Change in Life

Chapter 11. The Vice of Hunger

Indeed, the police were called. The search was expanded into the woods and bloodhounds were utilized. All Blake's planning had meant little in the end when his woodland home was targeted. 

Fortunately, as he expected, the humans were looking blind. With no smell of his human self to go off, the bloodhounds had little to nothing to go on. Within a few miles of where Blake had vanished, the search and rescue crew only combed the outer edges of the treeline. Their den was out of their frantic gaze.

Turning up nothing but blood stained clothes from the fields, the search was called off within days.

As those days went by, Blake's thoughts of his parents soon dwindled, and with Jade's help, in a matter of weeks, he soon learnt to cope with it. Like moving out of home for the first time, he remembered only the great things about his family. And he tried to think they were doing the same, and moved on. Everything was, somewhat, back to normal. The way it was before Blake saw the search and rescue people.

Slowly walking through the woods, Blake sniffed the ground, trying to find something to eat. No creature could be smelt. He searched for hours, but still nothing turned up. He got hungrier as the night dragged on. Killing had been something he reluctantly chose to accept. Each hunt still made his heart twitch in shame, yet it was becoming bearable. That aspect of himself he was abhorrent with. 

Scavenging for food quickly became a routine as dull as school work, an act that would normally make him seethe. He wondered how quickly he would loose all those special traits about himself that linked him to human life. Although in a fox skin, he felt is demeanor was still a man. Yet each part of his personality was being taken away. He was becoming a beast far more quickly than he liked.

A failure in the hunt the night before made him frustrated, and this night with no opportunities around only stacked that anger. As winter approached, the number of small animals that were out in the open was close to nil. With the cold winds, all creatures tried to absorb as much heat from the sun as they could. They risked nothing at night.

Giving up in the woods, Blake decided to head for the fields, in the hope that he might find something edible there. Big game in the woods was usually aimed at purely for the amount of meat a single kill could bring. A rabbit or large rat could sate his hunger for a night or two. Those were a luxury. In the fields though mice, and the rare vole, were always scampering. They were bland and were mostly bone, yet they sat in his gut all the same.

On the way, he pointed his muzzle to the tree tops and howled out to Jade - the call most humans associated with foxes. A long sharp "waaah" sound. His call carried itself through the trees like no other sound he knew. It was distinct. It chilled the souls of others, but for those who knew the caller, it was calming. Just the knowledge of someone being close by was soothing. The bark was good, but couldn't travel through the air as well.

Within thirty minutes, and a couple of howls later, he got a reply. It was distant and partially lost in the rustle of leaves and branches, but it was Jade. By the direction, he guessed she was already at the fields. He ran to catch up with her.

As he ran through the woods, he noticed something unusual. It had no smell, and the area seemed too still. He stopped and investigated the immediate vicinity out of curiosity. He rounded a tree and noticed a small hole. A burrow. Normally there would be a scent of a rabbit at least, but there wasn't. Dried pellets of rabbit droppings littered the area, which fell part at the slightest breeze, and cobwebs stretched across the opening. Those, too, were vacant. The borrow was abandoned. He cocked his head then poked his nose inside to get a better sniff. He guessed there had been rabbits here months, or even years ago. But now it was empty.