It was the beginning of June and over 2 months since I had been on my first hunt.
As I darted between the trees I could only think of the man on the hill, I hadn’t seen him in around 2 weeks and I never managed to catch him. I was faster now, much faster which meant I was better.
In two months I managed to be able to shift standing in less than a minute without any pain and no blacking out. I could shift individual body parts and I was working on shifting without having to be relaxed, for example shifting whilst running.
The buck that ran in front of me was pretty big, a ten pointer I think, must have weighed quite a bit as well, around 200lbs I think which is roughly 90Kg or something like that.
Fast thing as well, and at first I wouldn’t have been able to catch him but now I was the fastest thing around, I could outrun any deer and they didn’t stand a chance. I was pretty also pretty strong, on my own I could take down pretty much every doe and most bucks, this big buck was the biggest I had tried so far and the risks of being hurt were pretty big, chances of killing it were pretty small. I leapt over a fallen down tree and kept running, my paws thundering along the ground, I could be quieter if I needed to be but this time I took joy in being loud because I could afford the noise I was making.
I now knew these woods better than I had before; I knew every game trail, every shortcut, every burrow and every hot spot for prey here. This was my territory now and nothing could beat me here.
I ran up to the side of the buck, it seemed scared and it turned left.
“No, No, No.” I repeated to myself in my head, the dumb buck had gone left, why would it go towards one of the widest and deepest parts of the river, it was a pretty big jump and it was in a ditch, about 2 meters high.
The buck jumped right over it and I followed. I leapt across and time seemed to slow down, I looked down below and saw the drop and the painful landing I would get, sticks, stones and a bunch of branches I could be impaled on, just my luck.
Ahead of me was the other side, the deer stumbled as it landed slowing it down slightly, I kept my tail back in a straight line, I knew it wouldn’t help me physically but mentally it did. I landed front paws first and as soon as they touched the ground the chase was back on and time seemed to go back to normal.
I tore down a small game trail which I knew and after a few seconds of losing sight of him I found myself above him on a hill. He had no option but to either stop or turn to where I was going. The deer decided to turn and was going to cross my path in seconds.
The deer crossed my path at exactly the right moment. I leapt forwards landing on his side, tearing his flesh with my claws and biting down on its back. He lost his balance which caused him to fall over sending me flying to ground, I rolled over twice and got back up before he realised he was even on the floor, I clamped my jaws shut on his neck and started to tighten my hold. I felt his windpipe being crushed as he started to lack oxygen. I snapped down again this time severing his spinal cord which caused instant death. I didn’t really like to give my prey much pain, wasn’t fair on them.
I let go and took two steps back admiring my kill; the biggest one so far.
I smiled and took a bite out of its shoulder then one from its rear hip, these were my favourite parts, I don’t know why they just were, I rarely got to the insides and I didn’t care much for liver.
As I swallowed a piece of meat a man came out from what seemed to be nowhere but I knew he must have been hiding in the ferns or behind a tree.
“Bravo,” he said as he clapped “That really is an impressive kill, your best so far isn’t it?” he said this as if he knew me, as if he knew who I was and knew what I had done in the past... and maybe he did know.
I growled at him, warning him to back off.
“Don’t growl at me Tilyer, I know who and what you are, and I really would appreciate it if we could talk.” The man with short black hair and blue eyes said as he threw my backpack in front of my feet. He then turned around facing away from me as a way of telling me to change back.
I picked up my backpack and padded over to some ferns where I shifted.
I opened my backpack and stared inside; nothing had been taken out or put in.
I grabbed my shorts, underwear, socks, and T-shirt and put them on. After that i slipped on my shoes.
I took out my Swiss army knife which I carried in there in case I needed anything, I used this to cut off the antlers off the bucks I hunted which I then stored in a new bunker I made in these woods, the land owned by Jerry who didn’t mind me using it like that.
I flicked the knife open and walked out and dropped my backpack on the floor still holding the knife in my hand.
“Tilyer please put that down.” he said with a tinge of worry in his voice.
I looked at him and walked over to the buck; I crouched and grabbed its left antler as I started to cut it off. “Who the heck are you?” I said calmly as I finished cutting the left antler and began to cut the right antler off.
“My name is Matt. I was a good friend of Jerry.” He said smiling at me. I examined him carefully; he was about 6ft (same as me now) and was wearing some jeans, and a black shirt. He seemed too smart and too nicely dressed to be stood here, the shoes surprised me the most; the sort of things you would expect to find someone wearing in an office or a fancy restaurant.
“How do you know about me?” I said firmly not showing my concern at all.
“I've been looking for you for a while, I foretold of your powers to Jerry, It’s just something I can do, my own special power if you like. So I've been waiting for you to be ready.” He said as he circled the deer.
“Ready for what?” I said confused turning to keep him in front of me.
“Poor boy, you must think this is some cliché story where I tell you that you are going to be hunted and die, or you will save the world.”
“Yeah sort of.” I interrupted. He paused and looked directly into my eyes.
“Well unfortunately it is sort of true; some people will try to kill you.” I stood silent wondering if he was being serious.
“Listen Tilyer, you need to master your ability because someone is going to betray you and someone is going to want you dead.”
“Like who?” I said carefully.
“Try some people who really don’t like having you here, try the people who saw you shift for the first time.” He said raising his voice slightly, “Mark, Joe, Jack, the three idiots who managed to tick you off to cause you to shift, you are lucky you have good self control young man because any other new shifter would have killed them there and then.”
I stepped forwards towards him “Ok, what’s going to happen?”
“Tilyer I need you to trust me, we need to get you out of here, but we can’t do that for a while and you might still have people on you even then, so once we get you out of here you will need to get somewhere I can get rid of those people and everyone else who is after you.”
I was so confused and had a hundred questions filling my head, “Ok, tell me this. 1. Where are you going to take me? 2. Who the heck is going to try and kill me? 3. If it’s Mark, Joe and Jack, what’s so special about them? 4. Why should I trust you?”
“1. The USA, you will need to learn to survive by yourself for a while until I can get you some place to live, 2. Mark, Jack, and Joe, 3. Nothing to worry about for now, 4. Because I'm here to protect you.” Matt said as he held out his hand. “Now please, trust me.”
I reached out and shook his hand; instincts told me he was good. “Why couldn’t I smell you?” I asked curiously. He laughed and then let out a sigh “Deer, I sprayed myself with the scent of deer so you wouldn’t notice.” He laughed again.
“You aren’t the only shifter out there Tilyer, I know some others, see, people like me want to protect you, that’s our job, to protect people like you.” Matt smiled “You are one of the rare shifters, you are a born leader, but too young to have a pack yet, I’ll explain when you are older and ready. Also you are rare because unlike most, you are filled with good, you are a good person Tilyer and this is why we help you and don’t help the others, see the bad we leave them to die, sounds harsh yes but we don’t want people with the ability to shift who are bad people, causes a lot of chaos and innocent lives go to waste.”
“So you are keeping me alive, cos I'm a good person?” I said tilting my head to the side.
“Yeah that and we will need you later on in life.” He smiled again.
“For what?”
“Doesn’t matter now just keep training and surviving till we can get you to a safe place.”
I sighed and kept walking, somehow, I knew he was right, I don’t know why but I knew he was. I was wondering why he had said all he did and what he meant by it but I guess my questions would need to wait for the future, now, I was going to need to talk to Jerry about this and by the looks of this Matt was going with me and I could somehow imagine the conversation we would have.
I let out a small smile as I picked up my backpack and slung it over my shoulders, I bent down and grabbed both antlers and started to walk to Jerry’s house and sure enough Matt came along with me.