A Chance to Live

Chapter 8: Mending

     "James! Those wolves need to be kept in a room if they keep this up" she yelled to what appeared to be no one in particular, and no response was heard. I didn't know how exactly she came to this conclusion since Omega had long disappeared into another room before she had arrived upon the scene.

     'Perhaps it came from the sight of mangled string' I heard. Yeah, he probably had a point, but I wasn't going to admit it. He was too stuck up anyway. 'You know I can still hear you right?'

     'Shut up' I snapped. I went back to concentrating on my current task. My mind was going to too many places for this to go well, and I felt like for some reason I needed to be focused, like the world depended on it.

     Maybe I just felt playful.

     I made my way towards the room I was at before, with a trail of fur that lead from the room and down the route I had just taken, the scent resonating off it faintly. I bent down and took in the smell of it, detecting the location of its owner.

     "Wheeere are you..." I muttered. It took a moment for me to realize the words uttered, and I shivered. Some primal instinct told me this was normal, and it pulled me towards the strong scent of mammal, leading me out the window and down the side of the house.

      A friendly bark hit my ears, triggering the playful side of me. I was pummeled to the ground by two little furry wolves, play biting the armor plates on my spine, causing me to try to shake them off. I ran in circles on the grass, but I couldn't get them off, infuriating me as this situation seemed to happen all the time.

     My foot slammed to a halt as the talon was caught on something, and up the ground rose to say hello. At the last moment I ripped my foot free from its confines, and tumbling through the heather I went, over and over as my torso was not shaped right for this, and I feared a collapse.

     When I finally got my brain working, I executed the usual claw the ground move, my talons separating into a space within the moist soil and dirtying my claws in the roots of many plants. It smelled like honeysuckle, and I was surprised this thought came to my brain. Shaking the dirt off me, I rose to my full height on my back legs, now shaking from the tension, but it was here I noticed I had less weight on me.

     The wolves must have come off me when I tripped, unable to follow me as I tumbled on the ground. I decided to remember that; it could be useful.

     A roar sounded from the woods, and I spun around towards where it came from, almost falling onto my side again. I gazed with dizzy eyes at the forest, shrouding anything concealed by its canopy in darkness. I looked to see nothing, not even my night vision spotting anything amiss, but I still had the feeling of impending doom even though no matter how hard I squinted I had seen no threat.

     It sounded again, and something about it seemed familiar to my weary mind, tugging at a memory that refused to surface. I felt lightheaded, and the world appeared to spin around me, like some sort of sick experiment of a point of view.

     I whined, head throbbing with a pain that only seemed to occur when I was zapped, and I shook and thrashed my head around, like it would force whatever was in my brain to fall from my ears. It only made it worse, and I felt my control slip through me, as if losing my sanity to a random sound I heard.

     'Sounds. There's more of them, I can feel it'

     Something was calling from the outside. It vibrated in my ears and in my heart, newly developed. Echoes in my being, striking familiar nerves in my head. Traveling through my brain, and it found something. A reflex? Or perhaps a memory? Either way, it shook me to awareness, and everything slowed, and the world was not moving, not spinning, just pure blackness.