Survival
It’s been around eleven days since I left the valley and I can honestly say it is finally beginning to get easier in some ways, but not all. I was a fool to believe it wouldn’t be hard, on so many levels and I still can’t get my head around my own naivety. Knowing then what I do now, I don’t think I would have left at all.
It’s not just the survival factor that gets to you, it’s the isolation, the loneliness, the living in constant high alert as you have to be aware of all that is around you and the gnawing fear that sits in your gut hour after hour. I am on edge, hyper-aware at all times and mentally exhausted with it. Unable to ever really stop watching my back and surroundings, always listening to make sure I am safe and afraid of even the tiniest of noises or movement near me. There are so many enemies in nature that I was oblivious to when living in the mountain bubble.
I rarely sleep, so tuned into the noises of the forests and gulley’s and caverns I have walked through in recent days. Always listening for something to come out of the shadows at me and have endless dreams when I do, of vampires and monsters pulling me from my tiny crawl spaces before devouring my helpless body. Every time I am paralysed with the same useless inadequacy as that day in the orphanage and completely unable to defend myself. I see Sierra often in my dreams too, my infrequent naps and that repetitive sentence she utters on her breath which always wakes me with a start. Always the same thing.
“Save us.”
I don’t understand why she haunts me still and can only imagine it has to do with my broken heart and the dregs of Colton in my memory banks that get through the steel door I am trying to force them behind. She was one of our last conversations and maybe that’s why she plays so heavily on my mind.
The first few days were the worst and thankfully behind me now and I think it finally sunk in what I was actually doing. The first night looking for shelter, eating Doritos I had hastily packed in my backpack for supper and trying to find a comfy way to lay in a shallow hard floored dug out on a hillside that barely concealed me. It was a shock to my system; having come from a lifetime of shelter and home cooked meals I took for granted. Even being alone all those years, I was never truly by myself or without food and a roof over my head, whereas now here I am, truly in solitude.
I didn’t sleep at all at first, just everything swirling in my head and the cravings for not just Colton, but Meadow, the sub pack, my room in the pack house and the safety of the valley. It was all crying out to me , reminding me that I was barely grown and only newly turned and still so vulnerable in so many ways. I sobbed so much in the first few days I thought it would break me and send me running back with my tail between my legs, but It didn’t.
I weathered the storm, walking aimlessly south with no plan and after getting the first few miles clear of the Santo lands, I didn’t see a need to run anymore. With enough distance between us and no chance they picked up my scent to track me, because quite frankly, they would have caught up with me already if anyone had been looking. I stuck to the rural areas, stayed away from roads and moved through forests and woods, farmlands and rougher areas to avoid humans too. I can still the see the mountain in the far distance as it gets further away with every day I trek, but I probably am not even as far as I think I am. It just seems so much further because I took so long to get here. I’m afraid to turn in daylight in case I was seen, afraid to travel at night in case I run across vampires. I have to use human legs, and human speed and without your heart and soul pushing you on, progress is slow.
Day four was the worst day of my life and it alone was almost what ended this adventure of mine. Just when I didn’t think it could get any harder mentally, my heart already breaking with the need to see another person or hear another voice, I was side swiped by a pain that came out of nowhere. I thought I was dying. It was like someone reached into my chest cavity and grabbed my heart in the middle of my soul, twisted it round sharply and yanked it out breaking every bone in its way. I crumbled to the ground gasping for breath, every part of my rib cage, lungs and core slicing in agony, unable to catch air within me. Clawing at the ground as the pain shot through every limb and nerve ending. I ended up rolling around in the mud, clutching my chest and wailing like a wounded animal as tears flooded my vision and my brain near shattered. It was the single most terrifying moment I have experienced beyond the night the vampires attacked, and I was once again completely helpless.
If felt like ultimate betrayal, the severing of my soul and the only thing I could connect it to was Colton. The only logical answer to something so all-consuming and yet for no obvious reason to its sudden happening. He must have done something strong enough to our bond to inflict this kind of hell, as it sure was not his death, as I am still breathing. Only two things could really hurt your imprinted like that especially from so many miles apart – severing the bond, which he couldn’t have because I would be dead, or betraying the bond with an act that cannot be forgiven.
