8 Werewolf attack PART2

Her heart jumped out of her chest at the sight of the headless thing. Her eyes popped to a shock of pain from a nerve in the back of her head.

The blood continued to gush from its open neck. Parts of its body fidgeted before it finally laid still.

"Aaaah!" she screamed before her hands slapped over her mouth in fear of attracting any more Werewolves that could be lurking in the tall bushes.

She ducked her head. An uncontrollable tremble overtook every inch of her body as she stepped back slowly from the frightening sight. Her eyes searched the top of the bushes that appeared taller and sinisterly unwelcoming for any signs of unusual movements or --she gulped-- red paralyzing eyes.

Just then she began to feel the piercing of her claws into her thick cheeks from how tightly her hands wrapped around them. She loosened it from the pain and took deep steady breaths.

Her eyes went back to stare down at the Werewolf corpse before her. Her eyes blinked several times hoping to see something else.

Everything moved in a slight circle and jumped now and then.

"How could this have happened--who did this?

"Are there Meras in the bushes looking out for me? Could it have been my loyal guards that I ordered years ago to stop following me around?

"No, they wouldn't have disobeyed my orders would they?"

Her mind flickered to the red-haired and purple-eyed Jethro from earlier that day. He had asked to spend time with her before she humiliated him in a harsh refusal.

"Could it be he waited for me in the mini forest--watching me that whole time and I never knew?"

Her jaws locked tight and her left upper lip twitched at the unpleasant thought. "What a low-life."

The low buzz from insects broke through the dreadful silence and a chilling wind blew across her shoulders.

She quickly changed her thoughts, "No. I should thank him."

Her hands slid down from her face to hold onto both sides of her upper arms below the shoulder. She tilted her head to look past the tall green blades that blurred into blackness the further you looked past them.

She resisted the urge to call out to her savior.

Movements from the blurred corpse below got her shoulders to shrug and her eyes to look back down.

It was a scavenger that had already crawled unto the corpse to eat away at its flesh. She sighed in relief.

At the Werewolf's maimed neck, she noticed it wasn't a clean cut. It looked like something had ripped the head completely from its neck.

The dark red tattered edges of its furred skin lining the bloody gouge resembled the creature that had crossed into their borders--after her father killed it by snapping the head from its body in one powerful pull.

"And where is the head?" she thought even more to herself. "The head should at least be around here somewhere."

There was no logical reason to how this Werewolf got decapitated. Surely it was dead. There was no pulse nor movement, and how could it know where she was without its eyes, nose, or ears?

The thought almost made her chuckle as she went closer until dizziness struck her head wiping the grin from her face. She didn't take another step. Her hands reached for her knees as weakness ran up her legs.

It was that same feeling as before and she still had no clue as to what caused it.

Her eyes set their focus on the almost glowing green stain at the ends of its claws. It was the only thing out of place on the beast.

"Something green in color and that affected you the closer you got... Jedposa," she thought, and it got her to gasp and her eyes to go wide in terror. She stepped back further but her eyes remained fixated at its subtle green glow.

"Impossible."

Jedposa was the only poison that existed capable of killing the Meras. It was made by combining different poisons of unique and specific properties until it reached its deadly state.

Just inhaling its fumes was enough to debilitate a Mera, while its contact with even the most hardened of Mera skin could burn down to the bone. However, if it passed through the bloodstream and reached the brain it meant inevitable death.

Only special Meras knew which blends of poisons made this deadly venom. Even Rue didn't know how to make it. But somehow this Werewolf got possession of it.

"How?"

The faint but deep hollow honks of a horn came from the distant town. It was a sequence of short blows followed by a long consistent one that spanned in total one minute.

It was a familiar pattern, yet she could not remember the last time she heard one like it yet what it meant.

She rushed off down the darkened grey path and towards the warm lights of the town just at the end of the field. The closer she got, the more sounds began to crowd her head. It felt like a nightmare. She wondered if it was another effect of the venom. The sounds almost sounded like screams.

Her feet dug through the earth to come to a stop. She held her breath, stood still, and her eyes squinted to focus on the orange glow that shined from the top of the townhouses at the end of the field.

Anxiety carved a deep hole into her gut. Even with her high sense of hearing she had difficulty making out the sounds precisely. It was a confusing low blend of chaotic noise.

She had never seen the town from that distance without lights from the lamp posts that usually lit up the path from both sides. She was not sure if that glow was normal with the current darkness that surrounded her.

"No, something is happening past those houses," she thought. She knew it couldn't be a parade. "That means it must be" --her eyes got wide-- "fire."