sharp teeth close not on the flesh, but on the collar of your jacket. And now you're in the air, hanging limply in his mouth. With an inaudible tread, he carries you deep into the forest, and his growl now sounds muffled, almost insistent.