Darkwood Forest, Hurricane

Well, well, I've got you now. Time to take what's mine. The hunter, wielding his trusty hunting rifle, was wearing a camouflaged outfit, looking in the crosshairs of his target. Ah, yes, here it is, finally. In his scope, he was aiming for an unsuspecting quail, busily walking through the forest. I recognize this species. Northern bobwhite. Not exactly the hardest target to take down, but this is hunting season. I can't pass up on the offer. I'll be looking for a nice buck after this.

The hunter's name was Quentin. He had dark, silky black hair, with broad shoulders, a horseshoe mustache, and a bit of a pointed chin. He's been an experienced hunter for a few years now, ever since his family taught him how to properly hunt, load a rifle, and where to look for game trail. A lot of his family had taken the profession of hunting, too: his brother, his father, his uncle, but his sister Claire decided one day that she didn't want to carry on the family legacy. For that reason, Quentin and most of his family shunned her before she moved out to another city. But hey, at least I'm following in my father's footsteps, Claire. And at least I'm not abandoning the family like you did.

While these thoughts ran through his head, he completely forgot about the quail. Luckily, the bird didn't seem to notice him yet, and was still walking along the ground. It was still a good distance away from him, so he could get a clear shot now. Alright, my rifle's loaded, now I just need to take the shot. He carefully examined the scope to get a perfect look at his target. He then pulled his finger around the trigger and took aim. The quail suddenly froze and looked around, as if it sensed danger was nearby. It started anxiously looking back and forth, not sure what to do-

*BANG!*

Quentin pulled the trigger, and the bullet immediately struck the quail dead. Smoke was rising from his rifle, and the quail laid dead on the ground. Bullseye. This wasn't exactly a big achievement for Quentin, as he shot plenty of quail and other game animals before in the past, but it was a decent start for hunting season. But this year, I'm not going for some little quail. I'm looking for a buck. One with large enough antlers that I can keep as a true hunter trophy. Behind him, Jim, his hunting friend he brought along, admired his kill.

"Damn fine shot, Quentin. That quail didn't even know what hit it."

Jim was a bit muscular, with the same camouflaged hunting gear that Quentin was wearing. He had a bit of a comb-over haircut style, with light brown hair, and a very light beard, with deep blue eyes. He's the kind of guy who'd you be lucky to have if times got dangerous, especially out in the woods. Jim's survival skills proved to be very useful not just in hunting, but also in tracking, setting up camp, and many other things. I don't exactly go out hunting with him too often, but now's a bit of a desperate time.

Last year, hunting season didn't go as well as Quentin's family had hoped. They had enough food, yes, but just barely enough to make a profit and feed off of it. It made them suffer a bit, financially speaking. So now, this year, I have to work much harder to help support my family. And with a partner, it's going to go much faster. Jim and Quentin walked over to the dead quail, and Jim picked it up by its throat and held it. "I'll keep ahold of this for now. I'll try to bag it. Just make sure to let me know if you've found anything else, Quentin."

"Alright, just hurry it up, will ya? We ain't got too much time to spare." With that, I kept my eye out for any other creatures as I walked along the game trail. The sound of leaves crunching beneath me irritated me, mostly because I couldn't focus on my other surroundings because of it. It was a bit of a mental tick, to be honest. Quentin continued walking through the forest, keeping his eye out for any signs of deer or other creatures, when he came across something very strange. In the dirt, there seemed to be very large footprints on the ground. Given the shape and the unusually large size of the footprints, it looked like it belonged to some kind of bear.

Only the thing that was different from this footprint was that it was much longer, a much cleaner print than the usual bear print. He knew this because he studied all kinds of different animals tracks: wolves, wolverines, deer, you name it. But never had he ever seen something as strange and unique as these sets of footprints. From what he could tell, whatever made this had very long claws, as there were deep claw marks in the ground as well. Goddamn, we might have ourselves a bear on our hands. Maybe even a grizzly, if possible. But one of those hasn't been spotted in these parts in years.

