Shun

Behind me in the cave, came the low moans of the hunter that Cynthia bit in the back of the leg as a last ditch effort to save Alice and I. He was rolling around on the ground, clutching his calf muscle that was still dripping blood. There was no worry about him ever turning into a wolf, not with the way that he was bleeding. It looked like Cynthia had hit a major artery with all of the blood that was pooled around in the cave.

That hunter wasn't long for this world anymore. Maybe this was karma paying him a visit for killing all of the wolves that used to inhabit the forest. He let out another inhuman wail, and the only one who seemed disturbed by it was Alice. She had walked up to Rayden's body with me, but she couldn't stop looking at the hunter every time that he made a sound.

She has to know that he would have killed both of us if Cynthia hadn't done what she did. They all would have killed us. But this was different for her. She was watching as her own kind died, the same as we had. It was a safe bet that all of the wolves hated the humans, and it was the same with the humans; they hated us right back. I ignored the dying hunter, and looked back down at Rayden.

Alice followed suit, and was trying to block out the agonizing cries coming from the hunter as he lay dying. The gray wolf in front of us was still clinging on to life, like it was his most precious possession. Which it was. This mass chaos was proof to how easily life could be ripped from anybody; human or not.

Rayden coughed, and it was almost like all of us remembered that he was still alive. Wesley had stuck by his cousin's side ever since he was shot, and Cynthia had joined them not long ago. Only recently had I come down the hillside to do the same, when Alice ran into the clearing.

Blair was still up on the top of the hill, looking down at us with his bright blue eyes. Cynthia looked up at him. She said with a growl, "Why hasn't he come down here yet? Is he trying to say that he's better than us or something?" Wesley kept his head down; he was still messed up because of his cousin's predicament.

I sighed and said to Cynthia, "He's probably got a lot on his mind right now. I'm sure he'll come around." Blair didn't want to see Rayden, because he probably wouldn't be able to handle it. He didn't want to face what had become of his pack, his friends, his family.

On the ground, Rayden coughed again and said, "No ill feelings…..Right?" I stared at him when I figured out that he was directing his words at me. "What do you mean, Rayden?" He gasped in pain when he moved the slightest bit. "I mean, there won't be any ill feelings because I dragged you into this mess?"

He was asking if I was holding a grudge against him. At one point, I had been. I had hated Rayden for tearing apart the life I had made for myself. I wanted nothing more than for him to suffer. But that was before he had told me about why he was so messed up, and before he was dying.

Now, pity and sorrow had taken over my feelings of hate towards him. There would be times that I'd blame Rayden for the bad things that would happen to me, but not now. And not for a while. "No ill feelings." Even though none of us could see it, he was surely smiling.

It was a good thing that he was making peace with those who he owed it to. He didn't really say anything else to the others. Was I the only one that he had given problems to? I knew the others had argued with him a lot, but they all had seemed to have pushed that aside.

How could you still be angry at somebody who was dying? It was sad and pitiful watching this. A more peaceful way for him to go would be for us to put him out of his misery. But I knew that none of us had that in us. Not to kill one of our own, even if it would end his suffering.

You don't know what real suffering is. Rayden's previous words echoed in my ears. You're right. I don't, I thought quietly to myself. And I doubt I ever will. Compared to Rayden's amount of suffering, anything that happened to me wouldn't ever touch it. Not in a million years. Years.

I looked up at the sky, remembering the Wolfsbane Moon that still hung in the air. Almost all of is was gone, and neither the sun nor the moon would be present. Our nightmare was ending, but there was still more that would come. I was sure. How would we explain that the last remaining wolves just vanished, and were replaced by the same number of people.

Next to me, Wesley whispered to his cousin, "Try and shift back. That way we can take you to a hospital. Get you some help." Wesley knew just as well as the rest of us, that Rayden wouldn't last much longer. He'd probably die before we could shift. Can you blame him for at least keeping hope?

Because, I knew that I couldn't. I had been on the verge of giving up my hope, and then Alice had made her way back to us unharmed. If she could make it, then surely we could as well. The last little bit of the moon finally vanished, and it felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off of me.

I thought the weight in my muscles was from running, but it had been effects from the moon holding my body in my wolf form. The others' muscles seemed to loosen up as well. Even above us, I saw Blair let out a sigh of what seemed to be relief.

I felt somewhat normal again. With nothing in the sky to illuminate it, everything began to go to the color of early dusk. The red tinted sky and snow on the ground no longer existed. It was like stepped out from an alien world, and back to our own.

