6 - Cloak

For a long time, the winds roared, screaming across the entrance of their home as they huddled in the dark, cold earth that sheltered them. Tiny furry bodies pressed against each other, shivering and squeaking from the pressure the storm exerted.

Winter was coming soon, so they had some food saved in the warren but how long it would last was unknown. If the storm didn't clear soon, they might starve.

Eventually, the winds passed, but the next trial followed hot on the heels of the last. Black snow started to fall, burning their fur and choking their lungs. Desperately, they started to dig deeper, tunnelling away from the ground that was quickly heating up so that they weren't boiled alive in their home.

They hid for a long time and food started to run low. The ash had stopped falling long ago but the surface was barren of life. The plants they ate were gone, buried beneath many feet of fallen ash.

Desperate to survive, a particularly brave rabbit crept out onto the surface and surveyed the apocalyptic surroundings. It didn't understand what it was seeing or what it meant, but it felt that somehow, the surface had changed.

Aside from the obvious physical changes and lack of their old enemies the orange ones, with their razor-sharp teeth and vicious claws, the world felt fresher. Every breath seemed to fill the little creature with life and energy.

It grew stronger and faster the more it breathed, absorbing this new energy from the world and thriving in the wasteland. It dug through the layers of ash with its strong paws and unearthed the shoots of growing plants, bringing them back to the warren.

They would survive this extinction; their warren was strong.

Will was stronger. He had lain on the grass for two hours before a particularly large rabbit poked its head out of the hole, sniffing the air cautiously. It was massive for a rabbit, almost as big as the hounds they used to keep for hunting and its front paws had eerily long claws that could cause a lot of damage if they got near you.

He waited till the optimal moment, when the rabbit thought it was safe, when it relaxed its guard for just a second. He struck.

Yanking the noose closed around its neck, pulling on the rope as tightly as he could manage. The knife strained against the pull but held fast, anchoring the rope and rabbit against its hilt.

The furry creature thrashed violently, thumping its hindlegs against the ground so hard that it almost pulled the rope out of Will's hands.

He felt that it was quite embarrassing that he was almost outmuscled by a rabbit and pulled tighter, squeezing the life out of the thing, the rope constricting around it like a snake.

Eventually, the creature stopped flailing and fell limp against the dirt, exhausted by the struggle and starved of oxygen, it died. Will walked over to the body and picked it up, gasping at the weight of the rabbit.

He was breathing heavily by the time he reached the top of the hill again and placed the rabbit down, skinning it clumsily with the knife he had found in the Sawyer's house.

Strangely, when he used to do this with his mother after hunting, he had always had to look away due to the gruesome sight, but now, he felt very little when his knife glided across the creature's skin. In a way, it disturbed him that he wasn't disturbed. He felt distinctly inhuman, like he had lost something fundamental to his species.

After draining its blood, he created a makeshift stand with the branches of some of the saplings, hanging up the rabbit's pelt to dry. It wasn't his best work, the pelt's edges were jagged and in places, its fur was matted with blood and damaged. But he was working with very limited tools so he could only make do.

It would be midday soon and he was hungry. He was just about to begin cooking the rabbit when he had a better idea, reluctantly taking out some jerky, he began walking away from the hill with the rabbit's corpse in one hand. It would make perfect bait for a hungry fox.

He knew that rabbits were unlikely to build their warren near a fox's den, so he needed to travel a good distance away, following the forest stream, he wandered through the saplings that seemed to have grown at least an inch or so since the morning.

As he walked, he tried focusing on the changes in his body. He hadn't been expecting them to affect his psyche but clearly, his mental state had been altered by the changes to his race.

For one, he would never have been able to sit patiently outside a rabbit warren for hours without moving in the past. That level of patience and concentration was a trait of snakes as far as he knew. Another change came from his cold-blooded reaction to killing the rabbit.

Usually, his hands would shake after he hunted something. Perhaps it was adrenaline or nerves, but he had never really enjoyed killing things. Now, however, he had felt no guilt when taking the rabbit's life, only a twisted satisfaction.

He supposed that these changes were positive in his current situation. If he had been crying while trying to skin a rabbit or unable to sit still, he would never have caught one, to begin with. But he didn't really like the idea of his mind being messed with.

'I suppose there's nothing I can really do about it though,' he thought glumly. 'At least with the physical changes to my body I can understand them better,'

Running his tongue over his front teeth, it caught on his two canines. They had grown far longer and sharper than before, like the fangs of a snake. Furthermore, he felt that they were hollow as there were two little holes at the tip of these teeth.

Not really understanding why his teeth would be hollow, he focused on the most obvious change to his body, his vision.

When he closed his right eye and kept the left one open, he saw the world differently. He wasn't sure how to describe it, but he felt that the spectrum of reds and blues should be him seeing the life force of creatures.

This was how he was viewing the world right now, in the hopes that he would be able to spot a fox's den by seeing their life force through the ground.

He hadn't been able to see the rabbits until they were in the tunnels quite close to the entrance, but they were a lot smaller than foxes and should have less life force than bigger creatures. Besides, foxes usually dug their dens shallower than a warren.

