The Boar

The now dead deer lay there, dead on the ground with Lucien's large body towering over it and looking down at the carcass as if he was admiring his work.

It took Lucien's mind a few moments to catch up with all that had happened and to realize that his instincts had taken full control over him.

He looked down on the carcass of the deer and something in his mind told him that this entire scene was wrong, he was no animal. But this voice was quickly drowned by his body which rewarded him with endorphins for killing his prey.

As he continued to look at the deer a hunger began growing from the depths within him. It wasn't as simple as him wanting to eat the carcass to be satiated, but rather it was more like his soul wanting to devour the remnants of life from the carcass in front of him.

Without the willpower to fight against the feeling, he immediately dived right in with his huge jaw, tearing away huge chunks of flesh from the deer's body.

The entire process of him eating the deer took nothing more than a few minutes at most and in the end, there was nothing left but the bones and antlers to symbolize the life that he had taken only minutes ago.

Lucien did not know why, but somehow this felt significant for him, it was as if taking this life symbolized something.

This feeling though was interrupted by another that arose from the meat that he had just eaten. It was as if his stomach tore something from the meat and proceeded to disperse it through his entire body.

Whatever it was, the feeling of it dispersing all over his body made his tense muscles loosen and made his consciousness feel like it was in heaven, almost like it rewarded him for something.

Unbeknownst to him, his body also grew slightly. His bones and senses were strengthened whilst his body grew a tiny bit.

The effects were, however, too small for Lucien to notice them happening, and something else occupied his attention.

At this moment the only thing that he could think of was the heavenly feeling that his mind was currently feeling. It felt as if the energy dispersed from his stomach melted bits and pieces of the ice that had frozen over his mind for so long, allowing him to clear his mind and think clearly. 

Unfortunately, this feeling didn't last for as long as he disappeared and disappeared shortly after, lasting in total only a few moments.

The intoxicating feeling of his mind clearing up after being unclear for so long was unlike anything else. It felt as if he was truly conscious only at that moment, and all the other times he was not feeling like that, he was just stuck in this never-ending nightmare of semiconsciousness.

Fortunately, he instinctively knew what would bring that feeling forth once more, consuming another prey. These cravings that screamed at him to experience that feeling again were too much to even attempt to resist.

With a concrete goal in mind, he began to search the surrounding area for any large prey. From instincts, he knew that he would be able to smell his prey to find them and that he would be able to discern them from their smell.

He immediately raised his snout towards the air and began to sniff around in the hopes of finding anything that would be worth the effort of hunting it down.

Almost immediately he senses multiple different scents and with the guidance of his instincts, he can discern every one of them from each other and recognize the animal they originated from.

Of the scents that would be worth hunting down three of them are rabbits, six of them are squirrels and one of them is a boar. With the boar having the most meat on his body Lucien immediately chose it over the other prey. 

Having chosen his prey Lucien immediately locked on its scent and found out that it was approximately three kilometers away. At the same time, he also realized that the distance was growing from the scent becoming more and more faint.

Getting a sense of urgency he immediately began sprinting in the direction where from where he smelt the boar.

While running the only thing that was going around in Lucien's mind was to find the boar, kill it, consume it, and finally experience that feeling again, everything else was irrelevant distractions.

This trail of thought got him to fall into some kind of frenzy, attempting to reach the boar as fast as possible, ignoring the stamina consumption, and began to run as fast as possible.

With this speed, it took him only about two minutes to reach the proximity of the boar's smell whilst in his frenzied state.

Currently, he was standing on top of a nearby hill scouring over the large nearby field of open area to pinpoint the boar's position.

About three hundred meters away from himself he saw it, he saw a huge brown boar that stood out like a sore thumb with his brown hide in the lush green forest.

The sight of the boar alone caused Lucien to fall into an even more uncontrollable frenzy as he realized that he was only three hundred meters away from feeling awake once again. 

This frenzied state caused Lucius to lose all sense of reason and charge right towards the boar.

