Dead Wolf
[Worthless]
[You're just a kid, sit at home with your mother]
[I can't believe I called you my son]
…
"Oi kid, is everything ok?".
A tall man looked at me as he sat on a tree stump.
"I'm alright".
"That's good, I just wish I could say that about myself".
"Ahh… yeah, that's right.. you're dead, Brad".
"Haha, with this big ol' hole in my chest, I'd be surprised if I wasn't", he gazed at me, smiling.
"You're gonna be alright", but only a second later, his face turned serious. "Wake up".
…
"-ord, —rd, FORD! Wake up", my eyes were still closed. I didn't want to open them.
And yet the desperation in his voice, what was wrong? The burnt smell of firewood and charcoal assaulted my nose.
I shot awake, pulling myself up to look around.
I watched as fires consumed my surroundings. Just a day ago, I saw a beautiful flowery scenery and yet, now, all I could see were bright orange flames wrapped around burnt wood.
"We need to get out of here!".
I nodded, following Sam.
"Kyaaaaaah!", a woman's scream came from the distance.
As if a movie of memories played in his mind, Sam felt the soft sensation of déja vu.
"We need to help her", I told Sam, pulling away.
"No! No.. you can't go, it's too dangerous".
"If we don't go, something might happen to her".
"If you go, something might happen to you! Now come on!".
I looked at Sam for only a second more, rushing to the general location of where I thought the scream had come from.
Rushing deeper and deeper into the flames.
"Fucking hell, was I this stubborn as a kid?".
Sam ran behind me.
The sound of crackling grew louder and louder as the flames grew larger and more powerful.
I didn't know how much further I could go without burning myself.
My breaths had soon become deeper and more difficult. Gasping for air through the dark smoke, my eyes landed on something moving.
In the next moment, I could make out the figure of a person, albeit still unclear amongst the smoke. Maybe I wasn't too late?
"Hey, you over there! Are you ok!?".
Approaching the silhouette, I had finally gotten close enough to get a better look at them.
Luckily they didn't seem injured badly-. What?
In the next second, the same person had begun to spasm as their skin grew darker and paler, as it began to crack and burst. Blood and skin fell to the ground, it truly looked terrifying. Soon long and thick hair that resembled fur revealed itself. A large snout protruded from the place where there once was a mouth and nose.
"Who are you?".
I already knew the answer, it was a werewolf, and I had just fallen into the claws of the beast.
It had been 7 months since I had last seen Scott, and not for a day after, had I given up. I continued my training, ever more rigorously than before. He had become my driving force, my motivation to improve.
It was different this time, rather than feeling depressed, I felt more as though I had been wronged. An anger towards the man who I had become so attached to, giving me his word to train me, promising to be there in times like this, I was going to prove him wrong, I wasn't too weak to fight.
I wasn't the same person 7 months ago.
I pulled out my sword from its sheath, "Come".
The werewolf snarled, eyeing me down, before making a charge straight for me like the beast that it was.
I waited, 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds, NOW! I drew out a small handgun to my side, shooting 4 bullets.
And yet for some reason, my hand shook leading to my shots becoming inaccurate.
Luckily they were close enough to help me play out the coming scenario in my head. Just as predicted, the monster began to dodge, left, right, left again… and finally, he had dodged into the perfect place I wanted him to be.
On the day Scott left, he had also left me a handgun. It almost felt like a spit in my face at first. One moment, he wanted me to stop, another, he helped me continue to get stronger. I took the gun nonetheless. I will survive, and I will kill the bastards who killed my family.
"Die you fucking mongrel", I pushed forward taking a large step towards the beast, lowering myself before thrusting up and towards its torso, sadly the beast had dodged, luckily, still cutting its side.
The werewolf whined, but I had learned from my mistakes, I wasn't going to fall for it again. I charged in, as if I was about to strike again. And just as the wolf thought it had me in its grasp, I swung myself to the left. I had caught it off-guard. I slashed my sword across, almost as if to cut the werewolf in 2. Though the wolf's agility was nothing to be scoffed at.
It had jumped back to avoid my strike and this was its last mistake. The first being, crossing me.
I shot my remaining two shots. While the beast covered it's head to prevent the first shot from piercing his head, the other had pierced its stomach, a place where a human would have had the chance of surviving.
But for a werewolf? It wouldn't be much longer till the silver from the two bullets entered its blood, poisoning and killing it.
"Awooooooooooo", the wolf gave out a deep rumbling howl in its final moments. It winced and whined at the ever growing pain, before it finally fell.
"I DID IT!!!! SAM, did you see that, it's dead!", my legs gave out a little, just enough to have me crouch down to avoid falling over. "I really did it…"
Sam had fallen behind quite a bit as Ford was too fast from him, though he was there to experience the grand finale of this fight.
Sam ran toward Ford as his legs gave out, worrying that something had happened to him during the fight. "Are you ok-?".
What he didn't expect was to see Ford tearing up.
It tugged at his heart recalling how hard it had been for him, living through his life as he told him about himself. Though Ford made it seem less terrifying than it actually was, he could tell in this moment how much it really did affect him. He was still just a kid after all.
"Hey, let's get out of here before the fire gets worse".
"But we still haven't found the woman".
Sam was surprised, even in the height of his emotions, he still thought of saving that woman.
"Seeing how there's still werewolves roaming about, she's probably already…".
"You're right, let's go", although I had killed the werewolf, if the person we had come to help was already dead, then what was the point of all this.
["He probably had a wife, children, a mother and father. We can only hope to avenge the people he's lost... the people they've all lost".]
Scott's words came to mind. At the very least, I hoped whoever this werewolf had harmed, felt even a little peace at its death.
In but a moment, Sam and I had snapped back to reality, our attention placed towards the man and woman who had appeared behind a tree.
The woman seemed injured, as her arm was wrapped around the man, fully clad in iron armour.
Though, he too didn't seem without injury. He walked irregularly, his left arm looked limp as it swung back and forth without control, some blood poured out between the grooves in his armour, falling to the ground as he walked.
I placed my hand on the handle of my sword.
"We're not here to fight, as you can see we're already injured, I just wish to ask for your help".
"You'd better hurry and tell me what it is before we're both stuck in this fire".
"Could you help us out of this fire, I'll surely make it worth it for you".
…
"Sam, come on, grab the man by his right arm, I'll hold the woman up on his left".
"Thank you".
"No need to thank me".
While our chances of ending up in danger increased with how much slower we moved, at the very least, we had managed to help some people. Just as we had come to do.
"Awoooooooo".
It seems they had found the body of the werewolf I had killed. That, or there was something else.
"I think we should pick up the pace", I told them, hoping to be far enough to avoid any chance of another werewolf encounter.
"I think that one will find us anyways".
"That one?".
"A high class".
"A high class???", while I had encountered a high class before, it had only been as a support to Scott and Isolla who were much stronger than me at the time.
"Found you", a grim rumbling snarl came from behind us.
!!