When he awoke, Alpha’s head felt as though a rock were resting on his skull. His mind filled with visions of Luna’s final moments. He wondered briefly if his mate had survived long enough to die in slow agony as he was doing now.
Eyes sticky with some sort of sap, he tried in vain to take in his new surroundings. He blinked a few times and the dark began to fall away into a confused vision of captivity. He wasn’t dying after all. It was worse, he was trapped inside some kind of enclosure made from silver, leafless branches. They were perfectly smooth, and perfectly cylindrical. There were no leaves, no knots in this strange wood at all.
He tried to push open the branches with his muzzle, frantic to see if any of his pack still remained. For a moment, he forgot that Luna was gone, and yearned for her comfort. The cold reality of her violent passing stung him as hard and cold as the bars he was helplessly trapped behind. His pups were dead. Beta was dead. His pack was dead. There was no life left in him, either.
The enclosure was inside some sort of cave without entrance. It was dark, but he could hear the wind rushing outside. He pushed himself as tightly as he could in a corner up against the cold bars of his cage, covered his muzzle with his paws. He felt himself sinking back into terror as he took in the scent of the parasites somewhere nearby. There was no scent of the forest. There was no scent of the balance he had served his entire life. He howled for death to take him.
Finally, the cave shuddered and then he felt it come to a stop. He was gripped with vertigo, and began to gag as he realized that he had been moving. Terror gripped him in a vice so tight that he fell back into the depth of the dark, letting it take him out of this nightmare and into an uneasy sleep.
He saw Luna, his cubs, and his pack. He howled for them, but they couldn’t hear him. They turned and began to walk away. He ran toward them, but the more he ran, the further they seemed to be. After several more moments, they vanished from his sight forever. He kept running after them. Alpha’s feet kicked out in his sleep as he ran and ran and ran.
Alpha came awake under a blazing sun. The parasitic monsters were everywhere, barking ceaselessly to one another as though barking was their only way to communicate with one another. He was lying in a grassy field, though the grass felt lifeless and wrong. There was a cluster of trees, and a river between him and the parasites. He hoped that they couldn’t swim. He was tired of running. Even if he weren’t, there was no place to run to.
Fear seized him again. There was a parasite here with him, on his side of the river. He welcomed the death this parasite would grant him. It didn’t kill him, though. It barked something incomprehensible at him. Alpha shrank back, then the parasite tossed a slab of meat in Alpha’s direction.
Alpha backed away from the meat as though it would bite. His stomach hurt from hunger, however, and the smell… he approached cautiously, ready to flee in an instant. As the parasite disappeared into a stone wall, his hunger overcame his caution, and he tore into his meal.
“Looks like we came at a good time, Bobby. It’s feeding time. Isn’t that exciting?” one of the monsters said from across the river to a little monster standing next to it.
Bobby gripped the rail with both fingers as he followed his father’s finger toward the wolf. The wolf was lost in its hunger. Bobby’s eyes grew wide with fear, feeling his gorge rise, and he hid behind his father’s leg.
“Oh, don’t be afraid Bobby, he can’t hurt you. The wall’s too high for him to jump over. Besides, he’s probably friendly. It says here he was bred in captivity.”
The End