The Hike
*My first attempt at a story, enjoy and please comment*
A faint rustling is heard, but in the dawn of this day little can be seen. Then a groaning of a man in pain is heard. As the sun finally breaks over the horizon a slender man could be seen laying on a hiking path on a mountain trail leading down into a valley. This poor man who had come to be in this situation due to a prior day of curious events.
Perrin Demar slowly raised his head from the packed dirt patch and shook his head dislodging a clump of dirt that was imbedded in his hair. He watched it roll down the path over to a tattered sack that had a few tools in it that looked as if they were meant for hiking use. He sat up slowly and in doing so was made aware of a throbbing pain in his left leg. He found that it was badly twisted and tried to remember what had happened earlier, but could not, as his memory was extremely fragmented so he set to the task of easing the pain in his leg. After a few moments though he noticed the tattered bag and thought it might have some food, so he fought the pain in his ankle and slowly dragged himself over to the bag. He searched through the bag to find that it held a normal pair of walking shoes, as he was wearing hiking ones he assumed they were his normal pair, he found a few pegs for hammering into stone faces to climb with and other such tools for climbing, in the bottom of the sack was a half crushed and partially ripped bag filled with different types of snack-like foods. He opened it gingerly to save what was left of the bag and found some smashed fruits that had soaked into a half loaf of bread, and a cracked jar of peanut butter, a empty bag that had a few traces of some mixed nuts in it. It was a sad amount of rations and he hoped the rest would be some where near but for now he made a meal of these and after taking the edge off his hunger he started to worry about more important things. He started to wonder if this path was traveled at all as it was quite overgrown. He needed help if he was to get anywhere quickly, but since that was a chance factor he quickly started to apply his mind to something else lest he be consumed by worry.
Perrin looked once again at the bag and got to thinking how he could have gotten here, he looked up and down the overgrown path and couldn't discern which way he had come from, as both looked unthreaded. He then thought to look at the cliff face that he rested on with his back. He couldn't see the top partly do that it was to steep and the overhang went out about six feet. He guessed the outshoot to be about 30 feet up and he wondered if he fell from up there. A thought tugged at him and he tried to remember it, tried to see it in his mind and thought his thoughts were a bit fuzzy from the pain and from some kind of amnesia that he just couldn't shake off. After a moment though he could remember the face of a man, a salesman, which had sold him the hiking gear that had been just about a week ago. He tried to remember more but he lost it again, so he had been planning to go hiking, something must have happened to him that he would have hurt his leg, which now had gone down to a dull throb, and he guessed he must have fell from one of the off shoots higher up on the cliff and he was glad he hadn't been injured worse, though the head ache he seemed to be suffering from has caused this infernal memory loss. He decided to look at his surroundings since his leg didn't hurt so badly now and so he could perhaps find help or a means to call attention to himself if help were to come. He pulled him self in a sitting up fashion backwards to a withered tree on the side of the path and used it to stand up, the sickly sapling couldn't take his full weight and started to snap as he stood, he managed to stand and jarred his leg causing a new flux of pain through, as the mini-tree fell to it's own demise.
