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CHAPTER TWO

The Ruins of Blairsville

They say a journey of a thousand steps begins with one. In my case, a single sprint out of the stockade set me free. I remember when I exited the stockade how I looked back briefly. The building was built right on the old golf course, I supposed in my brief glimpses that someone bulldozed the land quickly and built on top of it. The stockade itself was metal black, with a lot of sheet metal and pre-fab on the outside for, what I assumed, was a quick build time. It was tall, reaching about four stories, with some office windows at the top. Much of the lights I could see flickered on and off, and there were broken windows, almost as if someone—or something—had jumped out. Perhaps that something had been that white-eyed feral beast I encountered, but I didn’t loiter any longer to think it through.

Instead I ran across the bulldozed golf course, crossing a few hills until the artificial turf met my paws. I still had to get used to that, having paws instead of hands, but somehow the experience with that feral beast back at the stockade had broken down most of the inhibitions between my old self and new. Instinct drove my body's motions now, and I just allowed it, coming to understand it slowly as I went, not forcing myself consciously. There was some new part of me now, like there is in everyone; a primal, deep nature to everyone that harkens back to the dark ages of man when they resided in caves and fought great and giant beasts. This time, it was different, almost alien in feel, and while my waking self had a hard time reconciling its existence, the fact I could now simply will myself forward and my body reacted naturally was a testament to whatever now resided at the core of my mind, hidden from my conscious self.

That wasn’t to say there weren't still hiccups every now and then. It wasn’t perfect, probably wouldn’t be for a while from this point onward, but even as I stumbled or hobbled every so often, it was always my tail that saved me. My tail had a mind of its own; I could use my tail, I could flex it, but when I was in motion or not thinking toward it, it acted and reacted on its own to benefit whatever I did with my body. My new form, whatever it was—fluffy dragon or some other kind of canine and feline monster hybrid—was still taking time to get used to. I remembered feeling the strangeness of my bones, if you could believe it. How strange it felt to have a new interior to myself that I intimately felt and knew was wrong, but the darkest corners of my mind told me was right. As I ran across the torn asunder golf course into the artificial greens of the boundary between it and Pat Haralson Drive, I had come to some terms and agreement with myself to just let things be and try to be copasetic.

My claws dug easily into the soil, and felt comfortable, but the moment I hit the flattop—that is, the moment I struck the surface of the road—it felt unnatural and wrong. I grunted to myself, having escaped far enough from the stockade to finally let my hackles settle, that feeling of being under threat. I instead stayed to the side of the road, seeing one or two abandoned vehicles behind me near the curve of Pat Haralson, but nothing to the front. There was a new clinic ahead of me, constructed only a year ago, around two stories tall with nice white paint and a black tile roof. Now, though, it looked kinda beat down, run down, and there were plenty of abandoned cars in the small parking lot, along with traffic cones and signs. Signs about the Curse Flu, I recognized as I approached, taking my stride slowly with my ears and tail down, eyes scanning around me. The complete absence of anyone else wasn’t lost to me either, the emptiness of only having seen something feral that tried to eat me nagging at my mind.

Am I the only one that made it out alive? I wondered briefly as I sloped the embankment near the road, claws digging into the rich soil as I approached the clinic. I didn’t know what I’d find there, maybe something useful, maybe someone alive. And what about that feral one, I questioned myself further. Is that what happens to people in the Curse Flu? The ones that don’t make it? Was I the only exception, or an exception that was common or rare?

I still didn’t know what to make of waking up as this creature I was now. All I initially cared about was being able to control the body, and now with my instincts acting on their own, and my ability to walk stabilized to a majority degree, I had time to ruminate on the consequences of the Curse Flu. I looked to my left, the sign to the clinic painted over with posters about the flu, how it acted, warnings, that kind of thing. I heard it all before, but when I got sick none of that mattered because I was part of the problem. Thankfully this town's medical staff were nice enough to let me die off in peace. Then again, dying wasn’t what I did. Maybe they expected me to transform into this creature, if the stockade was any indication.

Maybe they knew all along, I thought, and the thought deeply unsettled me. I had been through COVID, been through that nonsense that almost killed me. And now this, and I survived. But what if they already knew what we’d become. What if they expected it, and expected me to go feral like that other thing?

