Voices in the Silence

People used to tell Tim he’d be lonely living up in the shack all by himself.

“Yes,” he’d politely reply, smiling in the way he only did when he was feeling both furious and witty, “that is rather the point.”

He’d been up there a week, alone with the winds, the mountains, and the occasional owl, and couldn’t say he was regretting much. He was getting a lot more reading done.

Still, he wasn’t fond of the shadows in the night. Or the voices. He told himself he was imagining them, but as the cold closed in and the only light was the flickering of distant stars, he found it harder to believe.

On a red dawn, with the mountains looking like the teeth of a wolf after the kill, he saw the footprints in the snow.

They must be mine, he told himself. They must be.

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Word Count: 147

This is for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers. Thanks to Priceless Joy for running the challenge and Yinglan for providing the prompt photo!