Stay and Fight

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The shadow looms before you, huge, so huge. The light of the flashlight plays over it yet you can’t make out details. All you have are impressions, half-remembered pictures that appear and vanish in the wink of an instant. Long fur covering its body, white, but tipped with dark flecks. It couldn’t be blood, could it? You swallow. Claws on its outstretched hands, curved inward and at least three inches long. Legs as thick as your whole body.

'This is it. I’m done for now,' you think.

You shine the flashlight higher up and cringe when you see them. Teeth, polished and gleaming, the sort you can imagine wrapped around a human leg or two. Snout. Wild, yellow eyes, with a look deep within them that says, 'I’m hungry for man-flesh.'

You know then, it’s either kill or be killed. So you swing the flashlight and bop the monster—the Yeti?—across the nose.

“Ouch,” the Yeti squeals. Its voice is high-pitched and cracks at the height of the noise.

You blink. This isn’t the sound of an enraged man-killer. But you hit the Yeti again, shoving your flashlight deep into its stomach until you feel its fur tickling your wrist. “Yes,” you shout, triumph speeding through your veins.

The Yeti takes a step back. The light of your flashlight reveals a footprint on the muddy floor of the cave. Human in shape, through three times as big as your own footprint. You rip your eyes away before fear can turn you to stone.

You follow the Yeti and raise your flashlight for another strike. But the Yeti holds out its hand. “Wait. Please,” it begs.

You blink some more. Did it really speak?

Or are you going crazy?

Do you:

Think you're going crazy? 

Talk to it?

Or do you:

Run after all?

Start over?