The clinic, right. My mind settled back into the moment, eyes once distant and staring blankly at the posters now drawing back. I snorted, looking toward the clinic. The front doors were wide open, two double wooden doors, and most of its windows were broken into. Looting, no doubt, for supplies or some such. If I figured country-folk any indication, those that maybe were still human had already taken advantage of the chaos and did their due diligence. What I’d find there in the aftermath of such an initiative I didn’t know, but something inside me wanted me to go there, so I figured it didn’t hurt to try. I approached, eyes scanning, head on a swivel, ears moving, not hearing anything but the gentle wind as it rustled the trees around. The midday sun beat down on my new fur with a comfortable intensity, lighting everything up clearly, and my eyes felt different as they picked out details I knew I could never before—same with all my senses, all my senses were heightened to a degree I’d never experienced before.

Guess that’s what you get when you become a big dragon dog, I thought with some mild internal humor. Outwardly I expressed nothing, moving toward the doors.

The inside was surprisingly dark, in comparison to the still lit electricity I’d noted at the stockade. Maybe someone was polite enough to turn the lights off, I thought as my paws crossed the threshold. To be truthful, my paws weren’t paws in the traditional sense. They were like canine appendages, though I still had some flexibility in the four or so digits there. I just couldn’t manipulate it no longer like my hand, couldn’t and likely would never have the ability of opposable thumbs again. This realization somewhat unsettled me, but it was a give or take.

Either I would have died, or I turned into this, or gone feral, I contemplated. I suppose I got the luck of the draw. I survived and got turned, but didn’t go feral. Not so lucky to still be human though, if that was ever a choice.

I entered the open double-doors. Briefly looking up at the second story windows again to verify nothing was looking down at me, not that I sensed anything was. The reception area was in shambles, as if a mob of something came in and torn everything to shreds. The interior, once clean and fitted, now looked like a demolition crew had come in and partially did their work before taking off. There was hanging ceiling tile and wires, broken plaster walls, torn paint, broken shelves and desks and chairs, and just a sense of destruction. My first investigation into this new world gave me hints of the old, hints that it had become an apocalypse to those who endured it, possibly even a struggle to survive.

I was lucky, I thought, moving further in, carefully. I got sent to wherever I did. Maybe they knew, maybe they didn’t, but at least I didn’t have to endure this.

I sniffed deeply, scenting the air. At first it was stale, like the type of smell you get from an abandoned apartment building that hadn’t been well taken care of; scent of some mold, paint, possibly a mixture of lead and other things like plaster in sheetrock. Then I smelled something else, something rotting, and it was coming from further in. I tried to relate it to the smell I related to that feral thing, but it wasn’t close, not exactly. Ears raised briefly as they scanned and turned on their own, my eyes kept moving left to right as I passed the demolished reception area. The interior was just as bad, walls and all knocked in and down as if people had a rough overnight beer party and no one knew their limits. The interior was dark, but my eyesight seemed capable of seeing fine nonetheless, which somewhat surprised and concerned me in some way. I did miss my humanity, but with having taken so easily to this new form, I was beginning to move past the continual revelations I’d have with each new discovery of myself.

I rounded a corner inside the interior. There was a stairway and elevators farther down as I looked right. To the left looked like a pharmacy area, but it was so destroyed and beyond recognition that the only way I knew what it was, was thanks to the barely hanging “Pharmacy” sign above a destroyed desk. I snorted at the destruction, there didn’t appear to be anything worth looking for over there, but I kept it on my mind to check later. Instead, I focused right again, following the scent, and then I saw it.

The shoes were what gave the dead body away. Some kind of worn down sneakers, the legs half bent at a ninety-degree angle as if the owner of them had slumped. I had found them rounding the corner wall behind reception, looking down to the elevators and stairwell, just past the waiting area. I moved a bit closer so I could get a better look, one the door all but gone to the stairwell and the body—half a body, the top half gone and the lower half looking chewed off—was slumped against the corner of the stairwell entry. It smelled horrible, but a part of me loved the smell, almost as if it wanted me to go towards it for food.

I may have just readily accepted myself but I’m not about to eat a human, I thought, chiding myself, but if I was in need….would I? Would I truly stop myself?

I felt my tongue snake out, licking my chops. I didn’t know if I would, but something inside me wanted to taste that rotting corpse. It smelled awful but…but I was almost horrified at myself for wanting it. I snorted, ignoring it, and before I turned around I heard something behind me. My ears turned first, then my head, and I saw it—the same feral from before was blocking the exit as it entered, the same claw marks on its face, its paws crushing a fallen lamp under them causing the noise which prompted me to look. Its eyes glowed in the dark, ominously so, and our eyes locked as we stood still and staring.