Perrin watched the plant fall and in a sense actually felt sorry for it because it's fate seemed to be much like his own, and while he was thinking about the tree snapping he recalled a bit more of the prior day. He remembered getting out of the taxicab and paying the driver, and saying goodbye. He set off out to the hiking trail that went up into the mountains, it wasn't managed by anyone and was listed as a travel at your own risk but Perrin wasn't the kind of man to let that benign kind of danger to stand in his way so he went anyway. He had his gear that he got in town earlier that week and had a few provisions to last him out for a few days before he headed to the lodge at the base of the valley furthest from the mountains. He set out through the lush valley up to the hiking path on the mountain base and after a few hours hiking he took out his lighter and started a small fire to cook a few hotdogs he had packed away. Later that night when he was exhausted from a long days hike he wanted to get to bed so he started to make a small camp site and one last quick fire to eat a small dinner on, after setting up the tent he started on the fire, but after the fire had been going for a few minutes he noticed a luminescent glow on a stone a bit further on the path, and he was consumed by curiosity so he decided to check it out. He stood cautiously as in the twilight he couldn't see to well and headed a few yards from the fire to check out this curious stone. When he got to it he was surprised to see that the light that was glinting off the stone wasn't coming from the fire at all, there was a dim glow coming from the ground under a pile of dirt, it was bright enough that it did indeed cast a glow on the stone. He felt a chill down his spine but he decided to brave his childish fears and dig it up, as it may just be a buried flashlight that was left on or something. So he set to the task of digging up this light source and when he got it out he held it in his hand to examine it. It was a curiously glowing stone; it was smooth and had a polished look to it. It was flat like a skipping stone and he flipped it over a few times and saw that both sides were the same smooth shape. He examined it closely putting the stone near his right eye and as it neared his eye a brilliant light blinded his eye for a second startling Perrin so much that he dropped the stone to the ground and lost his balance and stuck out his arms whirling them to regain his balance landing on his left leg twisting it badly. Pain lanced through him and he rolled onto his back, his injured leg temporally forgotten as the glowing stone began to make an assortment of odd noises not unlike chalk on a chalkboard. Perrin tried to back up from it but was hindered by his leg and could only attempt an army crawl. He backed up till he was up against a tree trunk on the path and watched in horror as the stone began to shoot of flares of light in all directions. Perrin nearly soiled himself as it continued to get louder with it's screeching. The noise got so loud that Perrin clasped his hands over his ears but was now mesmerized and couldn't stop watching. After a moment the light movement intensified and gained direction, becoming a circular randomness that began to shrink but intensify becoming a pure ball of light that was just about as big as Perrin himself. Perrin by this point was only half aware with all the over stimulation and was somehow drawn to it. He sat just near it noticing that it wasn't moving anymore and nerved himself to touch it feeling the surface of it. He looked dumbly at his soft feeling ball of light that was also as hard as a rock, he was astounded by it his fear being replaced by awe. He look over its smooth round surface and went to itch the bridge of his nose from a bead of sweat that had formed from his prior nervousness. As he went to pull his hand back he found that the ball of light had adhered to his skin and was beginning to consume his hand, then his arm. He had no feeling to the hand as soon as it entered the ball and began screaming and failing about not knowing what was going on. It moved to his shoulder and started down his side, and the ball began to grow as it took more and more of him in. He couldn't think of anything to do but scream more and fail about, he smacked the ball with his other had and felt the rock he had felt before, but then this hand and arm began to sink in too, so he quickly brought up his legs and kicked it. It was a losing battle as more and more of him was consumed and he rolled around feebly and as he did his bag and other supplies touched this ball and were also taken in. This all happened rather quickly and at the last Perrin's head was the last thing not yet taken in by the ball, and he screamed for the last time before his mouth was also gone. His eyes darted about and finally all of him was within it. He tried to open his eyes but couldn't see, nor could he hear, or smell. He tried to scream but could not. After what seemed like forever to him he fell unconscious inside that ball still terrified of what was happening but unable to stay awake.
Perrin snapped out of his remembrances still looking at this noble tree that had witnessed the odd events of the prior night. The tree had seemed more stable then but then again he wasn't paying much attention to it. He looked around frantically for that yellow stone but saw no sign of it, and he began to relax after a few moments.
He now remembered what happened last night that may have caused his leg injury but why the loss of memory as he still couldn't remember anything else. He thought about that ball and wondered what it was and what it did to him, as he seemed to be where he was before, though his campsite and most of his supplies seemed to have disappeared. The only things here seemed to be the things that touched that ball of light. He assumed it must have transported him somewhere but he seemed to be exactly where he was before.
Perrin thought about this but couldn't come to a reasonable conclusion. He looked about and thought to try to walk on his leg, but found with only one step that it couldn't bear any weight and he toppled over rolling to the side of the cliff. In doing so he found a little nitch to go into and found it a bit snug but comfortable enough given his situation and as he slid his body into it he found he was rather tired and decided that perhaps sleeping on the issue would help him find his much needed answers to get out of this mess.
