Me: Hey friends! I'm back! After two weeks! …Huh? Months?! TWO MONTHS?! WHAT?! *Stares at calendar* You're not lying! I'm so sorry for taking so long! I've meant to get this chappie up way sooner, but chaos went rampant in my life again. Sadly. Due to some things, I'd only written about half of this and suddenly lost all of my documents, so I had to rewrite everything I've already had… It was annoying. I somehow got a burst of motivation, however, and so push comes to shove, I've spent all night working on this chapter! …Did I use that right: push comes to shove? Eh? Whatever. :P
So that dreadful cliffhanger I've left you at for two months? Finally over! Again, sorry for taking so long. Some of the chaos in my life has been reeeeally frustrating and hard to deal with. "But Fanga, it's been two months! How could you possibly not finish sooner for your readers?!" Like I've said last chapter, LIFE IS ANNOYING. It's like a parasite or something to me. Uuuugggghhh… I hope you all understand. ;-;
Laney: It's actually been a very life changing summer for Fanga! Here's the most life changing thing that happened to her but she's too shy to talk about: Fanga's-!
Me: owo *Duct tapes her muzzle shut, shoves her down a flight of stairs leading into a basement, locks the basement door, and swallows the key*
Laney: …Hey! O-o How did I get down here?! I thought I was in a forest!
Me: Oh yeaaaah… Heh. MAGIC. *Confetti* Now forget everything you nearly heard from that red-gray wolf locked down there. YOU HEARD NOTHIN'.
And before I forget! I've meant to mention this in an earlier chapter, but I kept forgetting… My idea for making Laney and Lenny siblings came from LaneyRockGoddess! I thought it'd be an entertaining twist to the story, and I have some veerrrryyy interesting things planned involving them being related… *Rubs paws together evilly* What you saw last chapter is only a small dose of what I have planned for this story! Muwahaha!
There's another idea I've gotten from LaneyRockGoddess! In her amazing story called Uplinked, she sometimes asked the readers' questions that they could answer in their reviews! I wanna start doing that, or at least just for this chapter; it'll depend on how many people answer them. :P So… Queeeestions!
1. If you discovered a new species of dinosaur, what would you call it?
2. Do you have any lucky items, objects, or traditions?
3. What's the most unusual thing you've ever eaten?
…Enough of my babbling. Here's the chapter everyone! :) And I hope to see a couple reviews with some awesomesauce answers to these questions!
I knew it would be a horrible day for when I stirred awake, the first thing I thought about was the pain pounding throughout my body. My muscles were burning, my ears rang nonstop, and a terrible, dry taste stuck to the inside my snout. I tried to ignore the annoying aches and return to my slumber, but the throbbing practically shook my body in my terrible, bruised condition. I still refused to give up on falling asleep despite all the pain, knowing I'd only awake to a dangerous forest and an empty stomach.
Screaming suddenly disrupted the ringing in my ears. I attempted to forget the thundering noise in favor of catching some Z's, but someone continuously nudged me around the torso and neck, not to mention strengthened the volume of their yelling. "Laney! Wake up! Please! Are you okay? Oh no, this is bad! Laneeeeey!"
The irritation of my soreness and that bothersome voice built up until I couldn't take it anymore. I shot up to my paws, shrugged off the stinging in my eyes from the bright sunlight, mustered up a fierce snarl, and glared at the one so spiteful to wake me. My ears flattened against the back of my skull involuntarily soon after, however, and a timid side of myself started to surface. I had been so greedy for some rest that I didn't realize that the panicked voice belonged to a certain, blue-gray wolf. "Yes, Corey?" I meekly inquired, fixating my softening glare on his worried, cobalt eyes.
Silence. He stood there in his tense state, fur raised and eyes wide, until he hurried to lunge at me. I could barely emit a gasp before the human-turned-wolf wrapped his forelegs around me, rested his head on one of my shoulders, and released a deep, pained sigh. "You were unconscious, and y-you're covered in blood," he softly whimpered. My face heated up from the affectionate hug, touched that he worried so badly about my condition. The second half of his sentence then registered in my brain; I briskly looked over myself to spot the several, crimson stains, smothered and smudged into various sections of my pelt. Corey didn't seem to mind how they'd also stain his fur during our hug, being too concerned about me to care.
Memories rapidly flowed through my fuzzy, aching mind. The hunter, gunshots, bloodshed, and a peculiar, frightful dream. I took in a sharp inhale of air, shocked and scared for what the future held for us. I felt the blood draining from my face upon thinking about these memories, which quickly ended my major blush. "I'm… I'm fine, Core," I weakly responded, voice fragile and light. My sore muscles relaxed and I burrowed my muzzle into the fur on Corey's neck, appreciating the following moment of silence in the embrace of my best friend.