The large commotion that the huge white wolf created while running over a large, relatively open field immediately startled the boar. But the boar did not back down, instead it faced Lucien and showed his two sharp tusks to defend himself.

Lucien, in his frenzied state however, completely ignored the threat of the boar's tusks, believing that his larger and stronger body would be able to subdue the boar without any problems.

When he finally came in range of the boar, he leaped towards the boar's face with his jaw wide open and claws stretched out.

But it did not go as Lucien expected. Instead of reaching the neck of the boar, as he had done with the deer, the boar turned his head to the side, causing Lucien to head straight toward the boar's two sharp tusks.

The tusks penetrated straight through the hide on his neck, leaving two bleeding wounds. Luckily because of his larger size the tusks missed anything vital, and the pain managed to rip him out of his frenzy.

Realizing his mistake Lucien pushed his paw against the boar, forcing it away from himself as he tried to catch his breath.

Seeing what Lucien was doing the boar took it as an opportunity and began charging straight towards him.

Lucien, who was in a much clearer state of mind, saw this as an opportunity and used his superior speed to quickly move to the side before the boar arrived and speared him with its tusks.

The boar who was unable to stop in time charged right past Lucien and headed straight towards the open field behind him.

This opportunity was not one he missed as he chased right after the boar and pounced on it from the side, getting a good grip with his teeth on the boar's side.

Using his body weight, he forced the boar into the ground, causing them both to roll multiple meters before coming to a halt.

As a wolf with better movement than a boar, Lucien was able to get up a lot faster than the boar, creating time which he used to quickly pounce at the boar, biting down on its neck.

He used the same tactic as he used with the deer and slowly rose it up and applied increasing pressure with his bite until he heard a crunch sound and let go of the carcass allowing it to fall to the ground.

Lucien stood there, exhausted and covered in dirt and a mixture of his and boar's blood, whilst towering over its carcass.

At the moment he was in a horrendous state, he had used up most of his energy chasing after the boar and he had received wounds during his confrontation with it. 

But all of this was secondary, what mattered now was consuming this boar to gain the moment of clarity again that he had done all of this for.

He quickly began to consume the carcass of the boar, this time much faster than he ate the deer, using only three minutes to consume most of the flesh on its body, leaving behind what remains stuck to the bones and the unappetizing parts.

All that mattered at this time was to get that energy again, and that he got.

Within only a few moments he began feeling the energy spread from his stomach to the rest of his body again, allowing him to fully awaken for a moment, while his body grew slightly.

While awake he initially basked in the feeling of being fully conscious again, but soon began to fully realize the horrible state his body was currently in.

He had two holes in his neck that were currently bleeding and could be infected. At the same time, he had used up all of his strength chasing the boar and fighting it, causing him to be likely to lose if he came into another confrontation.

In his last moments of clarity, he realized that he needed to find shelter, ideally a cave of some sort.

Even after his moment of clarity he still remembered this and set out to find one.

This search lasted for almost two hours before he finally managed to find one that fit his criteria.

He needed the cave to not have the smell of any other animals, as he was currently in no shape to fight them over ownership of the cave. It also needed to have a small enough entrance so that other predators could not find it easily and he would have some isolation when the night came.

The cave that he found was an inconspicuous cave covered by some vines close to where he had hunted the deer earlier. 

Its small entrance caused the lighting in the cave to be horrible and the entire place was pitch dark. Luckily Lucien had ok night vision and he was able to make out the general shape of the cave.

The cave was approximately a hundred meters in length and about twenty meters in width further into the cave. And in the back of the cave was a small pond of water.

He did not know if the water was safe to drink, but he would be able to clean his wound and himself in it.

Getting rid of all the dirt and dried-up blood was a relief for Lucien as the dried blood caused his fur to stick together and tug while he moved.

After getting up he immediately began to dry himself and then proceeded to move to an inconspicuous corner in the back of the cave where he lay down and went to sleep.