winter shadows

The fire crackled, spitting red embers into the night sky. It sent disappearing stars into this blackest of midnights, one which was desperately lacking in celestial bodies, cluttered as it was with low clotted storm clouds. Three mountain lions padded in the brush outside the men's camp. making no sound that the three could hear. The men stared into the light cast from the fire, mesmerized, making them blind to the world that surrounded them.