Sleeping with Carmen and marking her.
It had to be that; nothing else could compare to this agony; the thing they taught us about in school about carrying that heartache when your fated mate destroys the bond. It all made sense and for days after, fighting the fatigue and desperation it made me feel, I barely managed to cover more than couple of miles in total before breaking down into a crumbling mess and sobbing all over again. I felt like he had taken a knife himself, cut me open wide and ripped everything out before setting it alight. The emotional devastation was as bad as finding out my entire family was gone when I was just eight years old.
It broke me. In so many ways. And he just did it all again.
Mentally, as I wore on over the next days, I became numb and my will to run far from the mountain died a death. The reason I was going was primarily to outrun him and what he had to do. To try and not let it get to me, to distance myself from the pain and leave him to walk his own path without me. And yet the fates they delivered a blow that almost stopped me in my tracks completely, killing my will to find my future at all. They left me with the heavy sadness that consumes everything and just won’t lift. I am just going through the motions now without really engaging any kind of effort under this black cloud, my new constant companion.
I walk, I find something to hunt and eat, I wash in rivers , I find shelter and I sporadically sleep through the dark. The noises, the movement of nature all should bring me peace as a natural wolf, but it just serves to remind me how very alone I am and that a wolf, is a pack animal. We don’t thrive alone, and it is beginning to wear me down slowly. I just can’t seem to ever really get any clear indication in my life about where I belong or what I am meant to do. Just that discarded worthless kid who wasn’t good enough to be mated when even the fates imprinted me on someone. What hope is there for me?
I don’t have a reason to go back anymore anyway. Not even for the sub pack who never really belonged to me. Colton made his choice; I can feel it and we are done. I just need to push on and find somewhere to settle, accept it, man up and stop crying like a stupid child, but nowhere ever feels right.
On day eight I stumbled into an unknown dense dark forest at the base of a smaller mountain that was relatively secluded, finally finding somewhere that seemed easy to defend, was pretty and had a good cave for a possible long-term dwelling. Nearby water source, dense enough to feel safe. Sheltered, and a good supply of wildlife for the hunting. No humans around for miles and no signs that any had been there in forever.
It didn’t take long to be chased out by feral wolves who caught my scent in their territory though. Natural wolves, not my kind, no because my kind would probably have strung me up and gutted me for straying there. Outside of Radstone the packs still have deep grained rivalry and feuds. They chased me all the way to a cliff edge before I had to jump in the river below to escape unscathed. I don’t think I could have fought off more than a dozen rabid wolves on my own and I don’t have the energy to turn and heal myself right now. I’m spent. I guess I am not eating enough, not resting enough and all I do is travel from dawn to dusk half-heartedly and flop down again. Maybe it’s not energy but a lack of will power when I am stuck in this mindset of hopelessness.
I had to find a quick place to build a fire and dry everything I owned that day and throw away the left-over snacks I had opened as they were soggy and inedible. The money Meadow gave me had to be laid out in the sun and her note was completely ruined, losing even her number on the back because the ink bled out and disappeared.
Eating raw meat isn’t sitting well with my human form either , which came as a shock as I expected it to be a natural transition, but I don’t feel great most of the time. It’s like my wolf side really isn’t all that in touch with my body and maybe it will just take time to adjust. Like building stamina and trying to develop my gift. Just more failure and I feel it’s all getting to me. The dark empty loneliness in my head telling me I am not good enough and never will be. I don’t feel like being a wolf comes naturally and somehow being in human form is easier, which is probably normal considering we spend the first part of our life that way. I just thought it would be a fluid transition with few bumps, like learning to float by jumping in the deep end.
I sit staring at the little fire I pulled together in the basin of the clearing I managed to find. My ass on a fallen rotten tree, feet at either side of my rock circled mini camp fire. Somewhere caught in the unremarkable depths of another dense dark wood in the middle of nowhere that is not as far from the mountain as I would like it to be. Sunny today, with no breeze and the atmosphere has an almost serene calm to it. I’m far enough that fires no longer make me nervous, even when sat in an open clearing like this as I doubt anyone would see the smoke now. I have no idea anymore on where I am, only know how to go back to where I came from.