His dreams were restless though. In his dream he was still in the circle of light but now he could see through it and outside, he was still in the same area as before and the ball didn't seem to move, but now it was a few feet off the ground and facing the valley below. Perrin looked into this valley and noticed a small town mixed into the trees in the valley, and a little arena in the center. He was puzzled by this sense his memories of the other day were that there was nothing in that valley, just a small forest that was not to thick, and he remembered no such town. As he continued looking around he saw a figure coming up the path by itself. As it neared he saw it was a female with a flowing white gown on. He wasn't much concerned with her clothing though due that she had some features that startled him. The first and most apparent was that she had the head of a panther, this fact startled him a lot and he squinted his eyes attempting to see if it was a mask, but then he noticed the paws coming out the bottom of the gown, and clawed hands that were slender but still held a more animalistic appearance than that of a normal human. This female figure was very close now and he found that he couldn't move, as the, now clear, ball of light held him secure and he was afraid that she might be vicious and attack him like in those stories about wild beasts he heard in his youth, but as she walked right up near him he noticed that she either couldn't see him floating there or perhaps was ignoring him. Either way she walked by him and went on for a few more yards before stopping and bending over to look at a small wildflower that was growing out of a clump of dirt near the cliff base. She touched it gently with her paw and extended her muzzle to sniff it, she emitted a soft pleasant animal noise to herself as if she were pleased. In a way Perrin found this odd, thinking this creature would be uncaring of such beauty, but since he couldn't move he decided to continue watching. The Panther women sat down on a rock near him and began to hum a rather emotion provoking tune that he hadn't ever heard. He listened for some time before she finally came to an end leaving him with an outward feeling for this creature, and he wondered why the tune had sounded so sad, perhaps this female was some mutation from human kind and that is why she was out here in the overgrown pass. She then stood up and he was surprised as she could suddenly see him, she looked at him for the first time and said "Poor creature what has happened to you? You look as if you are hurt". She reached forward through the ball of light and gently touched his face, which abruptly woke him up.
Perrin awoke and had to blink the sun out of his eyes, as it was straight overhead, his heart racing all the while. He looked up and saw that indeed the panther woman was standing there looking at him and he lay still thinking this may just be another dream. The creature looked at him curiously not moving in any way except for extending one arm out as if to offer assistance. Perrin lay still for a moment but finally gave in and laid on his side holding him self up with his right shoulder and looked at the creature closely, it was a black furred panther with emerald green eyes and a soft expression on her muzzle, this puzzled him but he looked down and noted the way her legs were slightly hinged back like a panther, this amazed him. She spoke first while his sat in awe of this create that just couldn't exist. "Hello there may I ask what kind a creature you are? You look some what like me but are so different, you look like the pictures in our history books." Perrin sat for a second after she finished talking note that same calm clear voice he had heard in his dream before he said, "I was thinking to ask you the same. I saw you in my dream before I awoke and you were humming and when I did you were here..." Perrin trailed off losing himself to that awe again as he wasn't yet over the thought that such a creature could exist. She looked down at him with wonder in her eyes as well "You must know about us as we are just at the bottom of the valley here, I only asked because you are so different, you look so much like the creatures in the history books that show how we were before the.....", she paused for a moment before continuing " before the accident, looking at you made me remember the stories I was told when I was younger"
Perrin found his awe and slight fear of this creature turning into a keen curiosity about her history and they talked for most of the rest of that day only stopping to get a bite to eat. At which point she left down the path for a minute and came back with some supplies that she had hidden away near the bottom of the path. He found that her name was Valerie and she was important to her people, as this mountain pass was sacred and only she was allowed to go on it. She told him that at the top of the pass she was to perform a ritual for the Lord Dragon. He told her what he could remember and all about the glowing ball, but she didn't understand that concept to well and didn't know what it could be though she did say "Maybe Lord Dragon sent you here to guide us" and Perrin said "I don't think so, I was just going onto this mountain to hike and didn't even see a town on the way in." Later on she said "I have to return to the village now, but as you are injured you must stay here and the townsfolk most likely wouldn't understand someone like yourself as your so different but I will bring you food until you are better then you can come down to the village with me when you have more strength". He couldn't really protest because his leg had begun to swell and before when he tried to move around he had only worsened it. In the days after that night she did indeed bring up rations for him to eat, some days fresh milk others some juice from some berries he was unaware that even existed but they were sweet and delicious. As Perrin grew better over the next few days he noticed a friendship between them forming and he tried hugging her goodbye one day when his leg was feeling much better and the swelling had gone down almost all the way. He had all but forgotten the fur and was seeing her for who she was, but when he hugged her he felt the fur on her muzzle brushing on his shoulder. He didn't feel odd at all, and felt comfortable near his new friend and they finally said good bye to each other as they had done for the last few nights.
