I Get Turned Pelt-Side-Out

The rhythm of my heart was like a thundering bullet.

I could hear it, wildly thumping in my chest. Slowly, my lips pulled back. A feral grin plastered itself onto my face. The earthy smells of the forest were mixing with the obnoxious stink of my sweat. A warm burn settled in my muscles. My legs ached. My arms did much the same. Little pieces of briars stuck to my skin. Fresh, warm blood dripped across my skin. Little lines of fire raked my skin. The rifle in my hands was heavy.

How long had I waited?

How long had I waited for this one moment? For this one shot? My heartbeat was picking up. Its thunderous music turned to a furious crescendo. Slowly, I brought my rifle up. Cool metal braced against my skin.

The rifle was a lever-action Henry. The bullets it shot were large and mean. Each of the five it held were filled with enough gunpowder and lead to fell any beast. The rifle itself was old as dirt. My father had given it to me and his father had done the same for him. Its old brass receiver was dulled with time. The wooden stock and grips were chipped and worn. Its barrel was long and mean, the edges tapered sharp. Still, the old beast shot straighter than any arrow.

I looked down the gun's bead.

Large brown eyes met my own. A sense of fear invaded my gut as the beast stared me down. The animal, if you could even call it that, was gigantic. It stood staggering over the other wildlife around it. Antlers as wide as my pickup truck waiting an hour's walk behind sat atop its head. I couldn't count the points on the beast's rack. Each one of them was gnarled and old, like they had been growing on its brow for longer than I'd been alive.

I knew it couldn't be true. They were supposed to shed them every year. It didn't make sense, nothing about the stag did. Its size and rack weren't the only things fantastical about the beast. It had white fur, blindingly white fur. Its white fur stood out like a beacon in the otherwise quiet Montana forest. The first time I saw it was on my father's little farm. The lumbering beast of an elk had strode through a fence I had just finished fixing. I stood there, dumbstruck at the thing. The elk dared to snort before running back to the tree line. I couldn't believe it. My Daddy hadn't either. That had been the start of my little hunt.

Little did I know at the time, but the animal would become my personal moby dick.

I started out small. A simple jot through the area nearby. It wasn't too hard to spot antler rubbings on the big trees around my Daddy's farm, so I grabbed my rifle and a chair. A few minutes turned to hours. Then, before I knew it the whole day was gone. By the time the sun started to drift across the mountains in the distance, I knew it was time to call it a day. I was starting to chock it all up to some freak hallucination when suddenly, I spotted it again.

The elk stood not twenty yards from me. Each of its four limbs were planted in the dirt of my father's freshly planted crops. I couldn't believe it. How had the thing snuck up on me? Its white fur was almost taunting me in the sun's flickering twilight. Again, I didn't even have time to react. Its brown eyes met my own for but a single moment; then, it was gone. Despite its size, the enormous creature was fast. It bounded away, slinking back to the forest before I could hope to fumble with the gun in my hands.

I went out again the next day. I did again on the one after that. Slowly, the days stretched into weeks. It got to the point where my father tried to talk me out of it. I tried to explain. I really did. I couldn't get much of a point across. In my anger, I failed to say much of anything. The elk was playing with me. Toying with me. It was unbelievable, but I could tell. My father told me to just forget about it. There wasn't any point getting worked up over some dumb animal. For a few days, I tried to let it all go.

I worked the farm. Drove to town. Tended to the livestock, pulled crops on the tractor and by hand. It was relaxing. For a while at least. I was twenty-four. For my twenty-first birthday, my father gave me a car. It wasn't just any car. It, like a lot of other things, was passed down from generation to generation in my family.

Its metal was a glossy black. Its closed top had beautiful curves that slicked back into sharp edges around the sides. The four-hundred-and-twenty-seven cubic inch V-8 motor shoved underneath its hood by my grandfather purred like a lion. I loved my Shelby Mustang. That damn white stag didn't.

On the morning of my second day after talking to my father, I found the car sitting outside smashed to pieces. Rubber tires were shredded across the ground. Glass was strewn with it. What was left of the body of the car was scratched and bent like someone had dropped a wrecking ball atop it. My grandfather's engine was quite literally sitting beneath the engine bay. One measly mount held the smashed motor from touching the ground. Upon seeing the two-pronged tracks in the dirt and metal, liquid fury filled my veins.

The best part of it was that despite all the damage the elk had somehow destroyed my baby without waking either me or my father. The old rusted-out pickup truck I had to buy in town afterward only rubbed salt in the wound. It confirmed my earlier suspicions of this thing having some form of intelligence. It already looked like some kind of mutant elk. Why couldn't the same be true about its brain? I've heard of birds like crows targeting people that they don't like. I didn't know how wrong I was.

The incident had led me to now.

Me and my white whale stood on either side of the forest's clearing. Thick trees and brush surrounded us. I had stalked the elk through the forest. Despite its best efforts, being so large left tracks with which I could easily track the beast. Broken sticks and laid down bushes were unusual. Even more so leading in circles with hoof prints left between them. The moon shone down on us both. The celestial body was full tonight, giving us just enough light to see. For a moment, neither of us moved.

As slowly as I could manage, my finger crept toward the trigger. I could already see it. This damnable pest's head would look pretty on my wall. It would just be some tale to pass down, akin to the stories my grandfather had told me as a child. Thinking of my family put a sour taste in my mouth. If my father knew what I was out doing he'd hang my head. If my mother was in the state she'd do the same. Neither of them were there to stop me.

