It was cold today.
Colder than yesterday.
It always was now.
Jake crouched low beside the fourth trap, his breath coming out in pale wisps. The snare was undisturbed, a loose loop of thin wire strung between two saplings. He brushed aside the thin coat of snow, his numb fingers working the frayed wire loose.
Nothing. Again.
He hadn't caught anything in days.
The bait — a chunk of sour mushroom — had gone black with frost. It stuck to his glove when he tried to pick it up. He peeled it off, held it up to the light for a second, then jammed it into his jacket pocket. It wasn't good for eating. Not yet. But maybe later. Maybe after it thawed.
If he lived that long.
The forest was too quiet. No birds. No insects. The only sound was the dry scraping of dead branches in the wind. It wasn't peace. It was warning. The kind of silence that meant something was nearby. A walker. A man. Neither was good news.
Jake didn't look around. If it was close enough to hear, it was already too late.
His stomach knotted again, sharp and deep. He clutched at his side for a moment, teeth grinding together against the ache. It was getting worse. Not the kind of hunger you could ignore. The kind that made your legs shake, made you cold from the inside out.
Three weeks.
Or maybe four.
He wasn't counting anymore.
He pulled his scarf tighter around his neck and made his way back toward camp — if you could call it that. A crooked lean-to made of branches and a rotting tarp he'd dragged from a half-collapsed shed weeks ago. No walls. No shelter from the wind. But it was better than nothing.
Everything out here was better than nothing.
He sat down by the dead campfire, picking at the ash with a stick. There wasn't enough wood left for a new fire. The last storm had taken down most of the dry branches. What little he'd gathered was wet or rotten, and it wasn't worth wasting matches trying to burn it.
His eyes drifted to the makeshift bow leaning against a rock. Warped wood. Frayed string. He hadn't even managed to test it properly yet.
And no arrows.
Jake sighed, rubbing his raw, cracked hands together. They hurt. Constantly now. Blisters turned to splits. The cold made them worse. But the ache meant he was alive. That was something.
After a while, he grabbed the bow. It felt awkward in his grip, too light. Not like the toy one his dad gave him years ago. That one had smooth wood, a clean string, real arrows with plastic feathers. This one was rough. Splintered at the grip. The string was old twine, stretched too thin.
But it was something.
And in this world, something meant you weren't dead yet.
He wandered through the forest for a while, scanning the ground, looking for anything long and straight. Most of what he found was useless — too crooked, too brittle, or too thick. A couple times he thought he had a good one, only for it to snap in his hands.
His pockets carried more failure than food.
When the light started dying, he forced himself to sit by the ruins of a hollow log and start sharpening what little he'd gathered. The knife he carried was dull, its handle loose, the blade nicked from months of abuse. He found it in a basement three towns ago. Took it off a man who didn't need it anymore.
His hands stung as he scraped the wood. The cold made his fingers stiff, and every slip of the knife tore fresh skin. He gritted his teeth and kept going.
Because what else was there to do?
After a few hours, he had two halfway-decent sticks. Roughly the length of his forearm. No fletching. No proper arrowheads. Just sharpened points he tried hardening in the last scraps of his dying fire.
His stomach cramped again. He forced down a handful of shriveled berries he'd scavenged from a dead bush. Bitter. Sour. He spat out the pits and wiped his mouth.
One of the sticks cracked when he nocked it to the string.
Jake let out a sharp grunt, a noise caught between a sob and a growl. He hurled the broken piece into the darkness, his throat burning.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Just for a second.
Then opened them again.
"It's fine."
His voice sounded too thin in the empty dark. He didn't care.
"I'll make another one. And another. And another after that."
His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. The wind cut through the trees like knives.
Because what else was there to do?
---
That night, with no fire, Jake sat hunched in his makeshift shelter, his coat pulled tight around him. The cold gnawed at his bones. His hands bled onto the knife as he carved another stick, wood shavings piling in his lap. The point wasn't sharp enough. The balance was wrong. It didn't matter.
It wasn't perfect.
It wasn't good.
But it was a start.
Somewhere, far off, a walker groaned. The sound was faint, carried on the wind.
Jake didn't react.
He kept carving.