The Alpha

.01

Everywhere were trees, leaves, branches that have fallen to the ground because of the wind. The further I walked, the colder it became. I crossed my arms and rubbed them to keep them warm.

"Erin?!" I squinted my eyes to try and see her. It's the middle of the night, maybe three o'clock in the morning, and I'm looking for my best friend who somehow disappeared.

Just earlier we were playing hide and seek with a few of the younger kids at the camp. We come here every summer because this is what we grew up doing, it's how we became friends.

Last time I saw her was before bedtime. I woke up in the middle of the night and looked inside the cabin for her. Another one of the camp directors said they saw her leaving with some guy who was new here.

So now I'm out in the woods looking for my idiotic best friend.

"This is some horror movie crap. Why am I out here for this girl." My eyes were searching the area I was in but since it was dark as hell I couldn't see a thing.

"But seriously, what's up with this girl because-" snap. I stopped in my tracks and stood completely still. My eyes moved around but my head did not.

"Don't worry Lissa. It's probably just a raccoon or something." I started walking again and then I heard another snap. "No thank you." I took off running away from the noise as fast as I possibly can. I kept running until I looked to my left and saw something running along side me with bright red eyes.

I screamed as loud as my voice would let me and I turned and ran away from whatever the thing was. I kept running and running as fast as I possibly could, I turned my head around and checked to see if it was still chasing me.

Nothing.

I stopped confused about why it left. Then something jumped out in front of me."Boo."

I screamed again and fell to the ground. "Hahaha! You should've seen your face." Erin laughed pointing at me with the guy she was seen leaving with.

"What the hell was that for?!" I stood up from the ground and pushed her back.

"Serves you a right for following us out here." She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at me.

I remembered the thing that chased me on the way over here. "Look, we have to get out of here. Back to camp."

"What? Why? Come on! We always snuck out to come to the woods. It's an adventure we have every year!" She put her hands on my arms and shook me lightly.

"Yeah. Today is a bad time. We have to go. Like now."

"Why?" The guy asked with pure boredom in his voice.

Snap

"Something else is out here with us." I whispered to them. My eyes darted around trying to find the source of the noise.

"What? A bear? We could probably outrun it in an instant." He scoffed.

"You think that now. So we really, really need to get out of here." I tried to keep my voice as low as possible.

"I can handle anything thrown my way!" He raised his arms and shouted. "I'll protect you ladies." He wrapped an arm around Erin and pushed us to walk back towards the camp.

We walked in silence for a while before we heard a loud growl from behind making us all freeze in our path.

"Run." I whispered. We took off running. For some reason Erin and I went in the same direction while the guy went in a different one.

We stopped after not hearing anything for a while. We leaned up against a thick tree and tried to catch our breath.

"What was that?" She whispered to me.

I shook my head, "I told you there was something out here with us. But you didn't want to listen to me."

"I know. I should've listened to you. I promise I will start when we-"

We heard a cry of help from the guy. "Jasper!" She yelled back. I covered her mouth with my hand.

"We need to get back to the camp and get help. Because if we go back and try to help him, we could end up like him."

"What if he's dead?"

"Then we can't do anything to help him. Right now, its you and me and I'm sorry but we really have to think about ourselves and how we're going to get out of this situation okay?" She nodded and I took my hand off of her mouth.

"Which way is camp?" We both looked around and tried to figure out which way was which.

"I- I don't know." I answered. I could barely see the full moon from the branches up above.

"Wait! The camp is not far from the waterfall! We just have to find the river that leads to it and we can get our way back to camp!"

"We don't even know where we're at! How are we going to-"

I heard something moving more towards us and then a low growl coming from behind the tree. I hushed her and pointed up the tree. She was always better at climbing than I was.

"What about you?" She mouthed to me. I just helped her up and waited for her to get all the way to the top. As soon as I knew she was okay, I ran for my life. I heard the animal running after me and hearing it's growling only made me run faster.

After today, I'm going to school and joining a damn sport or something because I'm out of shape so bad. I tripped over a branch and fell down a hill. Classic main horror movie girl move. I'm such an idiot.

I stood up and kept running before something tackled me to the ground. I was met with bright red eyes and midnight black fur. Hot tears started falling from eyes slowly. It growled in my face and I felt it's spit falling on my face.

It was toying with me. Like a predator to its prey. Well I was it's prey in this case. It sniffed my face and pushed it back and forth with its nose.

I sobbed quietly and then it roared in my face. I turned my head away and tried to kick and push my way away from it. It roared again and swiped its hand across my stomach. Then across my shoulder. Then my legs. I screamed in pain.

At that moment I knew this was it. This was the moment I die. I silently let my prayers out as I waited for it to scratch me again, pull me apart, something. Then a miracle surfaced.

The creature was knocked down by something of the same size. I heard growls and yelps coming from both of them. I slowly turned my head to look at the fight happening.

It was a few seconds before the creature that attacked me ran away angrily. The second one came to me slowly. I looked at it scared but for some reason I knew it wouldn't hurt me.

It nodded its head at me and I let my eyes shut for what I thought would be forever.