Fate Decides

Chapter Eleven

"What's that smell?" I question, sniffing the air. Ethan stares at me for a few seconds before he discreetly sniffs the air around us. We are on guard duty right now, so we were patrolling the area just outside the pack lands.

"What are you talking about?" Ethan says, raising an eyebrow at me. He is still sniffing the air every few seconds, trying to catch the scent that I am smelling.

"You can't smell it? God, I swear, it feels like we are being cocooned in it." I start walking in the direction where the smell is resonating from. It becomes stronger and stronger as I walk closer towards our perimeter. Ethan follows behind me, leaves crunching under our feet as I try to find the source of the smell.

I stop at a huge tree that is growing about a hundred feet from our fences. The smell is stronger than before, and as I look closer, I see a dull red smudge on the tree. Without hesitation, I lean forward and sniff the smudge. Reeling back, I try to clear my nose of the awful scent.

Wheezing, I look at my brother. "Oh God, can't you smell it?"

He looks at me before leaning in and scenting the tree. He reels back while wrinkling his nose in disgust and nods his head. "It smells awful, but almost... familiar?"

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing," I say. Holding my breath, I once again lean in to inspect the smudge. By the color and the smell, I piece together that it is blood, but that is not the thing that catches my attention. Right next to the smudge of blood is a small carving in the tree.

"Hey Ethan, come look at this," I say, motioning him over with my hands without looking away from the carving.

"What is it?" he asks, walking over to me. Without answering him, I grab him by the back of his neck and pull him over to the carving. I raise my finger and point at it, careful not to touch the strange carving or the blood next to it. We both study it for what seems like hours but is most likely only a couple of minutes.

"What do you think it is?" Ethan says, finally looking over at me. I move my eyes away from the tree and lock them onto my brother.

"I don't know. I have never seen anything like it before. Do you think it means anything?" I ask, once again looking at the strange symbol.

"Probably, but what could it possibly mean? It just looks like a whole bunch of scribbles."

"No, it doesn't," I say. "Look, there are letters within the design. It looks like two t's and an oval."

Ethan scrutinizes the carving, green eyes squinting in concentration. "No, I don't think those are t's. They look like j's to me. Take a closer look. They kind of do a swoopy thing at the end."

I cock my head and study it again, seeing the letters I thought were t's transform into j's. "Yeah, I guess you're right. So, J oval J? J O J? Joj? What the hell does joj mean?"

"I have no idea. But, what about the blood. It smells horrible," Ethan says, scrunching his nose in disgust. My head swims just thinking about the horrible smell. I have gotten used to it, so it is not as bad as it originally was when I first caught the scent.

"It smells familiar, but I can't place it. You know, I think whoever left it behind may have been infected. No healthy person or wolf would have blood this horrible."

Ethan nods his head and we fall silent, thinking about everything that is happening.

"I think we should head back and tell Dad about this. The new patrol should be waiting at the fence to relieve us," Ethan says, breaking the silence.

We turn to leave, but then I think of something. "Wait! We need to copy this down so that everyone can see it. Do you have any paper or something else we can write on?" I ask, pulling my backpack off my back to search for a pen and a piece of paper. Ethan does the same, and after a couple of seconds, he pulls out a chewed up pencil.