Alone in the Woods

Chapter 7 - A Trail of Blood

The creature wandered into our forest on a rainy day. Me and wolf mom tended to hangout in the den on rainy days. I plucked things from her fur while she used her tongue in an attempt to make me look presentable.

Our grooming session was cut short when fox showed up through the rain. We both knew something was up because fox never visited the den. The news was bad. Apparently a creature had wandered in from beyond the boundary wolf mom had shown me.

It had killed and left bodies in its wake to the north. That was what separated big fantasy beasts like wolf mom from actual monsters. Wolf mom killed to eat, monster's slaughtered things for no reason at all.

There was a reason fox had come to us. Wolf mom was one of the strongest beasts in the area along with grumpy bear and that mysterious white stag the deer once mentioned in passing. Also I was a powerful druidess too.

It took some convincing on my part that we needed to deal with the monster sooner rather than later, and also together. I reasoned that if wolf mom got bullied out of her old den by grumpy bear she'd probably be in danger with how big fox was claiming the monster to be, and I'd shown her some of the stuff I could do.

Despite being the one to talk up monster hunting, going out in the rain sucked. It also sucked that the rain meant no birds to help us find the dang thing. Oh and it also meant wolf mom had a harder time with scents.

I started sense sharing with every plant I came across, both to arm myself and to help spot the monster.

The search took quite a while. Though once we stumbled upon a victim of the monster it got much easier to track. It was a stag, was. The decaying mess was smeared and splattered on all the nearby trees and ground. I sensed one of its legs in the distance on a root of a tree. I couldn't even tell if I had known him.

The blood trail was starting to be washed away by the rain that made it through the tree cover, yet we could still follow. Each corpse we passed made me more nervous than the last. I wasn't the only one shaken. I had never seen or heard of anything that could spook wolf mom, even grumpy bear didn't scare her. I could sense that this was getting to her just like it got to me.

We were both at our limits. I suspect we had only made it that far because we were trying to put on a brave face for each other.

It was unfortunate that it was also the moment I sensed it. Some of the trees ahead that I had preemptively connected with were close enough to sense the monster. It definitely felt bigger than wolf mom, like a one story home with legs. I wordlessly told her such and we froze.

She was a hunter and I was a pup, neither of us were fighters. We could probably still turn around considering the rain hid our noise and we were still out of sight. The only thing that gave me courage was my sense of being bigger than the monster through my shared senses. I was connected to over a hundred plants along our trail here, and the monster felt in consequential compared to the forest itself.

I lashed out with the plants nearby. Vines growing to hold it, branches swing to smack it. Fear turned to anger and I unleashed my wrath on a being I could not even see.

I wasn't strong enough. The viney plants were too weak to hold it. The trees to slow to impart much force in their bending. I was more an annoyance than a threat.

The monster let out a strangled roar as it tore through the plants with claws. Broke branches with the weight of its body and thrashed about in a fury that made me whimper.

We had to leave, it was stupid to come here. I let wolf mom know and she agreed, telling me to climb on her back so she could bolt away.

I had ceased my plant based attack and the monster began a rampage. In our direction. I hopped on wolf mom and she ran. The monster pursued probably having spotted us.

Escape slipped from our grasp when I fell. My hands slipped from the rain and the ferocity of wolf mom's sprint. I tumbled and a caught myself with some vines so I didn't slam into a tree.

The monster was massive before my eyes. It stood like a t-rex though it had 4 front limbs with long claws. It's patchy fur dripped with blood. The long snout of the beast was partially harmed exposing its skull. A long bladed tail followed it ready to cleave into anything out of claws reach.

The plant life around me grew and shifted to defend me. Rapidly forming an oaken cocoon. It'd delayed the inevitable.

As it tore through the last of my cocoon, a weight slammed into its neck. Wolf mom had tackled death itself. Her maw that could shred iron bit down on the monsters neck. She held on even once its claws dug into her.

I reached out with vines, healing her while trying to hold back the monster. I poured every ounce of power I could into protecting mom. Her grip on its neck loosened and she was flung off. She tumbled like a huge rag doll into a tree.

I continued to slow the monster down, while healing wolf mom. The monster ignored any pain from its large neck wound. A wound that would fell even the most massive of beasts.

Even with my healing wolf mom did not wake. Making my way over to her, she was breathing but only barely.

The monster was freeing itself faster than I could restrain it. I had no choice, if wolf mom was to survive I had to lead the monster away.