Chapter 9:

Curiosity Kills

While a dozen of her pack members were headed to Rabbit Poo Mountain to search for her missing brother and uncle-in-law, Magril (who did not yet know that Fleet and Garth were missing yet) was with a few friends in the forest where many of the wolves in Jasper had seen that "shooting star" fall to the early on a week earlier. Magril was not originally from the western pack, like her friends who were on either side of her, but from the northern pack, as were her brother Fleet and her father Nars. They had all joined the western pack alpha Nars married the blind beta wolf known as Daria.

Not with the intention to get into any danger, these seven adolescent wolves were just simply exploring the forest to see if they could catch a glimpse of the creature that Princess claimed to have encountered the day before. Having grown up for the most part, Magril had become more of a rebellious and less shy wolf than she had been during her puppy days. She could be compared to Runt, Claudette, and Stinky in that Magril also sometimes got caught in all sorts of "adventures" with her friends that could sometimes cause trouble.

"Is that it?" Magril asked her six friends. "The shooting star everyone has been talking about?"

The seven wolves stared up at the massive and strange-looking object, which was slightly buried in the soil of Shadow Forest, and the horseshoe-shaped ends of this object sticking up toward the night sky as the full moon shined down on the area. This entire thing, they believed now, was no shooting star—it had to be some sort of crashed ship, to use human terms. But it was still like nothing these wolves had ever seen before, which was obviously a lot considering their younger age.

"I believe it is," one of the male wolves said. "But we aren't going to explore it just yet, Magril."

"We aren't?" Magril asked him with surprise in her voice.

"No, we aren't," he replied. "But we will see. First, have you ever heard the adults talking about the 'blame slime' pools that everyone is seeing all over Jasper suddenly?"

"Yes." Magril nodded. Her and Fleet had heard Nars and Daria discussing it the other the other day, saying that it may have something to do with some of the sudden disappearances and the creature that Princess had seen outside of her den. "Why?"

"We are going to find one of those first," he explained. "Now, we also did some eavesdropping of her own and the six of us may know where we can find one of these 'black slime' lakes."

"Where?" Magril asked.

"Just follow us," the same wolf, whose name was Liam, told her. "It's not that far from where we are now, really. I'm sure that we'll know it when we see it."

No more words were spoken between the seven wolves as they began heading down a trail in Shadow Forest, with Liam in the lead of them all. It was so dark, darker than usual, that it reminded these seven of when Shadow Forest had been haunted by the ghost of Daria's mother. No, it was much darker than it was then, they had the same thought.

Liam was right. No more than ten minutes later, the group of seven wolves saw a few jet-black lakes down the hillside where the trail ended. None of them had a doubt in their minds about what they were looking at. The lakes of 'black slime' that they had come here to see before they intended to explore that crashed object right up the hillside.

"Well, we found one of them," another of the young she-wolves said.

"Yeah…" Magril said a bit nervously as they walked closer to it. "So now what are we going to do? There isn't really much that is special about this lake except that it's some sort of dark slime instead of water."

"Well, you once said that you wanted to show how you're willing to do anything, didn't you?" Liam asked her.

"Yeah?" Magril said, once again nervously. She didn't like where this was starting to go.

"Well, to prove that," he continued, "we all want to see you drink as much of that 'black slime' as you can handle."

"We don't even know what that is for sure!" Magril protested.

"Exactly," Liam almost laughed.

"Look," one of the other males said. "You won't be the first wolf to do this. I've done it and nothing happened. You'll be fine, beyond a little nausea, believe me."

Magril rolled her eyes. "Fine," she sighed, not feeling any better about this dare. She thought it was foolish for them to even dare her to drink something unknown when it could be deadly, when it could possibly kill her! "I'll do it…I'm up for anything after all…"

"So you are up for anything?" one of the females asked in a slightly mocking tone. "Let us hear you say it louder then."

"I'm up for anything," Magril said in a louder voice. But her friends still weren't convinced due to the lack of confidence Magril still had in her voice.

That wasn't how any of Magril's friends had wanted her to respond.

"Oh, come on, Magril," Liam complained in an insulting tone, "We want you to be LOUD."

