The very first experiences you have in life shape you in very obvious ways, while not always a predictable result certain things leave a lasting impression.  I will grudgingly admit that, perhaps, without the motivation of these creatures I would have developed radically different, the difference between catastrophe and opportunity is often the result of poor timing.  For instance did you know that mammals during birthing cycle can, on very rare occasions, adopt a completely different animal as a part of their family when their maternal instincts kick into gear..?

That didn't happen here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Grrrrooowwwl..."

To say I had no idea what was in store for me is a gross understatement.  I had a healthy respect for things considered 'new' because generally speaking everything i've met in this forest has tried to kill me, even the tretcherous ground was a death trap waiting for the unwary.  Therefore I raised myself to a crawling position so that I can be ready to move as I regarded these four legged creatures with the same curiosity they seemed to find me, I was an unknown, an animal in their territory they had neither seen nor smelled and hardened by instinct and generations of survival they approached me cautiously.  The one I was watching held my stare hypnotically so when it darted forward I was captivated at how exquisite it's movements were, a gentle almost graceful lope as the powerful body surged in my direction it clearly expected some kind of defensive manuever on my part because before delivering a killing blow it simply raked my chest with it's massive paw it's movement a feint as it darted not into me but past me with intended damage done.  The damage which instantly dropped me to the ground screaming in pain as I clutched at my newly blood covered chest, I say blood covered because I had already healed from the wound.  The attack had it been an inch or two lower would have disembowled me however as it was I merely suffered a blow hard enough to tear half my upper torso off on the ground in a bloody lump, so when I grasped my chest I found it still there my pain lingering but fading with each passing breath.

I say this but you have to understand that hardly seconds had passed in this moment, the exhange so quick I was left reeling at the sheer level of violence against me, having never been attacked aside from the unfortunate design of a certain insect I was at a loss for my next action like a deer in the headlights my blood pumping and thundering in my ear as endorphins and adrenaline rushes through my veins I was so focused on the distraction infront of me I forgot that there were 10 more of these things and when I felt two hundred pounds of giant animal fall onto my back I didn't even have enough time to suck in a breath of air after my scream before it's weight knocked what little bit of air I was lucky to suck into my lungs.  They were very meticulous about what they did, distraction from the front attack from the rear, only one other approached to wrap it's jaw around my leg and tear a massive chunk off my thigh effectivly crippling any ordinary target.  The one on my back was busy chewing on my spine it's powerful jaws had broken my back as the third watched me to make sure I was weak enough for what happened next.

Had I explored this area when I first arrived I had an opportunity to have stumbled into the gracious nest of this animal and quite possibly have been raised by them like some kind of savage.  I had wasted countless days roughly amounting to two or three weeks scavaging and eating everything around me leaving huge and obvious trails leading right back to me.  Of course my primitive mind had no notion of any of this.. No I was too busy weeping at the sensation of my spine breaking to truely appreciate what they were doing to me, when I looked up I couldn't move my legs at all, those powerful jaws were firmly wrapped around my spine while several other animals pushed what I can only consider the young since they were only half the size, of the eleven five of them were young.

As the five approached me in an even small circle with the three previous adults stalking around them, watching me.  This included the one on my back which had released me to give the pups the opportunity to finish off a live kill.  A handfull of seconds passed before I felt my legs again, my shattered spine naught but a horrifyingly traumatic phantom of pain, quite honestly I was so messed up from the sensation I couldn't use my legs due to how shaky I was.  Those five young were just as vicious as their adults and where they lacked finesse they more then made up for in raw energy, indeed you can imagine my predicament as five inexperianced wolves all rushed me to inflict as much damage as possible.  My own instincts cueing in I naturally tried to fight back, kicking or swinging my arms and screaming loudly.  I had noticed my first scream startled the young and gave me a few blissful moments of not pain.  I had tried to use this time to get back on my knees so I could make a feeble attempt to crawl away.

However the larger animals seemed to notice I had my energy back so they began to harry me, meaning any time I moved too quickly or made a motion that might allow me to crawl off they would take turns pulling on one of my four limbs and dragging me onto my stomach.  All while encouraging their young to take large chunks out of me, let me assure you that animals are not stupid either and they pick up quite quickly how their adults had taken me out.  It a matter of minutes I had found myself at the mercy of children as they took turns tearing at my throat, clawing or biting at my back and wrenching my limbs back and forth in an attempt to cripple or distract me.  My wealth of healthy eating for the last two weeks was coming to bite me in the ass, quickly prolonging my misery as my wounds vanish shortly after each attack although any peices that fell off stayed off, my blood pooling around me only further preventing my escape.

