{{ Originally written as a Halloween horror short, I decided since coming back here I might as well share it with you all. Gore warnings. }}
"Help!" I yowled, panic crushing my lungs and making it hard to scream. Even more agonizing were my legs, my hind ravaged and dripping blood, and my fore from dragging myself out of the caverns and into the snow beyond. I did't look, but I knew a thick trail of red followed after my useless back paws turning the pure white snow crimson.
It was too much to hope that someone would possibly find me: no cat ever went into the tunnels beneath the territory, and with no one knowing I was missing . . . I could hardly make it back to camp either. The pain had started to grow as the adrenaline faded from my veins. Desperately, even physically, I tried to call it back if only to ease the pain and give my limbs energy to escape – those that worked, I added, another rush of panic pulling me back under.
Frantically, I pulled and pulled with my paws, seeming to make slow progress and knowing I was actually going even slower.
Luckily, it had stopped chasing me once I reached the surface.
Or, I had thought so.
A loud eruption of a howl and scream combined echoed behind me, and I fell with a scream of my own. My heart doubled its pace, rapping a hard beat against my chest. My lungs refused to draw in air, leaving me gasping on the ground as the monster – there was no other word to describe it – started to emerge.
I couldn't run if I had four working legs. It had me by the eyes, and my body froze under its glare. My legs collapsed, yet my head stuck up and over my shoulder at an awkward angle to watch it come as I couldn't move my eyes as much as I could move my legs.
A great fear pushed onto my mind, like the monster gripped it too, yet otherwise I was free to think as I pleased. I could experience everything, yet do nothing. I wished I could close my eyes so I wouldn't have to watch. I wished I could die, if only to get this over with.
But the monster approached its prey slowly, in no rush to come and kill me.
It wasn't like I was going anywhere anytime soon.
I never remembered how I came to live. I know I passed out. . . somehow. Either from fear or lack of blood, I assumed.
But that was after the fact.
The only thing I remember was times of light and dark, when my mind floated up to consciousness before sinking back into a coma-like state. When I woke up – actually opened my eyes that is – it only felt like a couple days of this drifting. Hawthorn told me it had been over that time, a moon in fact, and I was in no position to argue.
It was another moon until I was well enough to 'stand' if one could call it such. Although Hawthorn was a phenomenal healer (much better than Pinedapple back at camp, in my own opinion), he hadn't been able to save much more of my legs than was left before, but I was alive, and that was a better fate than I thought I would have gotten would he not have been there. Hawthorn agreed, stating that I likely would have bled out that very day the legs were so mauled.
Anyhow, I was able to hop about as the upper halves healed quite nicely in the moon that I hardly moved, though I couldn't go far (it hurt my 'knees' now turned 'paws' in my way of moving, and the skin was most surely not as durable as the pads of a normal paw, nor structured to hold as much weight. It only took a couple minutes to become sore that way). But I could move.
A cat called Cricket hunted for the two of us. Apparently there was a group of these cats, and by some agreement they would hunt as long as Hawthorn would heal their injured and sick. I hardly ever saw any of them, though, and they never bothered us in our little abode bar those one-in-a-sun occurrences when one of them sprained a paw or something.
All this reminded me of the Clan, which I found immensely amusing as we were right on their doorstep and, from what little I heard at least, they didn't even know we existed. Though the Clan didn't know they existed either, so maybe there was something going on about the arrangement, but I could not puzzle that out, even with my moons of free time.
I never told them my real name, knowing it would most likely only alienate me from the only cats I had to help me. So I gave the prefix of my apprentice name, knowing it would sound like one of their loner names. And that is how I became Trout.
And now I'm rambling, as while knowing of my condition and of the group that took me in is vital to the tale, it is not the point I am trying to make. What did matter was what happened to me inside of the caverns, and that is what Hawthorn asked after I was 'walking' again for some while.
"There's said to be a monster in the tunnel system all beneath the forest," I started, using the words I've heard many times in nursery tales. It felt… right in this telling. At least to begin it, then would come my tale. "But there is also a treasure. Something so powerful one only needs to touch the item to acquire the gifts it contains. They say whoever can make it all the way in and out alive will become stronger than a lion, faster than a cheetah, more cunning than a tiger.