Do my eyes look like that in the dark now? I wondered, despite the danger I was in. I released a huff, which the feral reciprocated as he stared. Why is it just standing there, staring?

My body wasn’t tensing, either, which set off alarm bells of a whole new calibre inside me, though I knew most of them were from what remained of my humanity. My gut, the hidden parts of my mind, and other instinctual things didn’t sound an alarm. Instead, I grunted, as if it was natural to do so, and the feral thing snorted in reply, moving casually inside as its interest was elsewhere. It was staring past me, near the stairwell, but cautiously approaching. I grunted again, backtracking casually toward the pharmacy with a slow gait, following through with my thought to check that area out. I kept one eye on the feral, though, watching as it quickly made a beeline for the corpse.

So what is this now? We’re just staying out of each others way? I thought, questioning the earlier aggression of the feral beast. Then again, if it was anything like a pack dog, it didn’t have a pack, none it sported, and I had been way more trouble than an easy bowl of kibble was. It made sense, in a way, it came here too. Maybe it also smelled the corpse and wanted some.

I watched it enter the stairwell and, after one glance back towards me, it began to chew on the lower half portion of some poor human who had died. The sickening sounds of it eating carrion and chewing bone were loud and obnoxious, but I ignored it for the moment. My eyes went to the pharmacy and, after a moment, I hopped over the broken counter and examined things. There wasn’t much left, if anything left at all. Shelves had been cleaned and most everything useful was gone. There were some packets of medicine left, and as I checked them they were odd and ended things like laxatives and probiotics, stuff you’d normally not use in a survival situation. There were, however, a few things of interest.

Someone left a fully stocked first aid kit, one of the expensive ones, near the corner of a fallen shelf. It had everything; first aid cream, bandages of all types, antibiotics cream, and all the bells and whistles. I recalled the slice to my shoulder, my right one, that the feral who was now eating across the way gave me. I knew it was the same one because they sported the claw marks on the side of their muzzle from my return strike. I listened briefly, ears perking toward it, listening to it chew on its meal. Meanwhile I focused back on the task at hand; the first aid kit was now my priority, and how I could bring it with me. I wish I knew something about saddling or creating bags, that way I could fashion myself something on this new body.

Only a day in and I’m already quick into thinking on how I’m going to survive, I joked to myself mentally.

I couldn’t grab it, not in the traditional sense. Without adequate opposable thumbs, my paws were useless, but I could still grab it into my paw. It was hard, but my claws helped as they extended, and I lifted it from inside the shelf. As I did I looked around for any bag to help me, to perhaps be utilized in a way to carry this thing. I saw out of the corner a shelt of handbags, and, looking closer, one of them had an extended strap. It was extremely difficult but, as I listened to the feral continue its dinner course on the corpse, I managed to slowly slide my head into the strap loop of the hand-bag as I put the first aid kit there. After a moment, the strap slid down my head, past my ears and horn, and onto the cusp of my neck with my body. It dangled there, weighted by the kit, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. I looked down and, to my relief, I could theoretically grab things from it from this angle.

Better than nothin’, I thought with some pride. There were still other handbags near the shelf where I found this one around my neck, so I grabbed them, thinking that later maybe I could fashion tote bags somehow. I put them in the handbag around my neck, then moved on to see if anything leftover was useful. There was a bottom of ibuprofen, as well as a liquid bandage spray bottle, and I put those in my bag as well. Nothing else caught my eye, so I lifted up and looked at my shoulder briefly. The cuts were already healing and didn’t look infected, so I ignored them for now, head turning to face where the feral was.

It was sleeping on its side near the stairwell. I supposed then there wasn’t any use of me going upstairs, not that there might be any reason to. I moved up and over the counter with a grace I hadn’t realized I possessed, gingerly approaching just enough to glance. From this angle where the feral lay, I could glimpse things I hadn’t considered before. That feral that had accosted me earlier was a female, I could tell now by the pair of visible mammaries between its legs, among other things visible. I gently snorted, looking over the rest of its body. It had seemed totally different then, but now with this new information, I realized that perhaps it was just as alone as I was, just trying to survive or perhaps make a way for it, even if it was a savage beast.

But how do I know it’s not as intelligent as me? I pondered. Sure, it only spoke in growls, but who's to say I didn’t either and simply didn’t understand our new way of speech? A lot of possibilities went through my mind. I had a thought to approach it, but something stopped me. Danger, a gentle pull of something told me, primal and instinctive. Not safe, not good. Danger, it repeated. My gut clenched softly as I considered ignoring the warning, then loosened when I thought it best to listen. Whatever it was, I intimately knew it as a danger, so it was best if I made my way out.

