//Closed: A Disappointing Shot

The crack of a gunshot echoed in the forest. The repeated reverberation across the bark of the trees as the sound waves bounced from tree to tree hid the direction of the source as efficiently as the Irish fog that clung to the trees concealed the shooter from sight. As the slug sped through the air, a tiny portion of the fog parted at the bullet’s point like gray cloth being sheared in two, while in the bullet’s wake, the swirling mist filled in the empty air again like water flooding a canal until the path was undetectable.

A second crack filled the air as the bullet burrowed into a tree. The bark around the impact shattered and fell to the forest floor like brown stained glass, the dew making it glisten. Freshly wounded wood splintered at the site of penetration and sap bled from the hole. For a few seconds, there was silence, and then the soft shuffle of booted feet stepping across the lush grass filled the foggy air. “I hit it… but I was off my mark,” muttered Gunnar in his gruff voice as he lifted a finger and pressed at the hole in the tree. He felt the sticky sap wet his fingertip. Analyzing the tree, he dragged his fingertip across the its surface, traversing exposed, young wood and then bark until he felt the tears of sap again. His finger stopped at the criss-cross of two slashes in the bark made by his bowie knife earlier. “Roughly… a foot,” he grumbled under his breath. Gunnar let his hand fall back to his side after wiping the sap off onto his jeans.

“I don’t like this place,” he concluded with a shake of his head, speaking under his breath. “There’s too much dang fog. It makes it difficult to get a straight shot.” Turning he walked back into the mist, making his way carefully between the trees. So far, he had not yet found a suitable place to stand in for a shooting range.

With a shake of his head, Gunnar decided it was time to move on to something else. The heavy mist that obscured the forest as well as large white bed sheets had been hung up to dry across clotheslines spanning every tree wasn’t going to let him get off a proper shot. Disappoint clung to him as much as the fog did the Irish landscape, seeping into every fiber of his being until he was saturated with it. Holstering his firearm, Gunnar took a tally of all of his equipment by tapping his fingers across all of it: guns, knife… everything else, it was all there. Satisfied that he hadn’t managed to lose something, he headed back towards the castle with a heavy heart. It was his current home, but it was just as unfamiliar to him as the gloomy woods.