A/N:
Told from the perspective of a Dire Wolf pack. Dire Wolves are an extinct species: this pack experiences how they became so.
Dire Consequences
The thrill of the chase, of the hunt, of the kill. That is what I lived for; and what we lived for.
But this time, with little food, were were forced to scavenge off the land.
The hurt bison was so tempting; lying down on the ground, breathing heavily and eyes wide with fear – we trotted up to it to eat it alive.
We shouldn't have.
But we did and we paid the price.
Our paws sunk into the soft ground; it took me a moment to realize we were sinking! I tried to lift up my paw – it was very difficult. I managed to yank it out of the ground, but when I tried to pull the others out they were stuck firmly in place. I yelped in panic. What was happening?
I looked around me; my pack members had the same problem – they were firmly cemented in place – and were whining, whimpering, and yelping.
For suns, we tried to escape from the sticky death. But we couldn't. The bison had already succumbed to thirst; but its body was too far away for our salivating maws to reach.
We were desperate now – our stomachs aching to be fed and our tongues crying out for water. We turned on each other; well aware that whoever succeeded in killing and eating their pack mates would eventually succumb.
Who knew the dominant predator of the ice age was so fragile?
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A/N:
Another old piece. The short sporadic sentences are intentional. Please review.
I prefer these types of stories to be vague. I try to write in the way a wolf would experience things. They operate mostly on instinct, so I try to write like the wolf is acting on instinct all the time. For example, I don't think a wolf would stop and analyze what an environment looks like when it is dying. It's primary goal would be to survive.
The 'sticky death' was a tar pit. Many animals died in these pits - they were unable to escape and ultimately died. In some of these fossilized pits, there has been evidence carnivores (such as Dire Wolves) were so desperate to survive, they ate their dead/dying kin.