[Burning Inside]: 233.Short Stories.Chase

The Chase

The gun is shot into the air, inside of the forest. My four furry legs run over the fallen logs and three the high grass that covers the small insects. The keen senses of a dog help me to hear and smell if the men come closer. I was being hunter they had found me now.

As I ran I came up to a river, it was flowing to the right, so I turned left as I was going to head north. The further north I would go the colder it would get, I could run for days and find food, then men could run for hours with no food.

Another gunshot is heard the men were getting closer, I could hear a few ATV’s as they neared closer and closer to wear I now was. Another gunshot, but this one was different, this one hit just near my back leg, “Dam there getting to closer” I thought to myself. I had thought I would be able to outrun them all, but it would appear that a task like that was not something I could handle. I would fail and die, from what I knew there were no more of my kind.

While running I sniffed around hoping to find someplace to hide or something. As I turned my head to the side from smelling some foul thing, I ran into the side of a great oak tree. Leaves fell on my head as I looked up to see the monster of a tree with the few lives that still grew at beginning of fall.

Slowly I backed up and jumped up the tree landing on a branch about twenty feet in the air. Standing on my hind legs I changed. Turned back into a man as opposed to a wolf, it was always so much easier to stand like that.

Many people had thought that I was a Werewolf, but no I wasn’t I was just a man that loved my form as a wolf the most. Instead I was a shape shifter, a druid if you will say. The wolf was just my favourite form, I could also turn into a bear, but those are slower then wolves, and I would never have as keen of senses.

I stood in the trees with only leaves to cover my body, as I saw the men coming closer.
“These stupid men just won’t give up will they?” I thought to myself once more, “Oh well hopefully they won’t notice me.” Just after thinking this the men came closer, without even two seconds having gone by, I heard one of the men yell out while pointing to me. “THERE HE IS!” not but a second later, a shot landed near where my hand had laid on the side of tree.

I smirked at the consistent attempts to end my life, and jumped down from the tree, turning back into a wolf before I landed on the ground, my feet would lead me north once again.

Right after I landed a bullet went into my right hind leg. I tumbled on the ground as I came to a stop. My leg was injured I would be lucky to run much further.

The man who shot me laughed as he stood now over top me still in my wolf form.
“At first I never thought I would see a werewolf, then I never thought I would kill one, now I have done both”

Cocking his rifle once again, he held the barrel to my temple. I let out a howl, as I heard the trigger start to pull back. Was this how my era would end, was this how my species would die?

Raising my right paw as the trigger pulled back even more, I turned into a bear, this had been the first time in a century. My paw raised to slice at his chest, as my paw collided with the chest of the man, the bullet came out of the chamber and into my head.

My body lay there spiritless, as he lay there dieing, none of the other men had found me yet, and it would be a while before they found him, if they were lucky he would live. But for me there was no return, even with the powers of a druid I can not return myself to life.

My spirit drifted up to the heavens, it had been one of the few times I had left the forest that had protected me for so long, but this time it was in my death.