That’s the thing about us….we can always find our way back to places we have been or left, but without a map I have no idea how far I am from where I started or where I am if someone asked me. It all started to look the same to me after only two days and finding landmarks in almost identical forests is not that easy. I have to keep climbing trees to check where the mountain is on the horizon, so I stay heading south of it. Lord knows I would probably end up U turning accidentally and heading back if I didn’t. I don’t seem to have a sense of direction that I am sure most wolves should. I just have this constant pull to go home and I am not convinced it’s fully because of homesickness.
Sierra’s dream keeps haunting me even in daylight now too and for some reason, keeps replaying whenever I have to make a choice in direction, swaying in the canopy and gazing at the miles around me. More than once I have noticed that when I come to a crossroad in my path choosing, she becomes prominent in my mind and my gut tries to pull me east. Not even back to her son, but off to the left into the unknown. I’m not sure it’s related, or why my mind keeps wandering that way.
I have wondered what would happen if I said screw it and just went that way, but I know it’s probably nothing more than my being dumb and imagining it. I’m lost, emotionally, physically so it’s no wonder my mind is trying to give me some sort of guidance or fake purpose to get me out of this funk.
My plan was always south, my instincts keep on trying to sway me away from the south and I shouldn’t ignore my gut but if my instincts are as faulty as the fates, I am better off ignoring them completely. Look how wrong they were about Colton. He did it … ignored them despite our bond. He marked a mate and forgot me.
South is where my mother said her family came from, not that I know much about them as she never really spoke of her roots the way my father did. My mother was not a Radstone wolf, nor a Whyte pack. She came from somewhere else and always said meeting my father was fated and magical, but never really told us the details or expanded on it. As a little child I was not overly invested in love stories, so I never pushed. Father would just shrug and tell us that their story was much like any other and brush it away. I do know that she said she came from a place where the weather was warmer, land flatter; and her own pack never seemed to keep in touch or reach out in all of the years we lived on the mountain skirt. My grandparents were my father’s family and my mother, she just never brought hers up. We didn’t really talk about it. My family was small, due to my father being an only child born late in my grandparents mating life, and older generations had passed away in my early life before I knew them. Wolves live longer than humans but not for hundreds of years like the vampires are meant to.
It never used to make me think or dwell, but now knowing I have red eyes and a strangely rare gift , it makes me wonder what I actually knew about my mother. My memories are mostly her in human form and the few occasions I glimpsed her as a wolf, I don’t recall ever seeing her eyes. There isn’t much need for a pup to see their parents in wolf form when you live on a peaceful settled farm growing vegetables and raising cattle. Turning used to be a personal thing when there was no need. Like a recreational time to yourself activity among the peaceful dwellers who didn’t have to fight or defend or lord over anyone. The Whyte pack leader was equally stable and calm, and I never saw him turn at all in the time I knew him.
My father never mentioned it , no one did, so I doubt they were red. I mean, she was a snow-white wolf and that was mentioned enough over the years as though it was a bad thing. I knew it meant she was different. I am sure her eyes would have been a talking point too if they had been like mine. They said her fur was white because she lacked a pigment, like a flaw in her genetic makeup and I wonder if it’s why my eyes are red…like an albino; although my wolf is half grey and I’m sure albinos have pink eyes, not blood red. It’s all so confusing and I wish Meadow had told me more about the legends or that the Shaman had taken time to talk to me. It just feels like they should have some relevance, or that my gift should. Maybe all it means is what Juan said is true, I’m a diluted impure bloodline and completely flawed.
It’s after noon, the suns still high but it is doing little to warm me through and lighten my dull mood, not that I care. We have a gift in that the cold doesn’t really affect us the way humans are, and we don’t need the same temperatures to survive. We can feel it, we can enjoy being warm and cosy, but we can sleep in freezing surroundings and not get sick. And if we do, we turn and voila, healed. I’m not worried about getting ill or injured out here as long as I can muster enough energy to turn for a few seconds but it’s my mental state that worries me. I keep thinking about Luna Sierra and her broken mind and I would be lying if I didn’t have a deep-rooted fear I may not be strong enough to endure an oncoming war. I can hide and avoid it as much as I want, but one day I will find myself in the midst and I won’t be able to escape it. It’s always there in the background of my mind.