"Alright," Magril said with a devious smile. She didn't hate them for it, but she her patience for her friends' games was growing through. They clearly wanted her to be loud, and because of how they had annoyed her, she would make them all regret what they wished for, even if what she would say next would not be something she'd say otherwise. "I AM UP FOR FUCKING ANYTHING!" she bellowed in such a way that all of her friends ran off to hide behind the trees yelping, as if they thought someone had pissed off Eve and she was hunting them down now. "Oh, I'll fucking DO IT!"

As her friends watched, almost horrified by this sudden outburst, Magril let out a scream (only to continue making her friends thing she wasn't chickening out any more) and then ran down the hillside barking like a wolf gone mad. The others, still nervously hiding behind the tree as a result of Magril's unexpected outburst (something she had done to scare her friends to death as payback for their goading of her), watched as the usually shy wolf began slurping up the black slime like a dehydrated wolf would slurp up water.

Magril lasted six minutes without stopping at drinking up that slime before she returned to her group of friends, who had not come out from behind the tree until they heard how Magril was groaning in a sickly tone. Magril did not feel any pride for what she had done but she only felt extremely sick to her stomach and just wanted to crawl off somewhere to puke her guts up. And she did just that in a nearby bush—her friends could hear her loudly vomiting as they came out from behind the tree. She felt much worse now that she had drunk so much of that slime or whatever the hell it was. It tasted as horrible as it made Magril feel and it had burned horribly, almost like a very weak acid of some sort, when she had gulped down and swallowed that slime. And now that the black slime was slowly digesting in Magril's gut, she felt so much worse with each second that went by—vomiting had done nothing; that black slime was still in her stomach. Rather disturbingly, none of it had come up when Magril had vomited in the bus. Her stomach was still full of that black slime and, as a result, was burning tremendously.

But then Magril, albeit in a pained voice, groaned these words: "Don't feel bad about this. Some things just aren't meant to be ingested by some wolves, but I'll be alright once it's out of my system…in a day or two. Just go on to explore that thing we saw earlier while I rest up here."

"You sure?" Liam asked quietly. He felt guilty about the condition Magril (who was as close to being his mate without being it as a wolf could get) was in now. Liam was in love with Magril, so just knowing that he was the reason for this pain she was going through, he felt horrible in his heart and sick to his stomach just thinking about it.

"Yes," Magril answered him even more weakly than she had spoken only seconds earlier. She was now lying down on her side, breathing more powerfully than she could speak. "I'll catch up with you guys once I catch my brother, alright?"

"Alright…" Liam replied with no less guilt in his voice than he'd had before, as Magril's group of friends (reluctantly wanting to leave Magril all alone despite her claims) took off up in the hill again, heading back in the direction of that odd-looking "shooting star."

Only a few minutes after her friends left her all alone to rest, Magril tried getting up off the ground. But she was already so weakened by that slime digesting in her gut—and getting so much weaker with every individual second that went back. As soon as Magril stood up, she collapsed again before rolling down the side of the bank, weakly screaming as she headed for the source of that slime that had made her so weak already. There was a loud splash followed by the slime shooting up into the air briefly as Magril fell into the dark lake. Not only did Magril not sink like she had expected—the wolf just simply floated there in place, with her face stuck in the slime and her back facing the sky—but she could no longer move either due to how quickly she had weakened as a result of ingesting so much of the slime.

A chill went down Magril's spine when there were a few ripples in the dark lake. With her eyes wide open in what could be best described as absolute terror, Magril couldn't even move an inch as something snake-like swam around the motionless and floating wolf. Magril didn't realize it at first, but there were a few of them, all resembling disturbing mutated snake-like worms. They were not attacking Magril—yet, she feared, as no predator would hesitate to take advantage of a defenseless animal when given the chance—but she could sense that no matter what these creatures were, they were highly aggressive. They were swimming around slowly yet in a swarming fashion as spiders would do around a bit of insects, waiting for the best chance to strike and get an easy meal.