Survival was now key. I had found some medical supplies, and while I pondered on patching those scratches on my shoulder, I exited the ruined clinic back into the outside world. I stopped to briefly glance around, then proceeded toward the road. I crossed it without incident and briefly looked up to my left at the path toward the mixed-used office space. It was more medical practices, I saw from the sign to the right near the driveway, and ignored it as I crossed and entered the other side, near the butternut creek. I knew if I followed the creek, I’d find myself near the Ingles supermarket. Now that I had a way to carry supplies, I was eager to be able to have at least some canned food, even if it could be dog or cat food.

Anything will be a priority right now, I reminded myself. There’s no telling if there’s anyone else. Hell, the world could all be feral and dangerous by now.

The most prominent feeling I had right then was a sense of eeriness about my entire surroundings. Normally you’d hear the sound of cars traveling on roads, or perhaps airliners or other background noises of civilized activity, but there was none of that. The sounds of birds, of nature, of everything belonging to earth itself, dominated my surroundings. I wondered briefly how long I’d been isolated in my sickness, how long I’d been out before my waking into this new world. So much had changed, like, for example, the overgrowth of plants and ferns along the creek as I now moved eastward. Unkept and unchecked, nature was taking back over what belonged to it, and I could see that clearly here more than anywhere else.

I stopped briefly, my form hidden by tall grass as I entered the vicinity of where I anticipated the parking lot to be. Instead, I saw a pack of deer, casually eating overgrowth on the lot. I recalled the clinic lot, and while it had some growth between cracks, it didn’t seem as bad as this, or worthy enough to note. This, however, was exceptional overgrowth. That, and the fact that there was deer here, possibly live prey for me to catch and eat if needed.

Better than eating half a human corpse, I grumbled to myself, though the prospect of eating fresh meat seemed unappealing to my conscious mind. My unconscious, however, seemed eager for it, and the act of looking upon the deer solicited a tongue lick to my snout. You’d like that wouldn’t you, boy, I said to myself, both surprised at the audacity of addressing this inner thing like a pet and feeling amused by it at the same time. You’d like to eat that deer, huh?

As if to answer, my tongue licked again, and I chuckled inwardly. My expression unchanged, I glanced about and made sure none of those ferals were about. It didn’t matter if I scared the deer off, my prey was inside the supermarket. I at least wanted to feel civilized with eating, even if…even if the prospect of eating like an animal was appealing. Just about the time as I was to move, however, something flew out of the corner of my vision from the southeast direction, moving rapidly toward the deer. I barely had time to register the grey fluff of fur and mane before the panicked cries of the does and their fawns broke the tranquility of the day.

I watched, both in abject horror and surreal fascination, as the feral—larger than the one that had greeted me again in the clinic—pounced on the largest doe of the herd, snapping jaws on its neck and growling viciously as its claws tore in. As it did, I saw more ferals, of all sizes and oddly shapes, appear from the same direction. There were around five or six of them, some smaller and two others near the size of the one dragging the corpse of the doe backward. I could only make out what was happening from my hidden position in the reeds and grass, barely visible, quiet, ears almost flat and eyes wide. And they all had tags in their ears like me, though it was hard to make out any numbers on them from where I was.

Danger, the thing inside me warned gently, though it wasn’t as pronounced. Stay away.

I grunted softly, watching the family—or was this a pack?—of ferals all pounce on the meal as the larger one, clearly the alpha, ripped the head off the deer viciously and began to munch on it. I couldn’t move from my position even if I wanted to, I was still, unmoving, and the wind was on my side if the sway of the reeds was any indications; the wind blew toward me, not away, and the situation was at least in my favor in that they couldn’t scent me. I slinked a bit backward and began to enter the creek. I was slow, deliberately slow, as my head shrunk under the protection of the grass. Half of my tail was inside the creek before it instinctively began to curl upward, and I lay on the side of the stream bank, half near the water and half near the reeds. I’d be foolish to try to move now.

Several long hours passed, the wind not changing direction thankfully. I stayed hidden as I listened to the pack munch and maw on food, part of me salivating unprompted as I listened intently on a meal I’d never to be a part of. I didn’t know if the ferals were savage animals, or simply animals, or even intelligent, but I was listening to my gut, and my instincts, on its insistence they were dangerous. I had no proof of it, the only such proof of my first encounter, but the fact the female feral had left me alone in the clinic was some indication they reacted in some manner similar to canines or other pack animals. In that logic, though in support of my feelings of dread and danger, if I introduced myself I’d be an unknown variable, and with so many of them there and present I was an easy kill. If they’d the corpse of humans, something told me they’d no doubt eat corpses of their own.