There’s a crack in the undergrowth behind me and I spin around to focus my eyes on the dark shadowy depths of the trees in the direction it came impulsively. Breath pausing, heart rate increasing as my adrenalin insta-spikes and I train everything on that one spot , poised like I am ready to bolt and my butt hovers over the log I was previously perched on. I catch sight of a small deer running through, parallel to me as it makes a skipping path through to find its little herd and relax again, exhaling heavily with relief and sitting back down. I don’t think the jumpiness will ever subside and I need to learn to calm down a little when it’s bright daylight.
The forest is never silent and it’s something I need to get used to. There is always some animal running around, some tree creaking, the babbling of water or the rustling of the wind. It’s noisy as hell and when darkness moves in, it turns spooky and thick with atmosphere and feels like a million eyes come alive. None of those are anything to really worry about but try telling my hyper senses and scared stupid young girl mind. I should give myself a break though and lighten up a little; I mean, it’s been eighteen years of being a shadow in a pack who maybe didn’t want us, but they met our needs and kept us relatively safe. Well, minus that one night. Now I’m on my own and responsible for my own safety, it’s okay to be on edge. I guess it’s a good thing to be aware.
I found a cave here for tonight that seems secure enough with no rear entry and even though I should still be walking, something in me said it’s time to stop for a while and just ponder stuff for a day or two. I feel like I earned it and after patrolling this area earlier, I don’t think I am encroaching any pack territories. I’m shielded here and there’s a water source literally a few feet away in a little tumbling brook that heads out to a bigger river further on down the way.
I chose a spot near my makeshift bedroom for the night, managed to haul out some of the rabbit I caught in my last turn and didn’t feel like eating, out of my backpack. I started a fire in an attempt to make a real meal of sorts because I need something warm and decent to give me a sense of comfort in that I am winning this and not just scraping by. Cooking the meat I wrapped up in leaves to carry with me, instead of eating it raw will trick my brain into a sense of achievement and less desperation. I foraged for some berries and mushrooms when I found this spot and have everything sitting on the flat stone I picked up nearby and stuck in the hottest part of the ash. If I can pretend I’m doing well, able to eat well with some relaxing cook out time, then maybe I might sleep well later when the sun goes down and maybe my dreams will give me just one night respite. While I try not to ponder on this unearthly belly ache of longings.
I miss real food. Cooked dinners, hot drinks, snacks. I miss milky cocoa and walking around barefoot on carpet and having a light switch to illuminate the corners. I miss having a soft bed and a safe room to close off at night and not worry about always having one eye open. I miss the noise of the others in other rooms and down corridors, I miss Meadow and the sub pack and I dare I say it…I miss him too. If I am honest, I miss more than everything else combined and then some. Even if I hate him for all of this and will never forgive him for marking Carmen, I can still admit my need hasn’t wavered in any way. I can’t even think about it without bringing back the agony which shadows my every move and push it back down in the depths to shut it back off.
I watch the fat begin to seep out of the meat as the stone heats up and it begins to sizzle, giving off an aroma that reminds me of the mess hall, not that rabbit was a regular smell and I have to swallow back that instant choking regret I get often. I have identified it as home sickness, even if the pack house was never really that for me, I guess it’s just a general longing for the mountain and the ties to my long-forgotten family. The farm which still sits empty and I never had the courage to go out to and see, although I always knew it was there waiting. I have never been good at facing my pain, and walking away, closing it off always served a better purpose. Jasper used to tell me as a kid, that you had to face your problems head on to be free of them but then, he never lived to prove that was true.
I miss my brother most of all, more than even my mother at times, even if he did used to tease me and call me names and pull my braids. He was a few years older than me and never let me forget it.
I wrap my arms around my leg and lean forward, self-comforting, trying to enjoy the heat of the flames warming my face in a bid to shut off my mind and its straying unwanted thoughts but another loud crack in the shadows behind me has me bolt upright and spin around to see where it’s coming from. I wonder if my deer passer-by is coming back again and peer into the depths hoping to see it jauntily trotting back out. My eyes narrowing and wolf vision successfully flicking to adjust and surprising me with the clarity of seeing in the dark.
