Before Death

Chapter 11: Truce

Time seemed to stand still as the alpha's head loomed menacingly over mine.

Thinking back, I can still remember the salivating wolves closing in on me, quickly working out that this foreign creature was more prey than threat. To this day, I'm still surprised that I survived a situation like this where the odds were so stacked against me. It seems my end is near now, though - I can feel the fatigue seeping into my bones and the slowling growing voice in my head trying to persuade me to slip quietly into the afterlife. But I am determined to finish telling my story first. So, I do not put down the pencil, and instead continue to scrawl my memoirs:

The atmosphere deteriorated from tense to life-threatening in a matter of seconds. A nearby male pounced forward sunk his lethal teeth into my calf. I screamed in agony, imagining how painfully my life would end as the rest of the oack followed in tearing me to shreds.

What happened next was nothing short of astonishing. Layer over my primal scream, a primordial snarl from the alpha sounded, followed my the canines in my lower leg being ripped out and a whimper of pain being audible.

I clutched at my bleeding leg, not even considering the danger of bringing my hands out in the open from their safe position tucked underneath my body. Immobile from shock, it was only when the rest of the wolves quickly dispersed when I realised what remarkable event had just unfolded. The alpha had, for some reason, defended me.

Curious... It was unlikely that the other members of the pack had ever seen a human being before since they had probably spent their whole lives here in the most remote parts of Russia imaginable. But this alpha seemed to know what human beings were - otherwise he woukd gave advanced cautiously at first with the rest. However, if he had had human contact before, he would have viewed me as a dangerous and cruel creature to be attacked on sight. Yet he reacted most unexpectedly and saved my life.

Eventually the alpha, too, moved a short distance away but still seemed to be guarding me in some way. Whether to prevent his pack from harming me or the other way around, I still do not know.

I was able to turn my attention back to my wound. I rapidly opened my bag and searched desperately for my knife, both to defend myself (though if it came to that I knew no dagger was anywhere near a match for a pack of feral wolves) and to cut a strip of clothing in order to bandage my wound and staunch the bleeding.

With a sinking heart, I realised that my knife remained embedded in the tree, where I had use it as a foothold to climb into a tree.

I was forced to rip a piece of cloth from my shirt with my bare hands, all the while anxiously trying to keep all the wolves in my field of vision.
After quickly bandaging my wound, which was not as bad as I had feared, even though would not able to put weight on it for quite some time, I reassesed my situation.

The sky was starting to darken with the promise of an intense storm and the wolves were all making their way to shelter in their shallow cave. The alpha seemed to be overseeing this process as well as glancing in my direction frequently.

I tried to quell my rising panic. I could feel the charge of static electricity building up in the air as the storm drew nearer and dark clouds obscured the sun from view. I struggled to make out the figures of the wolves through the darkness, although I was sure they could see me just fine with their far superior night vision. Just another disadvantage for me...

I got to my hands and knees and tried to crawl to lower ground for cover and to get away from the pack. An alarmingly close bolt of lightning stopped me in my tracks. I cowered on the flat stone surface and pressed myself down onto the ground, willing the storm to pass quickly.

Instead of bending to my desire, the storm seemed to draw ever nearer and a bolt of lightning struck a tree barely a hundred metres from me. A deafening crack sounded, followed by panicked yelping from the pack behind me.

I a move of absolute desperation, I turned tail and dragged myself over to the cave where I was met with the sight of almost two dozen fearful wolves warily regarding me.

I pressed myself against the overhanging ledge and the wolves drew away from me fearfully. The storm showed no mercy, with howling winds chasing raindrops over the forest landscape. This tempest seemed to be neverending and sometime during its rage I found myself huddling together with the wolves at the very back of the cave.

It seemed we had struck an unlikely truce, united by fear of the deadly elements. All I knew is that, clutching onto a wolf who trembled with terror as if it was nothing more than a tame dog, I felt more at home than ever.