A Patch of Undergrowth – Year 1344, Pax, 23rd

Olea Munroe

“What was that?” I asked, forgetting I was alone in this hellscape of a forest.

I woke up several hours ago, with no idea of how I got here.

None whatsoever.

I remembered having a companion, and a guiding voice. At one point I even think I had a savior of some kind. All those memories are foggy now, lacking specifics. It was confusing.

I was confused. I did not like the feeling at all.

I keep trying to access the system, you know the ever-watchful system governing all things in this gods-damned or gods-created world I am in now. Nothing. Not a damn thing. I have only been able to see the date and time. No help at all.

Well, unless you consider bedtime to be a pertinent thing to time. Or dinner, but who eats on a regular schedule? Hell, who sleeps on a regular schedule. When was the last time I slept for that matter? I remember coming to several hours ago, but was I asleep or had I been knocked unconscious? I could not remember.

Damnit, I could barely remember my own name, let alone my reason for being out in this forest.

All I could do was survive, fight, and survive. At least, I think fighting is involved. My clothes were ragged, torn, and so full of grit and grime that I would have removed them had I not feared that their protection would otherwise save my life.

The sun was above, not directly overhead, and it was quite warm. This observation led me to believe it was afternoon, as sun at an angle while cold would indicate it was morning, not yet having warmed through the early hours of the day. I think?

A rustle in the leave drew my attention, not another pig, please. I had seen several, at least I assumed as such since there was a pile of no less than seven near a small lightning-shattered tree stump nearby.

Had I killed them? Again, I do not know. Something killed them and being that I had a large chunk of broken boar tusk bloodied in my hand, a hand that was bruised, bleeding, and very swollen from abuse, I would say I had a part in the massacre. I just don’t know why I did not remember it. Who forgets a fight where life and death are so closely mingled.

I am not strong; I am not even skilled. I’m not particularly bright or gifted, what I am is stubborn. I lack the ability to just lie down and die if I can spite the bastards causing me harm, it’s a proven fact. Hell, it had been “proven” in a court of law some time in my not-so-distant past. That case may not have been due to my own faults, but it had come to be my reality after I had been sentenced to the detention center for three years. Manslaughter as a minor seems to catch a smaller time if you were proven to from suffer ‘negligent care’ and lacked ‘positive reinforcement’. Yeah, ok.

The noise grew louder, breaking me from my rabbit-like trance of idle thoughts. Were they idle? No idea, they seemed relevant, hell I had not had thoughts so sensical in hours. Or had I?

Focus!

Ahead of me, from under and behind the mass of snaking vines and low-land bushes came a sight I had not seen in the pile nearby.

A wolf.

Its eyes looked upon me from a wire-thick tangle of blood-caked fur, hunger and curiosity seeming to ignite them into a brighter hue. Its nose was working furiously as it scented the air, suspecting an ambush from multiple foes.

It wouldn’t find one, I was so very alone here that had I not been so furiously stupefied by my situation I would have long ago sought safety in a hole or ran fruitlessly in a random direction.

It moved further into the small clearing I had been calling home for the past few hours, stopping at the pile of bloodied bodies, it even licked a chomped of the fleshier bits free of their morbidly precarious moorings. Its body was lithe and muscled, not suffering from any sign of malnourishment.

I breathed out as the wolf turned to regard me in my readied position, I would not go down without causing substantial ruin unto this creature. Nope, not going quietly.

Several sniffs of the sour-sweet smell of bloodied bodies and the wolf seemed to have seen enough of me. It shrugged its shoulders as if to indicate I was no threat, or of such a small threat-level that I could be ignored.

Sinking its large teeth into the hind quarters of a particularly rotund boar the creature heaved mightily with its back paws, digging into the soft dry dirt as it pulled the corpse free. The body slid slowly at first before the whole thing shifted and the boar slid free with the slurp sound of a yogurt being forcefully evacuated from its tube.

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The whole thing was disgusting, but altogether hypnotic. That was not important, what bothered me for some reason was that this thing disregarded me entirely. It deemed me as unimportant, insignificant, and not worth note. That bothered me, though I was not sure why; it did. I would make this thing recognize me. I would make it notice me, it damned well better be paying attention in the future.

Unsure why I felt such anger, resentment, and furious stupidity, I dashed after the creature. The distance was a mere fifteen feet, I covered that in seconds. Seconds that the beast had casually and dismissively awarded me as it continued pulling its prize, my property, behind it out from under the vines.

As I jumped from the dry loam of the ground, launching myself bodily onto the beast, I brought my trophy-tusk down against and into its thick hide. The tusk went only a few inches before the wolf managed to roll away, my body still clinging tightly to the beast as it attempted to stand.