I gasp as a thundering huge black bear comes crashing through the nearby tree line suddenly, completely unexpectedly, downwind from me so no scent warning, almost soundlessly until that last moment.
“Shit!”
It must smell me or what I am cooking and probably followed either scent out to investigate. It doesn’t look inquisitive; it looks mad as hell, with raging eyes and bared teeth and I can tell with the way it rears on its back legs and wails at me that it’s probably my scent ticking it off and it’s not here to say hello.
Bears don’t like my kind, it’s a well-known and documented fact they deem us a threat and we never wander into bear territory alone. Those monsters are strong, relentless, huge and weirdly capable of taking one of us on as long as it’s a smaller femme like me with little to no combat skills.
I get up and start backing away fast, knowing that this is some bad shit to be in right now, eyes darting around for a weapon or escape route as it wades towards me through underbrush, kicking rocks aside with its clumpy massive paws. I swallow hard, pull my wits about me and start pulling off my clothes slowly, keeping my eyes trained on it, because I don’t want to lose the very few items I have to wear. I only have two outfits and they are already worn and scruffy from constant use, so I can’t afford to lose a single item by shredding it to scraps by turning when dressed.
I know I can outrun this demon with its head on killing, but I can’t grab all my stuff and food and run if I do. I have no time and it’s nearer my possessions than me. I can’t leave it all behind me as this asshole will chew it all to shit. It’s mine and I need what little belongings I have. It’s literally all I have and as it tramples over my backpack, a little grey of Colton’s t-shirt peeking out , something inside of me just refuses to take this crap from some overgrown mangy flea-bitten teddy. It’s all I have left of HIM and I’ll be damned if I am leaving it behind.
It comes crashing at me, pulling my full attention back to its enormous face, eyes raging, yellow teeth baring in all their massive, pointy, terrifying glory and I know there’s no way out of this. It’s four times the size of me, easily, three times as wide, as black as the sky on a moonless night and completely deranged. I yank the pant legs off, discarding them with my other off casts, leaving me in my underwear as I run out of time. It lurches at me and I instinctively turn to counteract the attack shredding the only good lingerie I ever owned in my life. Black lace Meadow gave me, and it just pisses me off on a whole other level.
It happens so fast, like something inside of me snaps and takes over and I move in a flash, somehow ending up wrapped around the upper front of that smelly, panting beast, rolling across the basin floor and crashing into fallen logs and rocks. It’s claws and paws bashing down on me, except it doesn’t feel of anything much because of my surge of adrenaline and I latch onto its neck with my teeth, biting hard until I taste salty, metallic blood running into the back of my throat. Digging my claws in where I can get them. My mind is on one thing only, and that’s to maim and hold my own until I come out of the other side of this, no matter how long it takes. Strangely focused, completely in control and yet fighting back with a fierce I never knew I had in me.
It hollers, manages to dislodge me with a well-placed swipe across my head and side with its massive paw; claws digging into my skin and ripping as blood sprays across the landscape, sending me rolling across the debris. The pain is like a distant dream and heals almost instantly, soothing into nothing, like a mild far away throbbing while blood rushes through my head and my own pulse bashes inside my thundering thoughts pushing me on. I am quick to my feet, finding energy I have been lacking for eleven days; running straight back at it and flying hard into its mid-section with front paws and claws extended fully, ready to psychotically start ripping as I collide. I’m determined to leave my mark on it more permanently than the way it just did to me.
There’s an inner fire in me that knows no bounds, as fear dries up and shrivels away and this need to fight for my own things, my own safety, becomes all consuming. Nothing else passes through my train of thought and all I can smell and taste, is this sudden need for blood. Like a hunger coming from deep within that tells me I won’ relent until I take it down. It just fills me with a complete disregard for anything else. I feel it surge through me like a force I can’t explain. A shot from an energy drink or being zapped with a power outlet that springs you across a room.
The bear counteracts my aggressive maneuver and even though I gash it’s front ruthlessly with one paw, ripping flesh once more and almost blinding myself with a face full of splatter, it body slams me with the other, crunching my internal bones and sends my flying through the air like a limp rag. That winds me and renders me temporarily dazed.