"There isn't any light in the paths belowground, and I only had my paws and whiskers to guide me farther and farther into the belly of the earth. It was simple to navigate in the beginning, but the trails soon forked into twos, and threes, and circular caverns with many openings. Sometimes the ground dipped low, and in one of these dips water filled the cavern to the top and I had to hold my breath and swim through the blackness, only hoping there was air on the other side.
"Throughout the journey, I could feel where I needed to go. It was if there was a vine tied around my paw, guiding me forward. After the water tunnel came one of the circular caverns like I had mentioned before. I put a claw scratch in the floor where I entered, and walked around the circle. There were sixteen black openings counting my own.
"At that time, it felt like I had been in the tunnels for moons upon moons, and was sure that once I came back into the light my muzzle would be grey. Yet I also didn't feel hunger, and so I knew it was still the same sun. Even with that, I couldn't wander for suns down there without food and knew – just knew – that each of the false trails at this intersection would take me into another warren of dead ends in which I would not have the time to search. I only had one (maybe two if I was lucky and chose a shorter dead end) chance to get this right.
"So I chose a path. The third on my left to be exact. The scariest thing was the lack of reasoning I had for choosing it. It was only when I started hearing It that I knew I had chosen right – or this path intersected the correct path – and was nearing the end of the accursed maze.
"I first heard It breathing. In and out. In and out. In and out. Each sent a breeze echoing through the tunnels, leaving a slight whistle and howl. I knew I wouldn't find my way out again, having arrogantly forgotten to mark the earlier forks of the trail. Although following the breathing of something so immense it had to be the monster told in the tales was a death sentence, it was the only option I had. So I went, using my ears and whiskers to follow the gusts of winds as they came.
"I then dimly saw something white ahead. The only difference in the perpetual blackness, I found a new energy and rushed forward. I remember being overcome with thinking of escape or how the light emanated from the talisman. Too late, plenty too late did I remember of the breathing noises that had lead me to this cavern. I had been following them for so long I had forgotten what they truly were, only that they were the way to the end.
"Now I will describe the cavern, for within the few seconds I glimpsed it the image had been burned into my eyes. A large crystal sat in the very center upon a raised bit of stone intricately carved into a dais. The rock was ragged, but enthralling and filled with an amazing beauty. A sliver of light started at the peak before travelling through the clear gemstone in a dazzling display, reflecting glittering patches throughout the cavern in a way my light-deprived eyes froze in awe.
"But I did not have more than those precious seconds to gaze upon the stone, for with a raucous echo the monster came out of the shadows and into the light. I could not describe to you what the monster appeared as, for my mind could not piece together the flashes of fur and scales and gleaming ivory of claws and fangs. Even if I had saw it in better light, I doubt I could recall Its appearance, as although you must have seen it to rescue me, I do not believe the memory of It is in you either.
"I ran, then. There was nothing I could do. Just as I had found the larger exit tunnel at the other side, It caught up and sunk Its claws into my hind, ravaging my legs as I tore free and leaving them as they were when you found me. Luckily It knew I wouldn't make it far, and I was able to slowly pull my way out with It following well behind. It knew I was dead, and It was in no rush to finish me off.
"That was when I made it outside, and when you came to my rescue," I finished.
Hawthorn commented on how lucky I had been, making it out of the tunnels at all. "It was no luck. I had made it because I needed to."
"For what?" he had asked.
"So that I could find you."
Hawthorn laughed, "Why did you need to find me?"
"So I could kill you."
"You didn't do it for the powers of the crystal?"
"There is no crystal. There is no powers. And there is no monster. I lied."
I wiped the blood from my claws in the grass beside me, smiling at the body of the dead cat in front of me. I then stood up and started to run.
My injuries?
Yeah, I lied about that too.
{{ And I wanted to try out the ending. cx Critique very much welcomed on my trying a new style. Did you like it? What can be better?
I've always wanted to do a story of someone telling a story.
And where the entire thing was a lie to the reader.
It was an entertaining test run. xD
I found I liked writing in this way, so unless you want my writing to suck please tell me what you think of this trial run so I can adjust accordingly.
Thank you! }}