The next time Valerie stopped by Perrin had been hobbling about getting a bunch of those wild flowers that Valerie seemed to like together to give to her as a sign of thanks for all she has done for him in his time of need. When she got to his campsite she was pleasantly surprised and licked his face in thanks. This surprised Perrin slightly as the feeling of her warm tongue caressing his face on his left cheek was foreign to him and he hadn't expected this response, but after a moment he realized on this own that this must be the way they show their thanks. He smiled at her, and suppressed that odd chill that was sent down his spine that was caused by that feline tongue. He looked into her eyes and she grinned at him and stood up and walked a few feet down the path looking towards the town expressing her happiness. Perrin looked at her with a different eye and felt another chill this time of shame for thinking that way about his new friend, walking her tail russle the gown she wore as it swung back and forth. He admired her form with a guilt pleasure watching her slender hips and she paced around the area bending to add flowers to the ones he had gotten for her. She turned and sat next to him by the downed sapling and smiled a toothy grin to him again. They talked for awhile and he wondered why her grin didn't diminish and he glanced down quickly but thought he wasn't showing through but was having difficultly finding anything worthwhile to talk about. He continued admiring her secretly while talking when she suddenly whispered to him "I can smell something on you, and I finally have figured out what it is. I'm glad you think so me, as you attract me as well" She laughed and sprung up with the flowers in hand and sprinted down to the town before Perrin could even feel embarrassed. Perrin sat for along while thinking of what had just happened by in the end contented himself to reflect upon it in his dreams.
In the morning he tried out his leg which he had been doing each morning and found it was finally back to its proper working order with no lingering of the strains the original twisting had caused. Now he began to become anxious waiting for Valerie to bring the food she always brang, and told himself he would come to the town with her when she came. When she arrived he said "Val, I'm all better now, can you take me to the village today" She looked at him and nervously adjusted her dress and said "Perrin how about tomorrow, when we go into the town I think they will make you be like the other males and not come near me. You've been so nice and I don't want you to be distanced from me will you spend this last day with me?" Perrin thought about it and ended up giving in as the idea of being separated from the only friend he has had these past few days wasn't a pleasant one. This day was a bit different though, because something about Valerie had changed she seemed a bit pensive as if something was getting to her, so during a small meal of some sort of tender roots and some berry juice he asked her "What's up you Valerie? Something seems to be bugging you would you care to share?" She just looked at him for a second as if nerving herself and in response got up and walked over to him, she stood before him and looked down. She looked him in the eyes, and reached down with both paws on the sides of his face and said "Perrin I'm sorry for what is about to happen if isn't not what you want, but I'm afraid I'm in heat and cannot resist that smell any longer....", Perrin didn't quite have enough time to think of a good response and instead gave a grunt as she landed on him knocking him onto his back, and as he lay there she began to lick his right ear and cheek with her tongue. Perrin was bewildered as to what was going for the first few moments as it was all happening so quickly and he convulsively reached up and touched her sides, she looked down at his hands with a purely animal glint in her eye and her muzzle was on his shirt in a flash ripping at it in a fashion that both aroused and scared Perrin and within a moment his tattered shirt lay in ruin next to him. He looked from his shirt back to Valerie only to see her dress flying down the path and her body rapidly advancing on him again. He only got a moments glance at her lusciously furred bosom heaving as she pounced on him again, a lustful gleam in her eye, and she was growling softly as she ripped