I’m still not anywhere near its size, which is its biggest advantage in this, but I won’t let it beat me. I have speed, strength and ability to heal as long as it doesn’t kill me with an instant puncture to my heart or brain or rip my god damn head off. As long as I have a few seconds of not imminent death, then my body will bounce back quickly. Although each time is beginning to throb more than the last and I guess my initial adrenaline surge is waning as bones readjust and crackle under my skin to be reformed. It hurts like a bitch and this time I elicit a howl and yelp as it does so.
My anger grows with this new pain, disabled only momentarily as I scramble to right myself, finding my balance and quick reflexes. An inner rage building up so intensely that I can taste it, becoming almost like a solid mass that I can feel and touch around me.
The bear lunges at me again and this time I’m swift, see it coming and sidestep, jump out of reach and pounce from ground to an overhanging rock that levers me up enough to take a jump right onto the bears head and side. I jump high and get it at an angle, right at the side of its face, clinging on devilishly by puncturing its shoulder and neck with gripping talons and sink my teeth in the top of its skull in an attempt to crush it with sheer will power. I realise too late; my jaw doesn’t have the ability to stretch that far and without a good amount in my teeth I just rip off a clump of scalp and dirty foul-tasting fur which makes me gag.
The bear is as furious as I am, yowling in agony at the removal of a sizable chunk of its own skin, reaches up, catching my hind leg with its claws digging in brutally and throws me clean across the forest floor so I body slap a fallen log side on with the force and velocity of a cannon ball. Ribs cracking under the assault of collision, spiking and stabbing into my lung, crushing, crunching and holy hell balls, I gasp out with a moment of agony that renders me unable to make an actual sound. Air leaking out and failing me because that time it hurt worse than turning for the first time, stunned with the brutality and I am going to rip that mother fuckers god damn throat out.
Somehow, I manage to inhale a breath so my lungs inflate and push my shattered fractured bones back together enough to heal again, but that internal energy I could feel building suddenly encases me fully with every step it takes towards me. My anger knows no bounds anymore and I focus a rage comparable to the fiery depths of hell right at that monstrous ass-hat. It’s around me, shrouding me, like a veil I can almost see, translucent yet it’s tingling my skin, urging me to wrap it up and haul it in. Feed on it and use it. I can’t explain it but it’s like the air becomes a thin fabric of real touchable something that I want to grab out and take.
The bear moves in at me, growling and wailing high into the sky with a blood curling anger that probably translates to ‘die bitch’ and I struggle to get up, still recovering , still dazed with this milky not quite clear air invading my space. Without understanding the why, not questioning where the idea comes from but really having a second of panic action as he makes a final death lunge at me, I grab it from midair, surprised to get a physical handful like a hard hot bowling ball in my palm and throw it at the bear impulsively.
I don’t know what I thought I would achieve and honestly, I didn’t have time to ponder either the science or the stupidity, but I throw air at a bear in a bid to save my own hide. Then groan as logic slaps me in the head for being an idiot.
Like something out of a Hollywood movie though, I watch in wide eyed disbelief as the bear is hit with an almost invisible force that ripples the air around it, sending the milky veil into shimmering flowing movement like mesmorising water after a rock is thrown in. It makes its body indent crazily, like I just rammed it with a truck at crazy speed and for a milli-second, time slows down as I take this all in. It’s thrown back more than three times the distance it threw me, flying high in an arc through the clearing and lands with a shuddering thud on the floor below the tree line spectacularly. I swear the ground quakes with the force and reverberates through my healing body dully, bringing a calm to the forest that was not there before. Complete silence as everything stops and all of nature pauses to say, ‘what in the hell was that?’.
The air pulsates around it silently, the veil moving over and away like I blew a candle and the smoke disperses in the waves of breath into nothingness. Disappearing like it never was and I am as shocked as the damn bear at what I just did, sitting stupefied, watching in complete disbelief. Panting, with an erratic heartbeat, hunched up in my poised pose but dumbstruck and blinking at it.
It seems stunned for a moment, rolls and crawls to its trembling legs, blinking my way and then turns and takes off at a ridiculously slow speed, no longer willing to combat whatever I just did. It’s not recovered though, it’s clumsy and swaying and crashing into the undergrowth.
