Breaking rules, breaking free (bxb)

Chapter 12

12- The hunt has begun

  I don't know how I got into the forest but that's where I woke. Everything was still, everything was silent and it wasn't right. I looked around for any sign of life but only huge trees watched disapprovingly as I got up and tried to find my way out. The whole place felt hostile the trees greedily hoarding all the moonlight, the gnarled roots snaking sneakily out trying to catch you unaware, the great tangled bramble bushes that would trap you cruelly in their arms even the floral life would lure you in with bright colours and intoxicating scents before knifing you with their vicious thorns.  Something about this place seemed familiar but it was not a familiarity I like I had a great feeling of foreboding as I crept silently through the forest my delicate fox nose searching desperately for any scent of danger but the sickly sweet smell of the rotting leaves littering the ground crowded the nose making me feel nauseous. 
   I quickened my pace my eyes constantly darting around for any sign of home. I wondered if this was just another nightmare and I would wake up in my room safe again but this was too much like harsh and terrifying reality to be a figment of my imagination. I flinched as he wind whistled eerily through the tree branches causing them to smack together violently above my head. My heart was racing a mile a minute as if trying to leap out my chest an flee this place of the dammed itself. 
   One pure note of sound ripped through the air resenting down to my very bones making my blood run cold. The note was joined by a chorus of answering notes all at different pitches all equally deadly soon followed by the wailing of horns. The hounds were coming!
   I shot off blindly into the forest driven purely driven by my natural instincts built up by generations of foxes ripped limb from limb by foxhounds. I shot like a bullet under logs, past gnarled trees, over a stream, through a hedge of thorns ripping my fur out and peeling my skin back never stopping ever running. The wind roared in my ears as I continued knowing only death lay ahead! This had played out so many times in my head I was resigned to my fate it was just the fox inside of me continuing to flee. 
    I could hear the thunder of hooves behind me now as the horses and the men (more animal than their steeds) on their backs excited in the chase, I heard their cries of glee as they cheered their dogs on. The hounds themselves bayed for blood their shouts of pure hatred rang through the forest shattering the silence I now longed for and now I realised why there were no life here the creatures of this land had been cleverer than me knowing the danger and fleeing it in advance.  
   They were nearing now, I could almost feel their teeth and claws tearing into my body as they strained to reach me snapping, snarling and stumbling after me just as much a slave to their instincts as I was to my own. I turned slightly and caught sight of them and really wished I hadn't. 
   These were no ordinary dogs these were the monsters from your darkest nightmares. They stood at around five foot in height all of it grotesquely muscular causing their veins to fight to the surface in order to keep circulating their thick tar-like blood, their fur covered their body in a shaggy blanket of pure darkness that sucked in all the light around them. Whole bodies were built for stamina and strength rather than speed, probably the only reason why I had escaped them so far and once they caught up I would have their huge, powerful jaws to greet me lined with jagged yellowing teeth like pieces of broken glass. But what struck me most about these...things were their glowing red eyes that hypnotised me whispering in to my very soul, "just give up, it's not worth it you know we're going to catch you. Why don't you just give up and save everyone this bother" I fought them off listening to the pounding of my heart if it was still beating I would still run until my last breath. Those eyes reminded me of a poem I had seen as a small child and the words had stuck with me. 'We must not look at goblin me, me must not eat their fruit, who knows upon what soil they fed, their hungry thirsty roots.'
   In my moment of distraction I tripped on a snaking tree root and flew several feet before my small, fragile, breakable body smashed against a immense tree and slumped to the ground. Fire burned through my whole body and a white-hot flame of agony shot up my front, right paw causing an involuntary scream of suffering to leap from my body. I made one last abysmal attempt to flee but it was no use my body was shattered and my spirit was broken. Somehow though a sliver of hope remained in my heart like the flickering ember of a long dead fire. It felt like I was anticipating something other than death...but what. 
   The creatures were on top of me now, I could feel their hot, sour breath in waves of moist heat hitting me and I just closed my eyes wishing it would just be quick. Then from the deathly quiet that had settled around us a wild screaming neigh of a stallion erupted sending a bolt of pure joy through my heart. Something about that noise resonated through my very soul and I was immediately at peace.  The terror from before faded to slight nervousness. The  the creatures stopped, the men shouted in fear and  my eyes opened in excitement. The monsters gave one last longing look at me but with the call of the horns and the shouts of their masters they reluctantly left baying for their new prey. I had been saved...but by who?