Cynthia looked at our little group of survivors and said, "If we're going to turn back, we better do it now." That was the best suggestion I had heard in a long time. Cynthia was already shifting back, and before I started, I looked up at where Blair was.

His spot was vacant, and he had vanished. Had he shifted back yet? But of course he probably had. Who in their right mind wouldn't? I was just about to shift back, when something zipped past my ear.

Alice

I was shocked to see one of the wolves turn into a human. The change didn't look painful, but it didn't seem like the most pleasant things that could happen to somebody. It was a girl, most likely several years older than me. Her muscles were defined, and the cuts from the night were more visible on her now.

She opened her eyes, and they were the same as when she was a wolf. Shun was still a wolf, and looking up the hill at where another had been sitting. That wolf was gone now. Shun stopped looking at where the wolf once sat, and I could see faint changes taking place in him just as the other wolf girl had done.

He stopped though when something flew past him right by his ear. He started to freak out, and searched the trees with his eyes for whatever shot past him. It wasn't a bullet. If it had been, then it would have been much louder.

The girl that had been a wolf not long ago, had snapped from her trance after the mystery object shot in our direction. She then began to shake the wolf that was standing over the gray one. "Wesley, you have to shift back now!"

The wolf only stared blankly ahead, almost like he had completely checked out of his mind. Shun was still scanning for what shot past him. I was curious myself of what the object had been. Whatever it was though, had missed. Which was probably a good thing. The girl kept on shaking the brownish-black wolf, who had still not come out of his trance.

She then looked up at Shun and snapped at him, "What are you waiting for? You need to shift as well!" He kept looking around, and then stared at the wolf girl with a confused look plastered on him. Could he not understand her? They were the same, right?

Shun finally seemed to catch on to the words that were coming from the girl's mouth, and he began to try his change again. Zing. There it was again. Shun stopped changing once more, and now all of us were looking around; me, Shun, the wolf girl, and even the wolf that she was trying to get to change as well.

That was when I found it next to my foot. I carefully picked it up. It looked like the things that you used when you played a game of darts, but there was a fluid floating around in the middle part. Some of the liquid was dripping from the pointed end.

The wolf girl's eyes were wide when she said, "They're trying to tranquilize us." I dropped the tranquilizer dart to the ground, not wanting to hold it in case I accidentally poked myself. Wolf girl was yelling at Shun and the other wolf to shift and hurry out of here.

The one who had been in shock for the longest time, finally complied and changed into a person. I thought I recognized him, but he seemed to be one of those people that you always saw out in public. He looked down at the wolf that was shot.

The guy's eyes still looked sad and cold like they had been when he was a wolf. The girl was tugging at his arm, yelling and commanding him to hurry out of the forest. The guy nodded, and started to run through the trees.

Hopefully he wouldn't be seen by any of the hunters, or whoever had the tranquilizer gun. Wherever that person was, had almost a clear shot of us. Standing out in this opening wasn't a smart thing to do. Now that one of the wolf people were out of the way, the girl was yelling at Shun now.

She was doing the same thing, telling him that he needed to hurry and shift and leave. She turned to me and said, "You need to do the same." I knew I did, but I wasn't about to leave until Shun was back to being Shun. He nodded, and then he finally changed. He was just as cut up as the girl was, and way less bloody than her.

I stared at him. Both shock and surprise had flooded me. He really was a wolf, an actual wolf. I believed it earlier, but I was still skeptical. But now, any doubt that I had was long gone. The girl snapped her fingers in front of me and said, "You two, get out of here now."

Shun quickly asked her, "What about Blair?" It was so good to hear Shun's voice. Not all the barks and growls that I had heard all night. The girl told him, "Don't worry about him, Shun. Blair can hold his own. He always does." Shun nodded his head, then took my wrist in his hand.

He said to me, "Let's hurry out of here." We ran into the trees, Shun still holding onto my hand while the girl kept up with us. I felt something poke me in the back of my leg, and I assumed it was a thorn that had stuck me. So, I kept on running.

Slowly, I began to feel drowsy and stumbled over anything that was in front of me. Shun tugged at my arm and said, "Alice, come on! Keep running." He saw that something wasn't quite right with me. "Alice? What's wrong?" Behind him, the girl was yelling at us to hurry up.

Her voice sounded like she was in a tunnel a million miles away. I reached down in the calf of my leg, and pulled out one of the tranquilizer darts.

All of the liquid was gone from its little holding chamber. I dropped the dart because my hands, along with the rest of my body, went limp. I felt Shun's arms wrap around me so I wouldn't hit the ground.

well, im at a loss of words. nothing interesting to report today. read, review, and other things. ~Copperpelt~