Running the Gauntlet

Bad Dog

Annabeth was sound asleep in her bed, dreaming of something weird.

A wolf stalking through the woods. The wolf had thirteen small arrows in its body. It stalked with a limp through the woods, it was bloody, beaten and tired.

But most of all it was hungry.

It's ears perked up and it's head darted to the left as it's eyes locked onto a doe.

Slowly the wolf stalked it. Its silent steps carefully maneuvering through the brush as it lowered its stance.

The small doe, so fragile and unknowing as it was drinking from a small creek.

A twig snapped, and the doe's head shot up and looked in the direction of the sound. But it was too late, the wolf leaped and sunk its fangs into the doe's thin neck. The doe died instantly with a sickening crunch, as the jaws of the wolf crushed the doe's neck.

But Annabeth couldn't be angry, sure she could be upset but not angry.

Because how could you be angry at something that's not driven by malice or hatred but…… simply surrendering to its nature.

The cold wind blew snow, blinding Annabeth's vision as the wolf howled. No, that wasn't a howl, it was a scream.

Annabeth was stirred from her sleep as she woke up to screaming like someone was being murdered. Quickly she got out of bed and grabbed her dagger, everyone else in cabin six rushed out the door to see what the commotion was.

There was yelling outside as more campers came to investigate. Clarisse was standing in front of someone and arguing with Drew.

“What is going on?! Why is everyone screaming?” Annabeth questioned, looking between Drew and Clarisse.

“What is going on? What is going on? The fact that there is a monster in the camp and everyone is okay with it!” Drew shouted.

“He isn't a monster you drama queen!” Clarisse shouted back, stepping towards Drew giving Annabeth a slight view of Garden?

Annabeth gasped and almost dropped her dagger. Garden's hair was a mess and he was covered in blood. His mouth, neck, shirt, hands, and lap looked like they were dyed red.

Garden was crouched down, his eyes were extremely dilated, almost completely black. And on the ground below Garden was once the body of a deer that looked like it was torn apart.

It laid in a heap of flesh and fur. It's neck ripped open, blood pooling on the ground below it. Its stomach was slashed in the middle, its entrails spilling onto the ground looking like ropes made of flesh. You could see the heat of the body entering the air from the stomach. One of the rope-like entrails was in Garden's mouth.

It didn't take much to put two and two together. Clarisse and Drew were still loudly arguing.

Then Chiron showed up. “Why is someone screaming bloody murder?” He questioned before Clarisse moved to the side and Chiron saw Garden.

Chiron stared down at Garden, looking for something, anything that resembled his camper.

Annabeth then noticed something that was hard to see. The black in his veins were now at the back of his neck and wrapped around it and continued to go up. She followed the veins down to his bite marks and could see claw marks, stepping closer to get a better look she noticed that the skin was cut down to the bone. Like something clawed at the origin of the infection.

The bone had scratch marks too, whatever clawed at him didn't stop once it reached the bone.

Annabeth looked back at his neck and saw similar wounds but not nearly as deep.