After following the river downstream for a while, he came across a small rocky hill with a sheltered hole on the eastern side. Inside the hole, he could see a vague yellow glow that was far bigger than the rabbits had been.

'Jackpot,' Will thought. Now he just had to figure out how to kill a fox. His initial plan had been to poison the rabbit's meat before feeding it to the unsuspecting fox, but none of the plants had begun to grow berries yet so that wasn't an option.

He wasn't sure the rope would be able to strangle the fox either, if it had grown much stronger, just like the rabbits had, it seemed unlikely the thin rope would be strong enough.

Realising that he would have to be more direct than he was with the rabbits, he set off into the forest and returned half an hour later with two long, sharpened sticks, broken off from a particularly strong sapling.

He placed the rabbit's body a few meters from the entrance to the warren and set up his hangman's knot on the ground beside the rabbit, this time aiming for one of the fox's paws.

Holding the rope tightly, he crept back from the trap and lay prone against the riverbank, only his head peeking out and watching the entrance to the den intently.

Foxes are both smart and cautious, but even they can't afford to ignore such a huge bounty. Since the first impact, food has been scarce, and while nature had bounced back surprisingly quickly, a lot of its prey died off during the first impact leaving it a scant amount of food to eat.

Although they are omnivorous, they prefer to eat meat and the fox in this den hadn't tasted any since before the first impact.

It slunk out of its den and padded towards the rabbit's body. Will was shocked to see it was as big as a wolf, reaching up to his shoulder and began to feel apprehensive. His father had only hunted wolves a few times in his life and that was with proper preparation and tools. Will had neither and this fox could most definitely pose a threat to his life.

His instincts were telling him to back out and run away but he fought them. He needed this pelt for warmth, or he wouldn't make it through the night. And more importantly, he wanted the pelt for himself, since it was something he wanted, he should get it. Otherwise, what was the point of his resolution to live for the simple things?

While it might seem stupid to risk his life for a cloak, he wanted the cloak so… why not?

As he watched the fox, his breathing quietened, and his heartbeat slowed to a crawl. His entire being was focused on the fox. It was his prey; he would kill it.

The fox walked up to the rabbit's body and began sniffing around it curiously. Its big paws padded around the loop of rope on the ground but never entered it.

Will watched quietly, patiently waiting for the moment a paw entered the loop. He had tied one end of the rope around a strong sapling and was holding the slack somewhere in the middle.

When the fox was caught, it would have to uproot the sapling before it could escape and Will knew that was easier said than done. He had tried to pull one out of the ground earlier to make a wooden spear and found the seemingly frail tree to be inexplicably sturdy, not budging an inch when he pulled with all his strength.

He could only chalk it up to Atma and abandon his plan of making a spear, settling for the two branches he had chopped off and fashioned into stakes.

Finally, the fox stepped into the loop and Will pulled on the rope, closing it around the animal's ankle. Immediately, he let go of the rope and began running towards the fox, one wooden stake in each hand.

The fox yipped when its ankle was caught and immediately tried to run away, only getting a few meters from the rabbit before it was yanked back as the rope went taught.

Seeing that the tree held firm, Will sighed in relief and focused entirely on the fox, putting on a burst of speed and covering the final stretch between them.

He stabbed out with the first stake, jabbing at the fox's side to little effect, barely leaving a bloody scratch on its hide.

Confused and annoyed, the fox growled and jumped at Will, sending him tumbling to the ground in order to avoid the big creature's claws.

He just barely had time to roll out of the way of its second pounce before it was upon him again, growling, its snarling mouth full of hooked teeth trying to close around his neck.

Will had seen what happened to chickens when a fox got its mouth around their neck, and it wasn't pretty. He lashed out, jabbing the fox in its throat with his stake and drawing more blood. The wound looked bad but wasn't anything serious.

Reeling back, the fox snarled at him, its eyes almost glowing with anger and frustration. Ever since it had grown so big and strong, nothing had challenged its authority in its territory.

Furiously, it threw caution to the wind and barrelled towards him, throwing itself into him in a mess of claws, teeth and wooden spikes.

Will was scratched on his forearm and side, barely holding back the snapping mouth full of razor-sharp teeth that kept coming for his face. Managing to land a few blows of his own in turn.

He focused on the fox's paws, trying to hamper its movement, stabbing at its feet with his sharp spike, causing it to whimper and whine like a hurt dog.

It backed away again, this time nursing a limp that caused it to hold one paw in the air, refusing to put any weight on it. Staring at him venomously, the Fox that was bleeding in a few places now gathered itself for another attack.

This time, Will was ready. When the creature bolted, running towards him recklessly, he threw away his second stake and held the final one in front of him with both hands, grasping it so tightly his knuckles turned white.

The fox pounced and its snarl was cut off by a strangled yelp. It tried to growl, to whimper, to breathe but it couldn't. There was a wooden spike lodged in its throat.

Will rolled out from under the mortally wounded fox, panting for air like he had just run a marathon. Still, it was worth it. He would look really cool in that cloak.