[ IP ] The Game Is Not Over

It's started raining. Great. As if I did n't have enough problems right now. I glance down at my stomach again, confirming that the abomination had n't pierced it. Ugh, I feel like crap. I ca n't believe that I missed my shot. That gave it time to hit me. The bastard, I'll make it pay for that. I cough, holding my gun in one hand. I see the flash of red in front of me, and I fire, thinking it to be the beast's eyes. It was my own blood. 
 
 Not a great situation. It's raining harder now, my glasses are starting to fog up. There's a mist surrounding me, and I've just fired off my single shot gun. No doubt it heard me, and now I'm defenceless. Why did I have to bring a break-action gun? Why did I have to show off to the other hunters? I never miss a shot, so I only need one. But they would always quip that one day I'd miss, and on that day I would die. 
 
 This is it. Game over. My days as a hunter are done, my life forfeit. I shiver, my clothes soaked, the cold threatening to overpower me. I hear the monster approaching, and crouch against the wall, coughing up blood. 
 
 NO. The game is not over. Not yet. I fumble for a bullet, and start to load my rifle coughing all the while. I glance to my right, and I see it, silhouetted in the mist, it's features indistinguishable in the grey. It is a writhing mass of tentacles, tall as I am, then again, twice over. The only part of it that stands out is its eyes. Taken straight from every hunter's nightmares, these were the eyes of death. Three red eyes, vertical slits in its face, each seeming to be a gateway to the hell from whence it came. 
 
 It slithers closer, the rain drowning any sound of its approach. The only way that I can know about my impending doom is looking at it. I stare back down at my gun, my fingers, already numb, barely able to slide the single slug home. I stand, and ready the rifle, bringing it into my shoulder. The beast stops no more than five feet from me, regarding my gun. It knows that if I hit it, it wo n't survive. I know that if it grabs me, I will surely perish. Neither of us seem willing to make the first move. 
 
 A long moment passes, and I know that I'm on the losing end of this. I am but a human, no matter how I train myself, I am unable to withstand the effects of my internal injuries and the rain for too long. My foe on the other hand thrives in the rain and cold. It could simply wait for me to drop dead, and I know with an iron certitude that it can tell this too. 
 
 I start lowering my gun, for the first time in my life truly afraid to die. I had been chasing these abominations for years, from before the time that I needed glasses. And now my arrogance was to be my death? So be it. It always was my greatest sin, it overpowered even my wrath towards the inhuman beasts I hunted. I was finished. Truly. Even, if by some miracle I were to survive this day, I would never hunt again. After this performance, I would be unable. I took a deep breath, what may well have been my last. 
 
 I started to fall backwards, and as I did, my gun drifted up. I shot at the appropriate time. The firing pin struck the slug, setting off the gunpowder. The resulting explosion propelled my bullet forwards, the rifling along the barrel spinning it, stabilising the lump of metal. It flew the five feet from barrel to eye, and pierced. It broke through the creatures scull, destroying its brain, and then through the back of the scull. The bullet sailed into the mist, as my back hit the soaking stone floor. I lay there for some time, the rain pouring down on my body. I did n't care. I had cheated death. 
 
 After some time, I stood, and observed my handiwork. The monster was already starting to rot away without the power of the evil soul sustaining it. Only the two undamaged eyes remained intact. I took them both. Normally, a hunter would be able to take all three, but I had damaged the middle one. I marvelled at my fortune. If there was a God, truly He had guided my hand today. With the eyes in my pack, I staggered home. It was not a short journey by any means, and I was injured. For the whole journey, I was afraid that I would succumb to my wound and my fatigue in a location outside of my town, and would not be found until it was far too late. I stumbled into the town, bone-weary and light-headed. I was within sight of my local hunter's hall when I passed out.