off his pants. At that moment all he felt he could do was just lay there petrified as this prior female friend of his continued the lustful onslaught. He had only a split moment as she whipped the pants away to see how those lovely curves of her legs worked out, but found he was more concerned as to what caused this transformation in her. He snapped back to the present and found himself laying naked on the path and slightly bruised to boot with her standing over him her breasts heaving as she looked lustfully at his helpless body. He found in these brief moments how much stronger she was then him even though she looked so frail the days past, and it seemed she noticed something too as he was very erect from all these surprising events. She murred down to him "Perrin, I know you wanted this but I can't wait any longer, I promise to try not to hurt you." And with that she jumped on top of him, her furry arms caressing his sides, and her nails on her paws digging slightly into his chest. She got on all fours just over him and positioned her rump over his erect member and looked into his eyes to see how he was taking this. He could feel her tail rubbing between his legs swishing back and forth, and as he looked up the length of her body and reached her eyes just as she plunged herself down onto him causing him to grunt and lay stunned the sudden pressure and the pleasure filled blast of warmth. She growled softly experiencing this new feeling and reached her muzzle down to his side and bit into his shoulder, being careful not to break his skin. She breathed softly onto his arm as she thought to raise her hips slowly and as they peaked to the top of his dick she slowly pushed him back inside her, and all Perrin could do was lay there under her weight and he feel entirely helpless. She started to lick the part of his arm that was being held in her muzzle and Perrin gasped in pain and in pleasure as her teeth dug in a bit harder. His showing of emotion seemed to cause her to pick up in speed. He took the hint and bit into her shoulder, she moaned into his shoulder, biting a bit harder, and slamming down on him roughly a few times. Perrin bit into the fur tasting the coarse fibers of her fur covered flesh seeing that it enticed her, and she kept going rougher ramming down on his member, he was overcome with the feeling that he didn't want it to stop so he tried to lift his own hips to thrust up to meet with hers and found that even though she was more massive then he, he could lift her slightly. All this activity only inspired the sex crazed Pantheress, which only caused him to start loosing his grip on holding back the building pleasure. He bit harder into her shoulder and then fell back as she slammed all of her weight onto his beaten member, he groaned grabbing her sides and blowing a breath of hot air into her erect ear which she resisted slightly but he then he lightly caressed her ear with his teeth and knocked him down yet again with another spasm of him thrusts this time stronger than he had thought she could do, her mouth tearing slightly into his shoulder drawing a small amount of blood sending a searing pain through him. Out of this pain he found he lost all sense of self and he burst feeling his entire warmth flood into her as she to climaxed. He laid there entirely exhausted as she continued to grind the rest of her orgasm into him in their joined ecstasy. They laid their sharing their warmth for several minutes with Valerie laying on top of him with her muzzle gently licking his slowly bleeding shoulder, she murred softly in his ear "That is something I've been kept from all my life, I'm glad I wasn't tortured though another season of heat alone....". She drifted into silence just as exhausted as him and they both fell asleep on the path both covered in dirt and sweat.
The morning of the next day came and Perrin awoke finding himself bruised and in much pain, he looked around and found he was tied up to a chair on a platform in a the middle of a bull fighting arena. He looked to his left and saw a pedestal with a man that had the head of a bull standing before it, he was bellowing to the audience, which was an assortment of other half man creatures which were all looking to the speaker. He noticed that he was the center of attention for most and among being very frightened decided to listen and see if he could figure out what was going on here.
