Of course, the act of hunting is tied to the act of killing. It's part of the deal.
Hellen understands this and accepts it. He accepted it a long time ago, because helping to feed his family was very important to him. It's one of those things that he just understands without fully knowing how he learned, perhaps one of the things that his father found the time to teach him the basics of before he picked up the rest alone. He doesn’t recall, exactly, but he would not forsake it.
So, he acclimated to it young—a part of life and a common day to day activity, like cooking or laundry. It's something he's well familiar with, something he knows the rules of:
Just animals, never senselessly, and Hellen doesn't think he could ever kill a person.
A living person.
This is not a person.
Here he stands, opposed to a shambling figure, one that isn't even breathing and yet still manages to lurch toward him. There's old blood staining its face. Beige growths protrude from its right eye socket upward, cleaving its head, and its mouth is agape, muttering something Hellen can't understand.
It's a husk. He grips his knife tighter.
This is not a person, but it looks like one, and by God, it used to be one.
Killing it is just the same as killing an animal in self-defense, Hellen says in his head—and it's not as though he's trying to convince himself, because he already knows it's true. It's just hard to act, for some reason, when greeted with the glazed over, off-white eyes of a dead thing staring through him.
It's unnerving.
It lunges at him with its claws.
He forces himself to move, scrambling backward, and does manage to dodge the attack, though he also hits himself on something in the process. He glances backward for a split second to see that, in a stupendous display of agility, he has bumped into a table. It is at this point he realizes that a small house is not the ideal place to be fighting a husk in.
(Not that there is an ideal place. It's not an ideal situation in general.)
Hellen's hands aren't working quite right yet—they're clumsy in a way that comes from not being fully awake, moving with adrenaline. His head is barely working either, but he does know that he should get out of this house as soon as possible, because if he fights in here any longer, he's fairly certain he'll corner himself stupidly and die.
Keeping an eye on the husk as it stumbles, thrown off balance by the failed attack, he blindly feels around on the table until his hand lands on something solid and heavy. He then grabs whatever-it-is and, with a resounding crack as it connects, slams it into the husk’s skull, not paying attention to what he grabbed until he's already rushing for the front door.
(Upon second look, what he grabbed was a large stick he found on the forest floor a few days prior and decided to keep because it looked cool. This is a good use for it, he supposes.)
Thankfully, he doesn't have to fumble with getting the door open, because the gaping doorway was how the thing got inside in the first place. He was awoken in the middle of the night by strange sounds uncomfortably close to his house, decided to grab his knife and peek out the door, and he didn't bother closing it again while trying not to get gruesomely injured because the source of the sound was then inside of his house.
Here he is now.
(He slips his knife into a pocket of his cloak so he doesn’t trip on it and stab himself.)
This is fine.
The husk still pursues him even after he flees into the forest, which is what he presumed it was going to do. At least if he kills the thing somewhere other than his living room, he won’t have to clean infected blood off his floor later.
There’s a gap in his knowledge when it comes to dealing with husks—it’s not something he does often and has been able to glean the details of, like with hunting. The advice he remembers is to run, or hide, but certainly don't get close, and avoid being scratched at any cost.
He's opted for that first choice—running—and he can hear heavy footfalls trailing behind him. They’re staggered, uneven, but not getting any slower. Is it possible to outrun a husk? Will it get tired? He can’t imagine it can be winded if it doesn’t breathe. The only exposure he’s had to situations like this in the past were warnings from his parents, and maybe a brief encounter in his childhood; one too early to recall anything about, aside from his big sister telling him to stay back while the threat was dealt with.
Of course the advice you’d give a child would be to run, or hide, and, if necessary, let older family members deal with it—but Hellen isn’t a child anymore. There’s nobody more experienced he can leave it to, and husks can no longer be this vague, looming memory of a threat. There’s one chasing him right now.
Certainly, there’s a way to deal with it.
His feet come to a stop, and he turns around.
Certainly, it’s not too different from hunting. Maybe it will be simpler if he thinks about it that way.
The husk doesn’t slow itself at all—in fact, he thinks he sees it speed up somewhat—and before he can even barely consider what to do, the husk is right in front of him again, poised to attack.
He quickly sidesteps to dodge, and its claws are soon cutting through the air where his eye would have been. Its body pitches forward before it regains its footing, then it turns again to face him, raising both of its hands high.
It swings them down toward him.
Hellen grabs the ends of the stick in his hands and holds it up.
His arms almost buckle—It feels like the husk has put its whole weight into the blow, and he flinches, but somehow the stick blocks its claws just short of striking his face.
Trying to keep his composure, he sets his foot forward and pushes, shoving the husk away with as much strength as he can muster. It stumbles backward, nearly falls, then Hellen takes his knife out of his pocket.
Before the thing has a chance to steady itself, Hellen rushes toward it and drives the knife into whatever spot he can manage.
He hits it in the stomach.
The husk lets out a terrible noise between a scream and a rasp, thrashes its arms, but its claws aren’t able to reach him. Again, he draws the blade out and stabs, this time in the neck.
He hears blood gurgle in the back of its throat.
Then, there’s a dull and heavy thud, and the husk has fallen to the ground. Hellen breathes out, steps back, and looks at the body. Its facial expression has barely changed, but it’s no longer moving.
It’s dead.
The forest is dark, and the blood spilled from the husk’s wounds—the blood his knife is slick with—hardly looks like blood at all in this lighting. It’s an off color, less like something freshly drawn from a body, and more like something clotted and scabbing. He would expect an overwhelming, sharp, metallic scent as well, but there is none. The air around the husk smells dull, almost chalky.
Maybe it’s better that way, because Hellen usually hates the smell of blood, but there’s something off-putting about its absence here.
He stares at the beige growths marring its face.
It’s dead now—actually dead, as it should be, not a wandering corpse moved by a fungus occupying its limbs. He feels bad for whoever this person used to be, of course, but what he’s looking at now still makes his stomach drop.
Finally, he tears his eyes from the body and starts walking home.
Soon enough, his knife is wiped of the blood, and cleaned in boiling water, and his hands are washed (twice) to be safe. Then, he collapses on his bed and gazes at the ceiling until he falls asleep.