Night Of The Hunter
"Humphrey!" Lilly shrieked as she sprinted towards her fallen friend. Humphrey's fur was smoking and letting off a faint glow. Lilly reached out to touch him but was held back by her father.
"No, Lilly it's not safe!" Winston exclaimed as he swatted her paws away.
"Dad!" she protested. "He's hurt, we've gotta help him up!" Winston shook his head.
"He'll come to in a minute." he said firmly.
"You know what this is about?" she asked exasperated.
"I don't know exactly what happened Lilly." he said motioning to some Alphas. "But I know you shouldn't stick around here."
The Alphas huddled up around Winston and Lilly could hear her fathers hushed tones, something about getting everyone away and guarding Humphrey's body.
"Lilly why don't you take Sage and go find your mom and see how she's doing?" Winston suggested, turning to face her. Lilly's eyes narrowed.
"Yes dad." she replied through gritted teeth.
Winston nodded and returned to organizing whatever was going on. Lilly spotted Sage waiting patiently sitting in the same spot were she left him.
"Let's go." she muttered brushing past him. Not even stopping for him to catch up.
"Oh Uh okay then." Sage said in a confused tone.
As the two wolves walked Lilly tried to take her mind off of Humphrey. She looked at the wolf that now walked beside her. He was lean muscular and to her surprise quite good looking. They had only been introduced this morning and he was a complete mystery to her.
"So where are you from Sage?" she asked trying to make small talk.
"Denali National Park." He replied, His voice as smooth as ice.
"But that's. . . .Alaska! Wow that must have been a long trip." she said thoroughly impressed.
"I guess but we really had no other place to go the humans own pretty much all the land up there." He replied. "We were driven out."
"Well how did you end up here?" Lilly inquired.
"Most of us have family in Jasper and we figured this would be the best place to start looking for a new home." Sage explained.
"I take it you won't be staying for long then." Lilly remarked.
"I'm not sure, maybe." Sage mused. "Do you always ask this many questions?"
Lilly blushed and turned away. "Sorry, I'm just worried about Humphrey."
I'm kidding! Don't worry about it Lilly." Sage chuckled.
Lilly cracked a small smile.
"See there you go! You look much prettier when you smile." Sage complimented.
"Your quite charming yourself." She smiled. "Too bad your so darn ugly." she laughed making a disgusted face.
"Pfft, okay whatever you say." Sage replied sarcastically with a cheeky grin.
Humphrey wasn't sure how long he'd been out. It felt like only a minute or two to him, but when he cracked open his eyes and let his blurred vision focus the sky was ablaze with the orange and red light of the setting sun.
"Ugh, What happened to me?" Humphrey groaned as he tried to sit up.
"I was about to ask you the same thing." Winston said suspiciously helping Humphrey up to his paws.
As Humphrey stood the world began to spin and his vision narrowed. Winston and his Alpha's tried to lend Humphrey a paw but were shrugged off gruffly.
"I'm fine." Humphrey said before promptly stumbling to the bushes and violently throwing up. After he was finished puking out his breakfast and lunch Humphrey returned to Winston and his Alphas.
"So you're fine eh?" Winston let out a small laugh.
Clutching his pounding head Humphrey grimaced. "I honestly don't know what happened to me."
Everyone was staring in horror at him
"What?" Humphrey demanded.
"Y-your eyes." A small black Alpha gasped.
Humphrey shouldered his way past Winston towards the creek. He screamed in shock at the sight of his reflection on the shimmering waters surface. Humphrey's eyes were glowing bright gold like liquid honey.
"What the hell happened to me Winston!" He shouted turning to Lilly's father.
"Interesting." Winston said thoughtfully examining Humphrey's eyes.
"Interesting! That's all you have to say?" Humphrey shouted completely exasperated as he pushed away from Winston.
"Humphrey." He said calmly. "Go home, get some rest, we can talk more about this tomorrow."
Humphrey's head hung low as he trudged back to his den. The daylight had faded giving way to a chilly but beautiful night. His head felt like there was so much stuff in it that it was about to explode. Shuddering at the thought of his brains being scattered all over the ground Humphrey focused on putting one paw in front of the other. Humphrey noticed something as he kept his eyes trained on the ground; every paw print that he left glowed with a yellow light while the ground around it stayed a normal color. Looking around now Humphrey began to notice other tracks glowing the same yellow color. He could pick out almost everyt kind of track from Caribou to Squirrels. Strange, Humphrey thought to himself, I could never do this before. A small rustle in the leaves caught Humphrey's attention. His pupils dilated vision immediately sharpened to the point where he could count individual blades of grass. The forest lit up almost as if it were day time, Humphrey could see like he had never been able to before. It was like he had been completely blind up for his whole life up until this moment. Staying low Humphrey scanned the bushes for any sign of a threat. He felt like a puppet being controlled by some invisible figure. A little to his left a bush glowed red and pulsed like a heartbeat. Without even thinking Humphrey sprung at the bush and clamped his jaws around the small doe that was behind it. The creature put up no struggle and was dead before they crashed into the ground. Humphrey didn't unclamp his jaws until the last of the doe's life left it's body. One thought consumed Humphrey's mind, kill. His breathing was fast and shallow and the whites of his eyes were now solid gold. After a few minutes Humphrey's vision returned to normal and the world once again looked bland and dark. He stood in shock blood dripping slowly from his muzzle onto the red stained ground.
Weird stuff eh?
Thanks for reading!