I pulled the trigger.

The shot echoed out into the night. Out of the corner of my vision, I spotted some spooked birds rush to the sky. The smell of freshly fired powder filled my nose, blocking out the scents from before. The stag screamed, rearing up on its back legs. I could see where I had hit it. A gaping hole had formed on the very top of its front leg's left haunch. Blood poured from the wound. By the time the beast had brought down its front legs, its otherwise pristine white fur was stained an ugly red.

A feeling of rugged satisfaction came over me.

The feeling came all too soon. The giant stag took only a moment to drop its antlers and charge. I had just a few seconds to react before the beast hit me. I tried to dodge out of the way, but there was no way I could outrun such an enormous beast. Its oversized antlers drug into the forest's ground. Just as it reached me, the animal flung its head back up. The flung dirt hit me before the sharp bone. The sudden feeling of weightlessness was indescribable. The explosion of pain following soon after was much easier to put into words.

The white stag had thrown me into a tree, pinning me. The gnarled wood encroaching on my back was rough. An overwhelming pressure encapsulated my chest. It pushed me up farther, scraping skin and cloth off my back in chunks. Loudly, I screamed. Bloody hot tears and snot ran down my face. The stupidity of this all finally hit me. I was going to die here. I was going to die in the forest completely alone because I was too prideful to just let it all go. All to get revenge on some stupid animal.

The gigantic elk redoubled its efforts. I felt the sequoia tree behind me creak from the force of it all. I winced as a loud crack echoed out into the night. The sound mixed with my screams and the stag's deafening wallows. It came from in front of me. Desperately pushing through the pain, I looked down. My rifle was stuck between the beast's rack and my chest. Somehow, the gun had blocked the three antler points that had tried to gore me.

The Henry rifle had saved my life.

There was no doubt in my mind that if I wasn't carrying the weapon when the stag decided to charge me, I'd be strung upon the beast's head like some kind of grotesque hood ornament. I pushed the thought to the side.

I took a deep breath.

I couldn't let this thing kill me. I hit my shot perfectly. I had at least hit its lungs, maybe the heart if I was lucky. I didn't know how the beast could walk let alone have the strength to try and kill me. I wouldn't let it. I refused!

Growling, I tried to push the stag away from me. It didn't get me anywhere. The stag didn't even budge an inch. Instead, it shoved harder. Something in my chest popped, and I screamed. This time, the sound came out scratchy. Almost hoarse from the previous few yells. My whole body curled, and something poked my right hip.

My buck knife!

Scrambling for the knife's sheath, I gripped onto the beast's rack. I couldn't do this for much longer. How had this damn stag not bled out yet? Was it some kind of monster? Some kind of magical beast like those that my Grandfather used to talk about?

What kind of monster is just a big wannabe elk? I thought in exasperation.

Finally, I found the handle of my knife. Still screaming, I pulled the weapon from its sheath. Fighting for my life, I raised the knife over my head. Just as I tried the bring the knife down, the white stag wallowed once again. Its ear-piercing noise was noticeably quieter. Something not unlike a balloon popping entered my ears as the stag let out one final breath. It fell to the ground. I tumbled along with it.

"God dammit!" I screamed. Upturned dirt and muck smeared all over me as I hit the ground. Eventually, I ended up on my back. Air painfully entered and exited my lungs. I laid there, staring up at the cratered moon above me. Despite all the pain, a smile came to my lips.

"I-I did it." I muttered. Weakly I raised a fist in the air. Yelling this time, I said, "I fucking killed the thing!"

Something stirred behind me. My eyes widened in unrestrained fear as the white stag shifted from its spot on the forest floor. Hurriedly, I tried to back away. It was no use. My body felt like it was half destroyed. I could hardly shuffle on the ground let alone stand to my feet. Slowly but surely, the huge beast pulled itself toward me. I could see its large brown eyes train on my own. Its mouth opened. When words started to come out of the towering stag's mouth, I was not ashamed to say I screamed like a girl.

Well met, hunter.

AN: Howdy folks! Been a little bit since I've posted anything. I've started working again which has kinda sucked. Love working longer hours and making less money. Percentage pay sucks if the economy sucks. Anyway, new story here.

This is a new story that popped into my head after finding one of my old book collections. I still have a full set of PJO series on paperback from my first school's book fair. After a bit of looking, decided to read it along with its continuation and some fanfics. Good times.

This fic's main focus will be improving my first-person POV writing and forcing myself to write some romance. Another fic I'm writing has been kinda stonewalling me on its chapter. Or I guess in its case set of chapters. I've had a few scenes become writer's block hell for me to the point where I just skipped them and kept writing about other scenes. I wrote over 21K words for that story and those particular scenes make it where I can't post it yet.

Hopefully, this fic will help me to fix that. The whole concept of this fic will hopefully get me more comfortable with writing romance while still being adventure and action-packed. This chapter was more of a character introduction than much else but we'll get there. Also, I'll be using Riordan's chapter naming style for this for old time's sake.

Please tell me what you thought below. Next chapter we will be getting to a time skip, new characters, an unwelcome talk with a very unwelcoming god, and maybe I'll even let you know the main character's name. I'll give you a hint, it starts with an M. I was going to try and throw in a bit for it, but it didn't fit this chapter's theme. Anyway...

~ciao