It doesn’t get very far as I watch from my perched semi kneeling position; staggering sideways, then slowing to a bumbling uncoordinated mess of a stop, falls over its own feet and slumps face down on the ground. It’s like it’s drunk and as it lets out a long noisy groaning exhale, I pull myself to my feet, and watch as it falls completely silent.
I can hear a heartbeat in the air around us so suddenly it makes me jump; slow, laboured, one, two more and stop. I’m shocked that it was so pitch clear while so far away. It couldn’t have been its heartbeat surely? It had to be mine, but I can’t hear it anymore and I check my pulse to be sure I am not actually dead and already crossed over to the other side. Nope still beating as I press my clawed paw to my best and snort out a thankful half growl.
I blow out my lungful of air and give myself a few seconds to fully heal every single tiny injury it inflicted, stretching out my ribs to be sure.
I stay in wolf form and slowly edge forward to see if it’s still alive, just trying to recover my wits and focus for a second attack. Surprised to see my fire and food was free from our thrashing around and still smoking away gently, untouched. It smells pretty good too and my mouth waters with how hungry this has suddenly made me.
Weird.
My bag is kicked to one side, but nothing looks ripped and I catch sight of the t-shirt still sticking out, bringing a sense of calm to my internal rage which had still been simmering away all on its own. I pass it and come up at the bear from the side, veering left cautiously and keeping my distance in case this is a ploy to get me close.
The bear has its eyes wide open, glassy, its tongue hanging from an open mouth, framed with teeth, eliciting no breath and blood streams from both nostrils. It’s vacant, staring at nothing and I realise whatever I did, it messed the bear up inside and it’s dead. I can tell without touching it that it’s life force and aura is completely gone. My senses tuning in and finding nothing.
I did that. With whatever I threw that I couldn’t see, I killed the bear.
I don’t know whether to feel relieved, proud or devastated by the fact I just did that, alone. That I managed to pull some weird power out of my gut and take down a bear with nothing more than air. My heart constricts, my gut twists and I suddenly have the overwhelming urge to throw up as human emotion kicks in and slight shock takes over. I begin to tremble, heart bouncing against my chest wall, mind racing over the fact I literally just had my second ever real full on battle with something capable of killing me and this time, I didn’t almost die at his hands. Umm paws.
I didn’t need Colton to save me either.
He would be proud, not that it matters or that I care of what he thinks anyway.
I push my paws out in front of me, moving to stand on my hind legs and stare at them, unsure how to feel about it. Really just gawping at these strange clawed, fur covered rather blood-soaked weapons of destruction I never knew I possessed. I mean of course, I knew I had paws but these ones, they did something weirdly special that I can’t explain. They also look…whiter, under the mess and grime and red stains but maybe I just never really paid attention to how pale they were before. I was sure they were greyer when I first turned.
I try to muster that sensation again, that physical veil thing that I could touch and hold and see, but nothing happens no matter how many weird grunt and noises and odd faces I pull and I shake my hands away feeling stupid for not knowing how to control something I can clearly do. My legs begin to shake, and I can already feel my energy waning and signaling I will return to human form soon if I don’t hurry up. I don’t know if I would be able to do this as a person and I am not ready to just forget it already.
I forget the bear, forget the battle, the shock, the pride, and walk back to the clearing, extending my hands and try to grasp at air again, with no avail. So focused on this now that nothing else registers in my brain about what just went down.
Whatever that was, I have to figure out how to do it at will. I have to understand how to conjure it and make it appear like that, so I know how to use it again or hone it. Like the day I shattered everything in the house…it just happened when I got mad and….
I got mad!
The thought hits me like a slap in the face as my brain clicks into place and I recall just how crazy angry with Colton I was right before I managed to do that. Just like I was a mass of seething fire sweat and despise with this idiot grizzly. That has to be the key between what I did at the house and now this.
I don’t think it was the same as this though, and he proved it was some sort of absorption gift , especially when he tested himself against it. I definitely did not have Colton’s strength, speed and power this time or else the bear would have been toast in seconds. I saw what he did to the vampire that night. So I did absorb and deflect his own gifts. This isn’t that, this is something else, unless that bear had weird powers and was some sort of shapeshifter and not a regular black bear.