"Lanes…" the gray-blue wolf mumbled. He sounded almost depleted with that dull, fatigued tone. "Promise me that we'll always be together."
I couldn't help but reel my head back in surprise. My sudden actions caused Corey to hastily remove his forelegs from around me, and the wolf carefully backed away a few steps. The recent memories of the hunter were still fresh in my mind, preventing my face from blaring red with how pale I felt, but a squeamish feeling could still flutter in my stomach from Corey's words. "Wh-what…?" I dumbly stuttered, locking gazes with the guitarist. His eyes betrayed no signs of cheerfulness; he was deadly serious with his stern, dark blue eyes centered on my shaky, light green ones.
"Whenever we run into more danger on our way home, promise me you won't charge in and risk your life. We're fine now because the hunter fled, but- just…" He shattered our eye contact, staring downcast at his large, red-specked forepaws. "Don't leave my side. Please."
It was so uncharacteristic; his empty, broken gaze nearly caused me to shudder, and his slight sulking caused a pang in my heart. It almost frightened the tail off me with how solemn he acted. My fur spiked up from the strangeness of the moment, and then I reluctantly replied to the depressed canine. "Of course we'll stay together. Now… now raise that chin! Or, er, snout? Whatever!" I climbed to my paws, stood tall, and my tail naturally started to whish around behind me. My best friend and crush glanced up, head tilted and ears pricked in confusion from my change of mood. "We need to get a move on to Peaceville! We can't just sit here and mope around about how… how we faced off against such danger!" I made sure to be careful with my wording at that part, restraining myself from talking along the lines of 'risking our lives' or 'nearly got killed'.
Corey weakly chuckled, a bit of joy sparking within him. "Heh, I'm usually the one who lightens the tension." He eagerly sprung to his paws with a slowly wagging tail, and a wide, adorable smile quickly swept across his gray muzzle. He skipped closer so we were only about a foot apart, lifted up a forepaw, and poked my sensitive nose with a dull, midnight black claw. The tip of my muzzle instinctively twitched from the action; even as a wolf, Corey still stuck to the habit of 'booping' my nose. "Now before we head off… there's something that the hunter left that should be good use to us, and we should check it out!"
I blinked slowly twice and kept my gaze on the wolf as he walked off a bit. He made his way across the plush grass until he reached a group of healthy, thorn-laden shrubs, and beckoned at me to follow. Intrigued by what he wanted to show me, I followed my best friend towards the bushes – and, once I realized what was around us, strained myself to keep my stare off the crimson stains on the ground and shrug off the vile, metallic scent of blood in the air. We're in the area where… where we fought the hunter, I thought with a heavy heart. I hurried quicker after that comprehension towards Corey, who had circled the shrubs and was waiting patiently for me behind them. When I pushed past the brambles of the vegetation and reached the blue-gray wolf, I threw him a confused look, and he answered my unspoken question of what the hunter left by gesturing at a decently sized, worn satchel wedged within the center of the group of bushes.
"That guy must've dropped it when he ran away. There's bound to be some useful stuff in there," he happily alleged, rhythmically tapping his forepaws against the grass in his excitement. I couldn't hold back my joyous grin at the sudden thoughts of delicious, familiar snacks I didn't have to kill for. That hunter had to have brought some food and stored it within that dusty bag.
Very eagerly, I lurched forward at the human object and secured my jaws around the satchel's thin strap. I shifted my body weight and yanked back, and it took some time of tugging and shaking till the foliage released the bag. The object heavily dropped to the ground, definitely packed full of many necessities, and I quickly spat out the fuzzy, dirt-covered strap out and stared down at the bag. All sorts of different, weak scents emitted from the satchel, filling my vision with a barrage of vivid mists. The fact that I could see smells as strange, colorful fog would be something I'd never adjust to.
A weak trace of dark red, foul mist caught my attention most out of all of them. I curiously glanced at where the scent originated from and saw it coming from a little section of the strap. Deep, bite marks were gouged in where the peculiar mist discharged from, and crimson liquid surrounded the torn, damaged cloth. Corey clawed at the flap securing the satchel closed while I stood stiff as a board, wondering why blood surrounded the fang marks. It took me a few seconds more until I realized that was where I closed my muzzle around for pulling the old bag out of the shrubs. Was the blood there before I bit down there, or…?