The pack seemed to know something was wrong, I was a stubborn prey simply refusing to die and the area was covered in bits of meat and blood causing them to lick their chops at the prospect of a meal.  They interrupted the young ones by coming over and once again stomping and clawing my back to pin me down while I felt those massive jaws reach down and crush my neck or head because I remember blacking out.  If I woke up at all during it I certainly don't remember or perhaps they were so busy gorging themselves on me they managed to keep me unconcious during the feeding frenzy, anything that was 'left' abandoned for scavangers to scrounge from.

I woke to the sun in my eyes, I had been dragged off aparantly, half buried under a log somewhere as if stored for later.  Nothing looked familiar around me so I had no clue how far they took me.  I knew that if I didn't get as far away from this place as possible, I was looking at repeating the bug incident here only under much more intelligent creatures.  It wouldn't take them long to figure out if they wait long enough there will always be more of me to go around and I was seriously beginnng to get angry at getting eaten and killed.  It was a maddening circle, everything in these damn woods seemed to want to cause me harm.  My small little brain working overtime to come to these basic conclusions, the fact that it's an eat or be eaten world.

My next real powerful emotion I could truely appreciate and understand was fear, a palpable sensation of the bile reaching the back of my throat with the contemplation of being caught by those wolves again.  The bugs, despite the misery they caused was not so traumatically violent as what had happened with the encirclement of animals.  Beaten around back and forth by claws and teeth, the growling and barking the feeling of hot breath, the sensation of my spine cracking made me want to vomit just thinking about.  It was horrifying, of course these animals don't play with their food but this case was special they were teaching the young to kill quickly and efficiently I just refused to cooperate and prolonged my own suffering.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Pushing myself up out of the dirt I tilted my head and listened as carefully as possible, I was waiting to hear the tell tale growl of the animals closing in but I heard nothing but the birds and insects and other noises of the forest.  I quickly settled onto my hands and knees and began crawling away, I should note this is not the standard shuffling of a child but rather the crouching gait of a gorrilla my knees bent to keep myself as low to the ground as possible I began to scurry.  My pale body emulating the rocks on the ground, chalky white, I had yet to realize how much it had already saved me in my explorations until I spotted yet another animal, this one was floating in the air, or so it seemed at the time but it was actually flying each powerful beat of its wings keeping it in place as it looked around.

It was looking for me.  I had stopped moving the moment I saw it, pausing on the top of the rock I was climbing to watch with bated breath, reliving the horror of being mauled earlier before.  I knew this thing could only want to do something similiar and with every passing moment my eyes grew wider and wider as my adrenaline spiked.  If I had waited calmly I would have easily escaped the clutches of this bird but instead I had stumbled across a new ability my widened eyes were an easy target for the wind blowing dirt around and when something flicked against my eye I blinked.

Now I don't know how to explain this to anyone that doesn't have eyes like mine, but the moment I blinked a lens of membrane stretched over my eye causing my entire world to go dark with splotches of bright light everywhere.  This caused me to flinch and tumble off my rock while grasping my face, I had thought I was injured somehow and having had my eye sight wounded before it had healed quickly enough although this time it wasn't coming back so with my anonymity ruined I tried to navigate while unable to make out my surroundings properly.  I did manage to put two and two together however in the concept that the bright lights were living creatures, this particular revelation came to me as the flyer dived towards me and I rolled to avoid it's approaching talons.  A futile effort as my roll thrust me right into a nearby object, perhaps a tree stump or a rock or maybe just a big mound of dirt but I effectively stunned myself before feeling powerful grip sinking into my body my stomach dropping as I was lifted up into the air.  Distracted by the pain I blinked rapidly as my eyes kaldescoped, transforming rapidly into several different types of vision as different lens covered them.  Like flexing a muscle repeatedly as you flail while in a panic I swapped through night vision, heat and normal vision.  I didn't have time to enjoy my returned vision because the flyer released me and I hurled down towards the rock that had once sheltered me allowing me to have the perfect view of my world eclipsing before I impacted and everything went dark.