While the other three snake-like creatures continued swimming, almost tauntingly, it seemed, around Magril, the fourth one raised its "head" up so it seemed to tower over the dying she-wolf. Yes, Magril knew she was dying—the hellish pain through her entire body and her lack of ability to move toward her that. At first, it did nothing other than hiss at Magril and seemed to stare into her eyes with its faceless "face." But when the creature stopped hissing, only very briefly though, a crest on its round head expanded. It no longer had an eyeball-shaped head but now a flat face with an expanded crest similar to that of what some humans called a cobra snake. It still had no eyes—only just a small tooth-filled mouth—but Magril swore it could see her in some way despite obviously being a blind creature. Maybe it smelled her or saw her through infrared vision like a snake would.

Not only was Magril defenseless and unable to move because of how much of that black slime had physically weakened her, but she couldn't even form words now. She couldn't speak or do something simple like breathing or twitching her eyes. And she couldn't scream at this terrifying creature that still towered over her as if it thought it were her dominant.

But what happened next caused Magril to scream even though she had not had the strength to achieve such a reaction before now. It was an intense scream of pure agony as this creature latched itself into her. She felt the pain of the knife-like teeth, as small as they were, ripping through the flesh on her shoulder. Two of the other creatures joined the first one in the act of tearing Magril's flesh, and eating it as well, as the fourth one resurfaced. It hissed aggressively as it went straight for Magril's mouth and slithered into it like it belonged in there, immediately silencing her screams of pain. She couldn't breathe now, but she could feel it slithering down her throat like a snake going down a tunnel to its den. In this case, that tunnel was her throat and the den would be her stomach.

Before she died, Magril felt her esophagus tear apart quickly due to the width of the snake-like creature slithering down it. Magril died not only because of her esophagus tearing apart but because her blood flooded with her own blood as a result of that happening.

Not even knowing that Magril was being brutally killed in this moment, her six friends were just arriving at the hole torn in the inside of whatever this crashed object was. They could no longer call it a shooting star; they were young but that wasn't to say they hadn't all seen at least one shooting star in their lives before now.

But as soon as the six wolves entered through that tear in the side, they came across a nightmarish scene. There were three dead wolves, all with their chests torn open in a way that it told them something had torn out of their chests from the inside. There was dried blood all over the ground. There were all three spider-like creatures not far away from the dead wolves; they were also dead. There was also a dead, mutilated human. But, unlike the dead wolves, these six friends did not recognize her.

"It's…Claws," Liam gasped. Like the others, he felt sick. "Hutch…and Scar…"

"W-What did this?" one of the she-wolves asked.

Before anyone could answer her, the wolves froze when they heard something slithering through the room, which seemed to be covered in some sort of small hive-like structure that was full of tunnels and gave off an intense heat that made the wolves sweat. They heard the slithering come from one of those tunnels. And then it appeared, sliding right out of the tunnel and then standing up right behind the same wolf who had just spoken. It was a massive reptilian creature with human-like teeth.

She heard a low growl and a hiss behind her before starting to say "There's something behind me, isn't t-there?" but the creature behind her cut the she-wolf off mid sentence. There was a sudden scream and even more sudden spray of blood as that creature shot it's barbed tail into her back and out the other side of her body, right through her belly.

But that was not the only attacker. Three of the others immediately found themselves being attacked by more of the same creature that had just killed one of them. There were more screams and sprays of blood as these creatures shot an inner mouth right into those wolves' skulls, shattering them and sending brain matter all over the floor of the room, as well as the nearby wall and any nearby wolves.

Liam turned to run away as he saw the fifth of his friends pinned to the wall and screaming as one of those things began secreting a dark fluid from its mouth that dripped down over his body. It quickly hardened as the creature secreted more and more of it onto the wolf's body, quickly forming a cocoon over all of his body except for his neck and head. That was when it happened so quickly, just as Liam had turned around—a leathery egg opened up and as soon as it did, one of those spider-like creatures lunged toward Liam's face. He screamed once again as it attached to his face, wrapping its eight legs tightly around his head with no intention of letting go any time soon.

But that scream was abruptly cut short when Liam felt this spider or whatever it was force something down his throat. It was this thing's proboscis and he soon felt something drop into his lung…Liam knew that it had just laid a single egg inside of him.