The preacher was saying, "This man has done us a incredible evil, he has tainted the pure and has now condemned us all to die. This cruel man must suffer for it, the Lord will not be pleased about this at all and we must sacrifice him now so that He may forgive us for not protecting her more closely." After a pause the audience cheered and Perrin looked around at all the hateful glances he was getting. The Bull continued, "For all those that don't remember we must look at this man, this lowly soul that has destroyed our futures, and with our gazes put all our hatred into him. He deserves no less! Come on every one give him your hatred for he is our undoing, he is the one who has ended us!" Perrin looked at the hundreds of people sitting around the arena as they all now were looking directly at him, he could see the hatred in their eyes and he didn't even know what he did his last memory was the intimacy with his friend Valerie, he thought that perhaps that was the reason and as he got nervous. As the preacher kept yelling hateful things about him and the stares continued he could feel his skin keeping hot, and a goat man cut his bonds freeing him from the chair. He stumbled off of the stand and stood in the center of the arena and whirled around looking in all directions with all the hated stares, he felt dizzy and he could swear his skin was burning now, he itched it and he looked at it, his skin was tinted red and he didn't quite understand. He stumbled about and fell to his knees, he felt so dizzy now that he was losing control of himself and the world was going black. The last thing he saw was a gigantic man, that had a dragon head, he was much taller than the rest of the people in the stands and from all that Perrin could tell he was twice as tall as him with gigantic talons nails protruding from his feet. Perrin lost consciousness then. All was black.
Perrin awoke strapped down to a lab table in what looked like a run down doctor's operating room. In the corner of the room was the dragon man that every one seemed to call Lord. Upon noticing Perrin's consciousness he began to speak "I see you are awake, be glad I saved you from the people of the town, they were taking vengeance on you for a very good reason and were about to perform many a cruel torture on you but those retched fools don't even deserve that" He moved closer to Perrin and sat in a overly large chair and continued "I am not quite sure how you got here to this land and I've been questioning the towns folk. I see also that you don't even know our history so I shall enlighten you before you meet your fate. You see I am what is left of the last generation, even before my time there was a great virus that was created to weaken our opposing rivals across the seas, and they thought to themselves to make animals of us to show how truly barbaric we are, they didn't plan on what did happen though, as you can plainly see we have taken on some major traits of creatures of the land but it hadn't messed with our minds in the fashion that they planned. The second part I feel you should know as well as the virus was unstable yet also highly contagious and quickly spread back to them and transformed all the people of the planet to these horrible animal like forms. As it turned out most of the popular died out and we found that we picked up some of the habits of our new forms, which caused some rivalries among our own which only added to the death toll... In the end we learned to live with that has happened to us but some like me remain and search for a cure to this curse, but anyway this town is one of the few that remain, and I am simple known as the Dragon Lord here, this is my domain. Enough of the history lesson though as I see now that you've noticed this is indeed a lab, so you should be able to guess that I am a scientist, or at least I was before the dam attack in which all my more knowledgeable colleagues died... I alone remain to continue work on a vaccine to return us to our original selves but as of yet I haven't found a method, though I have found some limited success when using the blood of a infected virgin and here is the source of the problem you created when you destroyed my subject and now I can't use her! I must say that even though you ruined twenty years of my work on this one subject that I've kept in solitude this whole time and held her back from the town with the hope that I could get her here untainted...and of keeping her innocent of the part which isn't to easy mind you, but anyway I may have another method.... a reverse method may work so indeed you being alive may help me for a time....
The dragon lord walked over to Perrin and took his arm in his massive grasp, and grinned evilly at Perrin "I wish you luck mortal as your one of my last chances in saving our civilization but enough talk well one last thing.... this is going to hurt a lot", he grinned as he jabbed a syringe full of some liquid into Perrin's arm and injected it into him. Perrin squirmed in pain but couldn't move as he was strapped down and within moments he felt an odd feeling down in his gut, something he couldn't describe, a sudden surge of pain caused him to pass out.
*Part one done, next time we'll see what happens to Perrin now, and what of Valerie? Will the town survive? How did Perrin even get there? These questions and much more to be answered in part two of The Hike *