I glance back at its lifeless form, a hint of apprehension and circling questions and shake my head, removing that doubt completely. Shifters would revert to person after death and it’s still a pretty sizeable black fur rug over there. Creating a dark mass against the trees.
I felt anger and rage and instead of fear I wanted to exert my dominance. I instinctively protected myself with something I conjured up and I haven’t come in contact with anything like this that I can ever recall. Not recent enough to absorb anyway and I know it wouldn’t have stayed with me. Absorption doesn’t last, like it hasn’t with Colton’s gifts.
I look down at my hands once more, weighing it up in my mind and realise that IS exactly how I did it. I was raging with Colton, like I was with the bear so it must be the source to harnessing it. I need to learn to use my rage to control my gift. Not that it will be hard to find a reason to be mad, I just need to remember the pain of four days after leaving and bingo, I could fuel rage for an eternity while cursing his ‘puta skanky ass’ name.
If I leave the self-pity aside and remind myself that on the full moon a few days after that, I felt no new agony…so no new betrayal, then I know the answer. He must have marked her before the turning ceremony, once he was sure I was long gone. Out of sight, out of mind.
I sat up that whole night waiting and watching the moon and felt nothing.
Slimy dog.
It ignites rage all right, but I don’t know what to do with it. I just stare at my limp hands, slowly turning back to human, failing to conjure the milky mist and give up. I guess without something to direct the rage or have something threatening me in some way then I have no idea how to conjure it up properly. Maybe if Colton was standing in front of me …..
My head falls back as I sigh up at the sky and exhale heavily. Nakedly standing in the wood and brain jumps back to reality. I have an opportunity presenting itself if I put gifts and rage aside. I just killed a bear, a big one and his fur shouldn’t be wasted when I am trying to make rural survival more bearable. I was aching for some home comforts and a soft bed… that fat chunky ass has a perfectly thick piece of warmth just going to waste now. I need to remember what my father told me about off grid survival that it was essential to utilise everything you can at any given opportunity.
I turn my attention back to the beast, a sliver of guilt finally cutting into my heart a tad painfully, reminding me I am in fact human as I watch its now still, pathetic pose and try not to fall back into weak girl with too much empathy. I have had to do this a lot these past days when hunting my own food and I just need to accept that life can be cruel and in nature, it’s eat or be eaten. I ignore the growing knot in my heart and chest, push away the thoughts and find that inner grit.
I pull out my pocketknife from my backpack and flip out the knife section, gleaming in the sun hitting the clearing and shining back at me. I have been using this to skin rabbits and such for days but its small and not the sharpest even though I have tried to use flint rocks to keep it so. It will take a month to skin that damn bear.
I extend my hand, stretch it out and turn it alone, to my wolf paw. Lycanthrope can use their paws like hands or feet ,and I turn it and extend my claws fully, measuring up mentally the size and sharpness knowing really, I have the only tools I need right here. I don’t bother dressing, as I am filthy after that little battle. Dried blood from my own now healed body and the bears wounds, covers my skin in disgusting patterns and smear marks. I probably look as feral as this makes me feel. I will need to bathe before dressing and this is going to get messy anyway.
I cover the ground between us and close the gap with the bear, extending my claws fully with my mind set on a stomach-churning task. Leaning in to salvage what fur I can and maybe a trophy claw, as a reminder that I just earned my first warrior stripe. I push down the urge to vomit, suck up the sudden surge of emotion that makes me feel slightly vulnerable as I stand over my kill and survey what I am about to do. I don’t even know if bear meat tastes good, it might when cooked and I guess I am about to find out.
It’s the first day in the last eleven, that the sadness and hopelessness abates, and I feel like I might just learn how to get through this in one piece with a little more resolve than the last two weeks. I might learn how to grow, how to be strong if I give myself more time and some faith. If I can take on a bear, maybe I can take on something paler, faster, deadlier with a blood lust should I happen upon one.
I need to figure out how to unleash my potential and for the first time I wonder if Colton saw it before I did. That he could see through what everyone else did and caught a hint of a spark when he got closer to me.
Maybe I am special.
Wolves can’t throw air.
ns 15.158.61.51da2