I opened and closed my jaws a couple times, wiping my tongue smoothly around my lethal, daggered fangs. The terrible feeling in my mouth, the mucky and dry taste from when I woke up… That blood on the strap! It came from my mouth?! A pitchy whine shot out of my throat as I staggered on the spot. I caught Corey's surprised expression from the corner of my eye, but I ignored him as a dreadful memory dawned on me. How I bit around the Hunter's leg, and the way my teeth just… just sliced cleanly through his skin… It's his blood! The hunter's blood! His blood is in my mouth!
"Wa-wa-water!" I choked out desperately, surveying the area in vain hopes of spotting a lake or pond. With frantic breathing, I dunked my head into the contents of the bag, wildly searching for any sort of bottle or canteen. The seconds felt like they crawled by until I nosed a half-full, plastic bottle of water at the bottom of the bag. I tried to pick it up as gently as I could in my fangs and hastily yanked my head out of the satchel.
When I realized I couldn't unscrew the cap and sip water like a normal person would, I panicked on the spot and shuffled my paws like crazy. The hunter's blood! Human blood! I need to get it out! I abruptly applied as much pressure in my muzzle as I could and crunched down on the bottle. My fearsome fangs tore right through it, causing the crinkling and ripping of the plastic to echo in my maw. Frigid, refreshing water flushed through my mouth and leaked onto my snout's fur, and I could already feel the disgusting feeling of dried blood wash away. I allowed the punctured, destroyed remains of the plastic to slide out of my mouth. I tried to gurgle and swish the water around in my mouth to help rid of that terrible taste, but you couldn't really do that as a wolf.
All the water dripped out of my mouth and dampened my muzzle's red-gray fur. I sighed with relief, joyful that I ridded basically all of the revolting, dry substance. I glanced up, seeing the confused and concerned eyes of Corey, and we locked stares for a couple seconds until I felt a slice of anger in my chest. "Was there or is there blood around my mouth?!" I demanded. He seemed taken aback by my question and tone.
"Uh… y-yeah…" he hesitantly answered, wincing slightly while doing so. I suppressed a growl by instead releasing an exasperated, dragged out sigh.
"Why didn't you tell me? You did mention I was covered in blood, but… I can't see what's around my mouth! I can only see this wolf nose and some fur around it, and that's it!" My rage was starting to grow. I didn't want to be upset with my best friend, but how could he not say anything about blood around my mouth? Was he just going to shrug it off? Ignore it? Not even tell me? If I didn't pull out that satchel, then we might be on our way back to Peaceville with my mouth still soaked red!
"I-I knew that you'd freak you out," he stuttered defensively. "And… and I didn't know how to tell you. What, did you want me to say 'hey Laney, there's some blood on your face!'? How was I supposed to word that? I just couldn't be specific on where the blood was on you…"
I opened my mouth and prepared to retort somehow, but I slowly closed my furry, soggy muzzle and gulped. He's right… After a quick moment without us exchanging any words, I meekly apologized. "No… no, I'm sorry. It's just, the blood." I shuddered. "It isn't my blood and it was in my mouth."
The emotion dropped from Corey's expression. He stared on at me nonchalantly, but there was still a dash of confusion evident in his eyes. "It wasn't… your blood?" He then sharply gasped, ears flicking downward and tail curling around him. "I remember! You… er, you bit the guy's, uh, l-leg…" He raised a paw and scratched his nape, appearing very skittish and nervous.
"Uh, yeah…" I quickly shook my head, deciding to change the subject. "Again, s-sorry about acting mad. Sooo, what's in this thing?" I pawed lightly at the slightly damaged satchel and gazed at the contents inside. Half of me, my wolf side, felt wondrous and intrigued from all the strange, human-made items. The other half, my regular, human side, slowly recognized the objects and thought of them as normal. There were all sorts of snacks, most of them common and unhealthy. There were packs of bullets, some more bottles of water, and what appeared to be a handgun. There were some other things within the satchel, but those items were what stood out most to me.
Corey dunked his head in and fished out a plastic bag of snacks. "Ermagersh, I looove Cheez-Its," he perkily rejoiced. Instantly, he dropped the plastic bag and started tearing it up with his dull, canine claws. I watched on with a small smile, seeing him hungrily attack the cheese crackers with an onslaught of snapping fangs and scurrying paws. Dark yellow crumbs quickly dotted the fur around his muzzle, and the lopsided smile he sent my way once he noticed me staring sent me into full-on laughter. Even if we were arguing just moments earlier, he could still brighten my mood without a problem.
He shoved a few of the crackers in my direction with a warm, goofy smile. I returned his smile with one of appreciation, and my regular, human side tempted me to pick up the cheese-powdered snacks with my paws. When I recalled that wolves and many other quadrupedals ate off the ground, I rolled my eyes and groaned. "Being a wolf sucks," I helplessly complained, but I couldn't help but somewhat chuckle after that.
