Monster Hunter: The Second Bullet, Part 3
There were few people in the world who remembered the Borderlands before Old Splitfoot staked his claim: legends of forests free of monsters, deserts without the wailing dead, and plains full of fresh water and dancing deer, sleeping field-mice and singing birds.
The true telling of it was kept by the Grand Order of Monster Hunters in books and journals held as sacred, to be protected above all else. It was a holy memory — there was a time before Old Splitfoot.
Now, the plains were dangerous.
The worst danger of the plains was their lure of ease. The plains weren’t the hungry earth of the swamps nor the treacherous cliffs of the mountains. The plains could seduce even the wisest and most experienced into lowering their guard just long enough to become the hunted instead of the hunter.
For Vic, such feelings were lies. There was no peace and quiet in the Borderlands. Silence was the sound of stalking, gentle breezes the same as a predator’s breath. The peace of the plains was the allure of a fly-trap ready to snap closed.
She sat quietly, staring over the cold and empty expanse. Even without her training, these plains were unnaturally quiet. Even in the harshest lands there were sounds of a twisted nature; birds howled over still winds while emaciated deer and coyotes picked through rattling twigs. There was life, of a sort, among the dead.