-1-

Jacob

He was alone.
The smell of the green, rotted log walls and decaying furniture conquered his senses and froze his nose in a permanent wrinkle. A lamp flickered on the corner of a damp and slanted desk. That’s where Jacob sat – on a chair that wobbled and creaked with every shift of his weight. In front of him were a notebook and a pencil. Both were in a condition that contrasted the rest of the log cabin completely.
The shriek of a hawk owl shocked his arm into motion. The pencil poked at the first page and scratched a few words into the first lines.
Loudsw ifthu nt er scarydark.
Jacob frowned over what his hand had scribbled with a grunt.
“This’ll never get done,” He folded his arms and turned his attention to the wall of night just outside his window. Nothing but the first line of trees shown through the black screen; there were no sounds except for the shriek that had come and past almost as though it occurred hours ago.
It was that very aloneness that he sought – he wanted nothing but his own imagination to affect the paper on the desk.
Two days had gone by while he mudded up his boots. Two days of sweat and dragging a twenty pound bag and swatting at flies, until he came stumbling on the crumbling shack amongst the pines and oaks. For four days, he’d been holed up there seeking the inspiration he needed to start his novel. He grunted again and looked over what he’d accomplished so far.
“Loud, swift, hunter, scary, dark. Period.”
He felt a tickle in his throat, the beginnings of a hoarse laugh. It turned into a cough that forced him to haunch over his notebook and heave. The cooler he’d been hefting through the woods was light as a hollowed log – he reached back and dragged it close enough to pull out the last Poland Springs he had left. His hand hovered over it and his eyes started to feast on the only thing he brought for his own enjoyment.
A nice, warm, full bottle of whisky.
“Jay-jay,” he tipped the bottle and let a whole pint slide down his throat. A thin stream slid down the side of his chin that he wiped off as the bottle slammed down on the desk.
“What are you doing?”
He pulled himself toward the cot and was sleeping before his body had collapsed onto it.

(Stay tuned for the next chapter - for now, I hope you'll enjoy a preview)

-2-
Where?
The rot was gone, replaced by a kinder smelling pine. The smell betrayed the throbbing feeling in the back of his head. With one hand he reached back and traced the pain to its source, a bump that stung double when he touched it.“Damn,” he tried to prop himself up on his elbows and his body stretched with a shock. He felt countless bruises biting and barking at his every move. Another sensation hit him – ice, ice that burned his finger tips. Quivering lips and glossy eyes met this new feeling, and quickly changed to huffing and puffing.
There were no fingernails on his left hand, instead crusty red caps ran the length of his fingers and webbed onto his palm.