I persisted, stabbing again and again even as the wolf bit hard on my ankle, an ankle I had somehow neglected to pull away from it heads as I rode the beast upside down. I ignored the sharp pains climbing up my leg, screaming to my brain that I was not ok, there was a trespasser to punish.

The wounds I had been punching into the beast were becoming larger as I made perforations along its side, peppering the area around its lower ribs to make a hole. I knew my makeshift dagger was not long enough for what I wanted to do, not yet.

The wolf finally gained solid purchase on my ankle even as I succeeded in tearing the tusk through the leather of its hide, bringing a whole new level of blood flow into the open air. I was almost done. Alas, the wolf jumped side to side as it pulled with its sharp teeth embedded in my own flesh and I failed to maintain my hold on its matted and blood slick fur.

I tumbled from the injured creature, my tusks going free of my grasp as the beast stood and turned to face me. I stood as the wolf moved closer, its eye going from me to the tusk and back again, I think the thing was smiling, or grinning.

I let out a growl that caused the creature to pause in its steps before growling back, a much more sinister and deeper thing rumbling up from its deep bloodied chest cavity. Its attempts to cause me to cower in fear would find no purchase in my mind, I was already frightened. No, the fear was there, but it took a second seat to my anger. I could not bring myself to care for what would come after the fight, could the world not tell I wanted to be left alone, to have a chance to find my way from this green hellscape and back to my home?

I tensed, almost flinching back as the wolf lunged toward me jaws opening to reveal the rest of its sharp age-yellowed teeth. I moved to the side even as the beast landed, turning sharply to meet me. It was too slow to avoid the damage as I kicked out with my injured leg at the hole I had gouged into its ribs, the sound of my leg sending making dull impact with the wolf’s body along with a noticeable squelch of sorts as blood was forced from the cavity. I hopped back on one leg, cutting off a shout of pain as my mind was conflicted between a celebratory strike and a self-harming one.

We circled one another slowly. The wolfs eyes now darting back to the pile of meat and the arch in the underbrush it had climbed through. Escape was on its mind but my fervor for this fight and the heretofore uncommon rage I felt was all-encompassing. I knew not from whence the emotions came but I felt no desire to fight back, not here, not now.

Another thing to be fearful of, my own loss of control. When had I lost it? I couldn’t remember, nor could I quite place the sense of worry I had over its absence. There were other things too, more missing pieces of the puzzle that was my being. Again, I felt as if I should know somehow, I should just know what was missing, as if it was an intrinsic part of my current existence. If only…

I was brought from my spiral as the wolf lunged forward, though not at me. It truly was attempting to flee, I know I would have normally allowed this creature a chance to escape as I was the instigator in this bout, alas it was not to be.

I brought the knee of my injured leg up to meet it as it was passing on my right even as I brought my arms down together, fingers laced to form a hammer. It worked for the WWE, why not here? The wolfs momentum was lost as I made contact and spun with the creature even as I drove it downward with my thin arms, a testament to its own injuries that I could misdirect it so easily.

The wolf hit the ground and rolled; I lunged forward this time wrapping it from behind as I snaked my arms around to find the wound I had dug into. Now, before it could stand again, or maybe before I could think about it, I shoved my arm into to the side of beast reaching for its heart.

The wolf whined in fear and pain as my arm forced aside its internals in search of the prize. I was there; I could feel the thud of its core beating in frantic rhythm to some unseen drumming of the world. Sensed somehow its fear of the inevitable, an unavoidable end we all must someday face, but most of all I sensed from it a feeling of great sadness and loss. It was altogether confusing and just… I don’t know.

My hand had nearly reached the heart when the wolf finally got its feet to work, rising from the ground, I gripped hard on the tissue and sinew of the wolfs body as my hand began to slip away, and though my mind began to reject the act, I found myself tearing something vital from the organs inside.

It was not yet dead, but my foe was now dying. I looked at the creature as it turned to face me, even as its legs began to droop. I felt the rage still, the unknown anger and frustrations that were bottled up inside me. I felt them all, but they were being drowned now by sadness, loss, and a different kind of frustration. I wish I could help this creature, I just didn’t know how, or I had known how but had forgotten.

That was the rub, had I known what I had once known I now knew that I could have in that moment saved this life before it was gone. Gone from the world because of my own lack of control.

I fell to my side exhausted and in pain as my own injuries overcame my ability to push them back with adrenaline and shock. I lay there, moaning in pain even as I watched the glimmer of life slowly leaving the eyes of my opponent, and I wept.

The world faded from view as the last sparks of intelligence and emotion left the body of a once noble and surely frightening creature. Before I lost consciousness, I also had another thought; didn’t wolves normally travel in packs?