Even if it was a bear, there was still something that didn't fit. When he took a closer look at the tracks, he noticed that the pattern was much different from that of a bear. Usually, a bear would walk on all fours, but whatever make these things looked like it was bipedal. I know bears can walk on two feet, but they usually don't do it for very long. Strange, very strange.

What made things even more strange was that when Quentin checked his surroundings, he noticed that one of the trees looked like it had been considerable scratched up. The scratch marks looked like they went deep into the tree's trunk, and several parts of the tree's bark looked like it had been stripped away. The size of the scratch marks seemed to be large enough that a bear could possibly do it, but for some reason, it didn't look too natural at all. Hmm...usually bears would do this to feed off of the sapwood of these trees, but whatever did this wasn't looking for any of that. Much too severe for that.

Just then, as Quentin was wondering what could've made these marks, he noticed that Jim was rushing behind him, and at a very quick pace, too. By the time he reached Quentin, he was practically panting. I had no idea what he was reacting to. "Jim, the hell's the matter with you? You're acting like you just seen a ghost!", I said to him. Jim replied, "You're not gonna believe what I found. Trust me, I've seen some weird shit out here, but this is just-". I interrupted him before he could finish. "Jesus, get to the point, already." He then said to me, "I think it's better if I showed you instead." With that, I followed Jim along to see what exactly he was freaking out about.

Turns out wherever he was taking him wasn't too far away from where they shot the quail at. Quentin was trying to think whether or not this had anything to do with the scratch marks or the prints in the dirt he saw. But it soon became pretty clear that something definitely was connected between the two, because Jim had finally arrived at what he wanted to show to Quentin. I looked in shock and disgust at the messy scene he just dragged me into. Lying dead on the ground was the decaying body of a deer, a male deer by the looks of it.

Of course, the sight of a dead deer was nothing new to Jim nor Quentin before. Both of them have had their shares of shooting deer in the past before. But what absolutely disgusted them was how violently bloody and disfigured the deer corpse was. All along the deer's body were long, deep cuts, that tore through its skin and flesh, leaving the deer stained in a pool of its own blood. Its front leg looked like it had practically been dismembered, with very odd bite marks on it, too. My God, what the hell did this? "I told you it was messed up," Jim said to me, "and you didn't believe me. Hate to say I told you so."

"That's not important right now," I told him in reply, "but what is important is that we try and figure out what exactly got to this deer first. Have you seen any scratch marks this severe before?"

"No, nothing like this," Jim said to him, "but there's something else that's bothering me about this. Take a good look. What do you notice about the deer?"

I did as he said and tried to recheck the dead body for anything out of the ordinary. I decided to test whether or not the blood was dried yet, so I reached my index finger out and gently touched it. Mostly dry, I recon. This deer must've been killed sometime ago, but not too long ago. Some of the blood is still not dry yet. He also noticed something even stranger about the corpse. Apart from a few wounds that were probably caused by scavengers hoping to get a free meal, it looked like nothing much of the carcass was eaten at all. It was violently killed, yes, but it didn't look like whatever killed it was interested in devouring it.

Then he turned his attention to the dear's head. Apparently, the deer did indeed have antlers, or at least, it used to. Where the antlers should've been were a pair of stumps, that looked like the antlers were forcibly broken right off of the dear's head. Almost as if whatever killed it took the antlers as a prize. The killer didn't eat any of the meat, but it gladly took the antlers. "It doesn't look like whatever killed this deer did it for food," I told Jim. "It looks like whatever did it...killed the deer for sport."

Author's Note: Now, you might be wondering when Garroth is going to show up, and don't worry, he's still going to be the main character of the "Code Of The Wolf" story. I just had to introduce Quentin and Jim first to sort of set the scene for the story. They'll have some significance later on in the story. I'm still working out the ideas for the story. This is just the prologue, so I'm still working on the rest of the story.