Predation Protocol
by Goyong
An arrow. A hunter. A fence. Regulation can keep a body alive. It can also keep a body still.
On some days, the algorithm looks like rescue. On some days, it looks like fear. It saves and strikes, protects and traps. This collection is a cold fable of three survival states under the invisible grid.
Three works. Three kinds of standing-in-the-way. And a fourth scene waits after them.
An owl struck by an arrow, watched by a young animal.
A sudden line falls between threat and body. The arrow kept one body safe, but it also taught everyone watching that the next mark might be theirs. Protection arrives with a future that never confirms itself.
A rabbit hiding from a hunter.
Every sound is the hunter. Even the ones that aren’t. The hunter does not have to look your way. Presence alone is enough. Crushed by invisible rules, the body stops first and censors its own movements.
A sheep grazing inside a fence.
It still watches the wolf. The fence is why it hasn’t stopped eating. The line is clear; outside stays outside. Inside, the mouth can keep working—and the eyes still check the dark.
THE ANOMALY
COLLECTOR’S PROTOCOL
A butterfly sitting in the red flowers.
After the three rules, a field with none. Nothing is holding the wings still. No arrow. No hunter. No fence.
The white snake is in the picture. It is not in the title. The field is completely free, and the field is entirely unsafe. Freedom without regulation brings absolute precarity.
For those who understand the rules of this ecosystem, a path to the outside is open.
The Red Butterfly: Collect any one of the three works, and the Red Butterfly comes with you. The red wing is the field after surviving one kind of regulation.
The Black Butterfly: Collect all three (Owl, Rabbit, Sheep) to complete the system, and the Black Butterfly opens as well. The black wing is the ultimate anomaly—the field after all three rules have been lived with.
The animals teach you how to stay. The butterflies are what stay with you.