I awoke yet again in a new environment far from my place of origin.  Frustrated at my lack of power, the flying creature had not set out looking for me originally, it had come hunting for the young of the same four legged creatures that had brutalized me earlier.  I was little more then a snack to be chewed on to store a bit of extra energy for the flyers hunt but I didn't know this.  I was angry.. Four feet of howling rage hurling myself through the woods as fast as my feet could take me.  I had not realized it yet because the terrain was full of hazards that required me to use my hands but I was actually running and I was faster then I had ever managed, my surroundings like more of a blur as my quick little form sprung from rock, to low hanging tree limbs my momentum was unstoppable, frustration evaporating into elation as I realized nothing could catch me..!

A snap brought my exhiliration to a crashing end as I had carelessly lost my footing between two rocks and broke my leg.  I tumbled head over heel down a sharp incline until I hit the bottom where I threw up from the dizzyness my mind reeling from the several new broken bones I earned crashing my way down.  The pain was short lived, gone and easily ignored as I healed.  Don't get me wrong the pain did not hurt any less than it always did.. I just had some reference for things that hurt far.. far worse and while this was enough to cause a grown man to weep it was nothing compared to the sensation I felt when my spine was gnawed on until it broke, or the sensation of your insides being devoured slowly.  It was a sharp instantaneous thing that exploded with hurt but just as quick as it came if I held my focus I knew it would go away so I could manage.

I did not know it yet, but I had been seriously underestimating exactly how dangerous I was.  You might wonder how something only four feet weighing only 80-95 pounds of muscle could possible be lethal?  Despite all the animals tearing me to shreds with superior strength my skin was very durable and it took actual effort to rip me apart.  Nor was I entirely defenselss I did not do my struggle against the creatures justice each one of my fingers ended in a wickedly sharp talon where a fingernail would normally be.  Intead of curving gently my claws were straight and as sharp as knives.  You were not paying attention but a majority of the ground is quite rocky yet I was digging up roots, vegitation and peeling thick, aged tree bark off with my bare hands.

I lost to technique, supirior strength and experience.  In fact the bird itself couldn't peirce my flesh easily enough with it's claws so it had dropped me on the rocks to finish me off.  I was the equivilent of a four month year old child fighting grown men that fight for survival on a daily basis.. I could blend in with my surroundings, see in the dark and find anything with a heat signature.  While I was not aware of how lethal I was I knew somewhere in my primitive mindset that I was learning, each experience taught me something new.  Places to avoid, things I can and can't eat, hell I even established I don't even know how to control my own body my vision changing intermittantly when I don't want it to, I had only just found out how fast I was when I ran.

I moved slowly after recovering from my tumble.  Deep in thought but never a moment passed where I was unaware of my surroundings, I had absolved to never be caught unaware again I hugged closely to a rock while my vision shifted between various visions scanning the area in every way I could I marveled at all the hidden creatures around me.  I had been truely oblivious before.. I approached a hole that had a large light in it and thrust my hand inside grabbing hold of a small, furry object that screamed from the pain of my grip sinking my talons into it.  I was startled at the noise, just as I had startled with cubs from before the comparison echoing in my head before I took a page out of their book and ripped the little furry creatures throat out like mine had been.

The taste of warm blood was divine.  I had been eating bitter, disgusting things covered in dirt or the occasional rock that would cause me agony as my sharp teeth chipped on it.  This morsal in front of me was perhaps the most delicious thing I had ever tasted and as if I had never eaten a day in my life I threw caution to my surroundings and gorged myself on it.  By the time I had finished devouring most of it-- some parts I avoided eating because it tasted vile and had the stink of excrement.  Regaining my senses I felt my body grow heavy after my meal and I regarded the hole my meal had come from, it had hidden away out of sight.  I had been sleeping wherever I felt like stretching out in the open to nap and I remembered how vulnerable I was to the four legged creatures that had surrounded me.  I began to dig the little nest wider, carving a hole into the side of the hill I had rolled down and half buried myself before relaxing.

As I idled I contemplated what I needed to do, something needed to change I had yet to push myself to my limits and I found eating things much more suiting to me then being eaten.  I lacked control of my enviornment and control of my body.. Things were about to change, I did not like being hunted and I determined before I drifted off to sleep I will learn control.