By the time the pack of ferals had finished their meal and wandered off to the northeast, the fading light of day was present on the horizon to the west. I listened intently for around fifteen minutes or so, though I’d no capability to accurately tell how much time passed, before I dared to move. I slinked up slowly, carefully, poking my head above the reeds and noticing no one else of my kind around. The deer had not even returned, though why they would was beyond me to question considering how the ruined and chewed skeletal corpse of one of their own was sitting at the edge of the parking lot.

Stupid of me to think they would return, I chided myself as I carefully slinked through the grass, and out of it. Just now gotta be careful. The pack could still be around, see me as a scavenger, or a threat. No need to try my luck. Supermarket is my target.

I carefully rose the gentle embankment where the creek and its adjacent land met the property of the supermarket parking lot. My claws ticked gently on worn and broken asphalt, I carefully slinked past. Most of the lot was empty, some abandoned cars present with open doors and busted windshields, and at the corner nearest the other end I saw a few tractor trailer trucks that were no doubt empty; the semi-trucks were stationary and their trailer doors were open, material ransacked by looters evident by the scattered material on the ground. I looked toward the east again, the supermarket itself run down, overgrowth present, and its windows long ago destroyed. There could still be some useful items in there, preserved food cans most of all.

About halfway across the parking lot my senses tingled, something piercing and poking my perception. Like a new sense evolving into awareness, or always there in this new form or in me but now more apparent thanks to my transformation or growing perception of self. It was directional, the urging of something poking my awareness that danger was behind me. I stopped slowly, turning my head like a cat who had been caught in an act of vandalism in their owner's home. My eyes partially wide as they settled, once again, on the same female feral with the claw marks to the side of her head at the edge of the lot, whose white-toned eyes were on me. Her stature wasn’t hostile, just attentive, and her ears were perked high as she watched me.

Danger. Not friend, my mind told me, countering a growing hypothesis that she, like a dog wanting protection, was simply following me for it. Not friend. Danger.

I wanted to listen to my gut, to react, but with the threat of that feral pack lingering nearby I didn’t have the time to consider the ramifications of me doing another threat display. Instead, I opted for the alternative, and began to quickly move toward the supermarket at a half-crouch and half-sprint, like a feline evading the watching eyes of another, more dominant feline to cross an alleyway. In short order I made it towards the entrance of the supermarket, which was no longer much of such a thing due to torn down doors and broken windows, and chanced a glance back. She was gone, or at least somewhere I couldn’t readily see here in my quick glance, and I quickly rushed inside.

Inside the old Ingles was exactly as I anticipated; the store was run down, shattered glass and other material everywhere, the registers I saw beyond ruined and broken as many of the machines were on their sides beside their stations. Past that the food isles looked worse for wear, with even a few toppled against other isles, and the strong lingering scent of rotting meat and food was prevalent. Most of the ceiling tiles were either missing or dislodged, and the hanging aisle signs were either half-hanging or entirely missing, broken on the ground or altogether absent. Even the epoxy flooring, as I looked under my paws, had damages to it, with some pieces missing entirely while others were broken in spaces.

I snorted. Already looted and ransacked, I observed as I moved further in. Probably won’t find much, but I have to try.

Taking another glance behind me for the pesky feral that liked to follow, and not seeing her, I continued in and down a few isles. I managed to find some still preserved canned good items, mainly beans and other easily edible things without heating them up, and put them in my neck bag. It held firm with the extra weight, and I continued on through the store as time passed outside, the perception of which was vague to me. I found other things useful, of which was two bookbags and lunch bags that could be useful, along with some rope and straps that I could salvage and perhaps utilize. Some more medical supplies caught my interest, such as bandages and other things of importance like antibiotic spray and such that I grabbed, but nothing else extremely relevant to take.

I think that’s everything of note, I thought to myself as I began to round the abandoned and destitute supermarket towards the entrance. My head turned toward there and I froze. Shit, I thought, shrinking halfway down, hoping they hadn’t seen me.