As I reluctantly considered to not eat because the crackers were dusted over in dirt and were broken into several bits, a voice in the back of my head started to make itself heard. Eat. Eat. My wolf instincts didn't seem to know what the snack was, but they did know that it was edible and possibly delicious. My sensitive nose twitched as the powdery, yellow scent reached it, and my instincts constantly grew more demanding the more I held back. So, despite my unwillingness to stoop down to such messy ways, I caved to my hunger and slowly started eating. When I only took a few, hesitant bites, my instincts suddenly went crazy and I couldn't stop myself from gulping down the snack.
I gagged and made an exaggerated, grossed-out expression once I regained control of myself. "Ew, how much dirt did I just eat?!" I disgustingly whined. Impulsively, I wanted to quickly wipe the dust off my tongue, but that would've only worsened the situation with my dirt-covered paws.
Corey made a bunch of slobbering sounds that grasped my attention, and I saw him momentarily flicking his tongue around his snout, licking up cheese powder and dirt from his fur. My mouth pulled back in a half-grimace, repelled by his actions. He seemed to catch my expression and the gray-blue wolf met my stare; immediately, he displayed a sheepish smile and looked away. "Heh, sorry… My wolf side took over." A couple seconds of nothing passed, but then we burst into laughter. It only lasted a short moment and it cheered me up more, but I had quickly fallen back into the feeling of disgust. Was that what I looked like while eating? Ugh…
"We should save the rest of the food for later. You know, rationalizing and stuff…" I scrambled my paws around the satchel's flap and struggled to secure it again, not wanting the bag's contents to spill out when we carried it around. Without opposable thumbs, a lot of things were difficult to accomplish, even easy things such as closing up satchels.
"Oh! So we're taking the hunter's stuff with us?" Corey blurted, clearly not thinking before speaking.
"Duh," I simply answered. I scuffled around with the worn satchel for a while more, eventually managing to secure the flap down so it'd keep everything inside the bag. After I inwardly sighed from finally getting the object shut, I closed my teeth around the satchel's strap – not the crimson-stained, damaged area where I bit onto last time – and slipped it around Corey's neck. It roughly fell around his shoulders and the bag hung heavily to his right side. The gray-blue wolf appeared puzzled for a second, and then he promptly groaned.
"Do I have to be the one to drag this around?"
"Pssh, well I'm not carrying that old thing," I humorously replied, slightly snickering. I padded away from my friend and started to stare off into the unharmed, thick vegetation around us. All the foliage looked exactly the same. "So Core, which way is Peaceville again?"
He laughed lightheartedly. I turned to face him, seeing his wagging tail and an amused twinkle in his cobalt eyes. "So I have to lead us and lug this around? I better get more food than you," he brightly joked. The canine trotted over towards me and playfully punched me in the shoulder – as much as you could with a paw, anyways. "Aaand I think… it's this way!" He pointed in some random direction, beaming with a wide grin. He began walking off, already knowing that I'd follow. The gray-blue wolf's answer didn't sound reassuring. At all.
Despite his reply slightly concerning me, I pursued my cheerful crush, unable to keep the smile off my muzzle until thoughts about that dangerous, terrible hunter and our major predicament settled in. My walk fell a little slower when the horrible memories came to mind; I was rapidly losing my newly gained happiness. Thoughts of the danger Corey and I were in, the twins, Peaceville, family… I had to choke down a gasp when it came to that last topic. Slight guilt rested in my heart, wishing that I remembered mom and dad sooner. And especially an awesome, reckless sibling. Lenny…
"Hey, Lanes!" The peppy, faraway voice of my crush pulled me out of my deep thinking. "You're dragging behind! Do you wanna get to Peaceville or don't cha?"
Corey nearly disappeared behind all the trees with how far ahead he was. I forcibly shook my head to keep my depressing thoughts at bay, and called out to the blue-gray wolf. "C-Coming!" With a foggy mind, I dashed towards my best friend, struggling to not think about how badly my parents and twin brother were worrying about me.
Disclaimer: I don't own Cheez-Its. XD
I'm sorry if this seems a bit short, but I'm planning on writing 3,000 average words each chapter so I can finish and upload faster. Originally, this would've been a little longer, but aiming for about 4,000 made me think 'uuuuggghhhh' and I kept procrastinating. When I decided to just make this shorter, I've written the chapter within just a few days! And this is nearly at 4,000 words anyway, so yay!*Confetti* Sooo… the next chapter should be up soon! Hopefully, I can endure this horrible keyboard I'm using without throwing my laptop at a wall for Chapter 7! XD
Remember to answer the questions in a review if you want to, and have a bodacious day everyone! :DDD