Feral Run

Chapter 2

I woke up.

The red cloud had caught me again. It hurt. And it was still there. It could catch me again.

But I could run.

I growled and rose to my feet, looking out into the forest. The scents of prey were somewhere out in the distance. Their blood and meat would sustain me. Sustain us. Then we could run. We could keep running. We were fast. The cloud wouldn't catch us this time.

The puppy stirred as he slipped off my leg, yawning a little as he woke. I crossed over to where Black-paw had fallen asleep and nudged at his side. He growled at me, but his bright-red eyes finally opened, and he rose to his feet. He would wake the others.

I scooped the puppy up by his scruff. Time to run.

Stub-tail lagged behind on our run. Golden-pelt didn't do much better. And they smelled... different. They might have been injured. They might have been caught by the cloud. Slowing down might mean the rest of us were caught - I already ran slower than I could, so the rest of the pack could keep up - but they were pack. We wouldn't leave them behind. The red cloud wouldn't catch them again.

We all sped up when we smelled the deer.

I felt the chasing cloud fall behind as we closed in on the prey. The deer heard us coming - we had made no effort to be silent as we ran through the trees - and it began to run from us. That just made us run faster.

A snarl built in my throat as I ran after the fleeing prey... and a whimper came from the puppy I carried. My jaws had closed too tightly around his scruff, and had hurt him.

I slowed down and relaxed my grip. I lowered the puppy to the ground and began to lick his back, making sure I hadn't drawn any blood. The sound of the chase still reached my ears, and I longed to rejoin it - I was the leader of this pack, and the duty of providing the meal was mine... but the puppy had to be kept safe. I couldn't carry the puppy and hunt. And I couldn't trust one of the others to carry the puppy.

A surge of satisfaction came from ahead of me as Black-paw brought down the deer. There was a struggle for a brief second... then there was food.

There was no blood on the puppy. But he would be hungry. I picked him back up and carried him to the dead deer.

Golden-pelt and Stub-tail hung back from us as we ate. The puppy wandered over towards them, and I kept a close eye on the three of them as I ate my fill. The two of them were acting strangely today. Lagging behind, not fighting to be first to eat. I would win such a fight - I was the leader of this pack, the strongest of us, and I always won - but it was still strange of them not to fight. Perhaps they had become sick.

I paused around a mouthful of the hot deer meat and eyed the three of them. Golden-pelt's amber eyes met mine, then quickly looked away. Stub-tail's brown eyes were moving between the deer and the puppy. That made me nervous. There was definitely something wrong with them. It wouldn't do for the puppy to catch whatever was causing them to act funny...

The puppy was wagging his tail and looking up at the two wolves. He seemed happy - he jumped in a circle and began running around Golden-pelt, though she didn't seem interested in playing. She was just staring at the dead deer. But not like she was hungry.

Torn-ear began pulling at the meat near me, and I turned my attention back to the meal. I growled and snapped at him, and he backed down. He went back to his side of the deer, and I focused back on eating. The blood and the taste of the meat kept the pursuing cloud further away.