Cherry #3
I run for hours without so much as a water break.
When the sun starts to set, dipping behind the trees, I start to grow nervous of the dark, but I keep going, unwilling to stop without getting as far as possible.
Eventually, I smell water and follow the scent until I find another creek. This one is a bit wider and only about eight inches deep. I drink as much as I can and stand there for a few minutes, letting my paws cool.
I take a minute to look around and decide to follow the creek for a while. If anyone is following my scent, the water should help hide it. And this creek has a sandy, flat bottom, at least in this spot, so I can move in it more easily.
I trot along the creek for hours, still unable to believe I haven’t been caught yet. I take another long drink, then move to dry land and take off running again.
Time starts to pass by in strange chunks of time.
One second, the sun is rising, then it feels like mere hours go by before it’s already setting again.
I’m not sure how long I run, but I’m pretty sure the sun sets two or three times before exhaustion finally starts to fully overtake me.
I’ve been running on adrenaline this whole time, but I can’t do it anymore.
My legs are shaking from the exertion of running for days with an injured and weakened body and zero food. I start to look for somewhere to stop. If I don’t find somewhere tucked away to hide while I sleep, I’m as good as dead out here.
A large rock takes form to my left, about twenty feet tall, and I move toward it. Unfortunately, there’s no cave to be found, but I curl up with my back to it, in a spot I feel is mostly hidden by trees. As soon as I lie down and shut my eyes, I pass out from exhaustion.
Luckily, nothing comes for me while I sleep, and I actually wake up when the sun rises. I only assume it’s been one night since I’m still extremely exhausted. Somehow, my fear of knowing I couldn’t crash here for days had me waking when I needed to.
I start running again. And I don’t stop until night falls.
Days start to pass, and I just keep moving, running, or trotting all day.
I stop to drink when I can, but because of the muzzle, I’m unable to eat.
I’m starving, but there’s nothing I can do.
Even if I could hunt, the thought of raw meat makes me sick.
I’m not sure I could eat anything I caught anyway.
I notice my side isn’t healing. If I weren’t exhausting myself, it would heal in a matter of hours from my wolf’s natural healing ability, but I’m terrified to stay still, afraid that I’m about to be caught at any moment.
So I keep running.
I don’t run in a straight line. I change my direction every few days, whenever I feel an internal tug in a certain direction. I have no idea where my gut is leading me, but my brain has no better ideas, so I just follow it.
I do come across a handful of roads and peek out to make sure the coast is clear before darting across and continuing into the forest on the other side.
The days start to blur together until two weeks have passed. As best as I can guess, anyway.
I have no idea how I’m even alive, with no food to sustain me and running for over sixteen hours a day. Plus, I haven’t recovered from my last regen or the stab wound in my side. Maybe the fates are looking out for me. It’s about time they stepped in.
I know I’m going to crash soon, probably for days, so I start to look for a good place to hide, somewhere secluded, like a cave.
I feel that tug again, and it leads me to some large boulders.
When I make my way around them, I find the entrance to a small cave.
I sniff at the entrance, which is about six feet wide and about eight feet tall.
It has no animal scent, telling me it’s unoccupied.
Hope floods my body as I slowly step inside.
Instantly, that internal tugging slows. I take it as a sign from the fates that this is where I should stay to recover.
The cave is about forty feet deep and fifteen feet wide and will work well for me.
Circling the cave, I decide the back will be the safest place to sleep, so I curl up with my back to the wall and my face hidden under my tail.
If someone comes in here while I’m healing, there won’t be anything I can do to protect myself.
I just have to hope I’m far enough away now that nobody from the lab I escaped from will find me.
Once I’m healed, I can make a new plan. I have no idea where I can go or how to survive out there. I have no family left. It was just my parents, my sisters, and me. I don’t even know of any other shifters. My parents kept us away from others of our kind, but never told us why.
But now that I know how bad humans can be, I don’t want to live with them either. Besides, I have no money, no clothes, and no skills. I have no idea what I’m going to do.
The unknown scares me almost as much as the lab, and I let the worry float over me as I close my eyes and drift off to sleep, silently praying that I never wake up.