There, in the entrance, was the pack in full. The large feral had already entered and was sitting next to the shopping cart rack that I had overlooked previously, most of the carts scattered or broken, but the large feral alpha—for that’s the only thing it could be, an alpha—rested against it. The alpha was licking down on a smaller feral, similar to it, which I concluded must have been its pup. Beside the alpha was another of the larger ones, likely a female if what I understood of our new kinds of body shapes hinted, and her head was rested on the alphas flank. The two other ones were lazily sitting to the opposite side, watching the alpha and absently having their ears turn, though none of the packs attention was on me.

I was on the far corner of the store, having just concluded my run of things. I slinked behind a ruined aisle, head just around the corner then, one eye observing. I got a better view of them from this perspective, of their tags and numbers on them, but only slightly, and other things about them. The larger one had a tag like mine, numbered five-zero-zero, and the rest had numberings along that line in subsequent order. I also noted they were all the same grey-matted coats as that female feral that had accosted and stalked me, though she was tagless as I recalled. They all had the same type of mane, though with some variations amongst them. There was nothing particularly unusual about them except their horn formations; the alpha's horns curled like a rams, large and pronounced, while the rest had more subdued horn formations similar to my own. They looked like me, no alterations in the way they seemed, no strange mutations. It could have been a cute display of pack behavior if my insides weren't already screaming at me of the danger.

I know, I know! I screamed back inwardly to myself. Nothing I can do here. I must have entered their den, or home. Or, maybe they followed me too? Maybe they know I’m here and … no that doesn’t make sense.

None of it made any sense. I had to have been making noise of some type to gain their attention, but the way they behaved now, as if I didn’t exist or wasn’t a threat if they did know I was there, was entirely opposite of the screaming DANGER my instincts insisted. Some part of me knew this pack, these ferals, were dangerous. I trusted my instincts, always had even before the change, and I knew—or at least thought I knew—that my instincts couldn’t be wrong. Something inside me told me they were hunting me, playing me, or at the very least I was just extremely lucky not to be noticed. That if I was noticed, I’d be considered food, and I had to escape post haste. I tried not to let the feelings of fear overwhelm me, instead I moved backward further, behind the aisle and completely out of their view, and did an about-face as my body turned slowly.

I was nearly pressed into the broken epoxy floor of the supermarket as my form moved on its accord, in its own fashion, toward the rear. As a truck driver, I knew the ins and outs of most styles of supermarkets and other facilities; where the docks where, where I could go to the bathroom, that sort of thing. I knew also that this Ingles had to have an entrance to the docks where I could possibly escape from. I moved carefully, quietly, and rounding the back end of the aisle I saw an entrance to the back. Two freemoving doors with one plastic window each was before me, and I gently pressed into them, trying not to make a sound as I moved through them, my tail behind me unconsciously halting the momentum of one side as it rotated closed where the plastic edges of the doors met.

I let out a relieved and subdued huff, realizing with satisfaction I was in the rear of the store, where the employees would store pallets of merchandise. Here, too, were signs of looting and destruction, with the storage shelves themselves showing signs of damage and disrepair. There were no pallets stored, I noted as I looked left and right, trying to find the way to the docks as I settled on the left as a direction, my bag around my neck surprisingly subdued in noise as it impacted my frontal breast. I made it to the edge of that direction, seeing only brick walls and nothing else. I cursed softly, turning to the other direction. And then, all at once, my hopes of escaping unheard and unseen were shattered.

In the short hallway that spanned the back end of the supermarket, sitting in the center of the concrete floor and preventing any hope of silent escape, was the same feral female from before. She sat on her haunches, forelegs lightly crossed, head tilted and eyes on me. One ear was flat, another was raised. Almost as if inquisitive, curious as to what I was doing here. It hadn’t dawned on me before that she may have been a member of the alpha’s pack, but now the fact I’ve missed came crashing to the fore of my mind.

I’m trapped, I said to myself, the realization settling in like the sensation of the stinging heat of spilt coffee on a grabbing hand. There’s no way out but through her, and if I make a sound, that alpha is going to hear. And then there’s really no hope of survival.

I stood for that moment, motionless, in a half turned stance as my tail idly swayed beside me. My body posture was lowered and my eyes were firmly on her, halfway between sprinting away and halfway between instinctively wanting to contest their appearance. My breathing, to my surprise, was calm and steady. I took solace in the fact that, for the moment, I wasn’t displaying any sign of weakness.

Did she think I was one of them, one of her kind? I pondered idly. There was no use in avoiding the question now, no way for me to escape away and think of things that I’ve observed. I was in the moment between fight or flight, and flight wasn’t an option anymore.

What do I do? I asked myself, and for the first time since I awoken, nothing from the dark recesses of whatever instinct guided me answered back.