They picked up my trail easily enough. The blood was
seeping from between my legs, its pungent smell smearing off onto my
surroundings every time I stumbled and was sent sprawling to the ground.
How long had I been running? Hours? Days? Between the shrieks and
growls coming from the pack behind me all I could hear was the
increasingly painful throbbing of my own anemic heart. I could hear
their panting and and the excited whines of the younger cubs, mixed with
the occasional cold piercing cry of the alpha male. Our alpha male. The
one closest to me in kin and sex and the one who had first spotted the
blood, who had licked it from my trembling fingers and with a roar
declared me an outlaw. The pain of the memory overwhelmed me and I
stumbled and sank to my knees dry heaving and clutching the
irrepressibly pounding heart in my chest and I cried out, calling out to
my pack, to anyone who could hear me, calling out that I had stopped
running and would be an easy prey to their judgement. Let them come for
me. Just let it end.
Before I started bleeding I had been an alpha myself. That was back
when we didn’t know the difference between our sexes and weren’t so
easily distracted by the scent of each other. There was me, another
female, our alpha male and roughly seven more young males in our pack.
Me and the alpha male were strong and remained unchallenged, leading our
pack with equally divided responsibility, sheltering them from adults
such as their parents, teachers, the principal and any other grownups
who could possibly pose a threat to our childhood and our games. We were
happy. We were alive and living each day together, caring for each
other, fighting one another. The occasional fight would end in bloodshed
and scarring because we were all so young, so unaware of the strength of
our fists as well as the frailty of our bodies. We were the strongest
pack in the entire playground.
Then my body started revolting against me. My chest started swelling
and hurting as if some alien was trying to burst through, to force my
flesh to align into the curves of a woman, a grownup. The pain was
unbearable at times and I would growl and snap at anyone who came close
to me, particularly the other female in the pack who, while being a full
year older than me, still remained smooth and unbroken. When I first
noticed the blood it had leaked through my clothing and there was
nothing else to do for me but run. Our alpha male who had grown to fear
my temper over the last few days chased after me and when he caught the
difference in my scent he immediately grew stiff, his hackles raised,
and he started furiously tearing at my clothing, trying to free me from
the blood and the stench, in his own childlike mind trying to save me. I
clawed him, scratched him, openly challenged his authority over me and
at the sound of our fight the rest of the pack came running. Soon they
were gathered around me, towering over me, the female hissing and
snarling, the males drooling and panting. I knew then that I was lost to
them. The child they had known had grown into an unrecognizable being
whom they could no longer read, no longer relate to, and all that was
left was the infuriating scent of my blood and their lust, their need to
kill me and to bury their muzzles in my flesh and drink my blood. So I
ran.
And now I lie waiting, alone in this cold and strange world known as
adolescence. There are others like me here. I cannot see them but I hear
them screaming, hear the thundering of their packs gaining on them, as
mine will soon gain on me. I know they’re only following their alpha,
following the only thing that’s real in this place where their childish
instincts are unable to discern the difference between enemy and pack,
where only the smell of blood is strong enough. I wait for them in this
foreign place. When they finally catch me I will bear my throat to our
alpha and let him drink the life from this being that is no longer me.
