The night began to howl. The expedition of the lone group of adventurers had begun in the icy forests just past the town as it snowed ever softly.
"Hey Akio, how much longer until we reach Kaltland?"
"I don't know, Petlos. Please stop asking," Akio said, visibly annoyed.
The party of 5 continued to talk amongst themselves as their destination became eerily closer.
"So Kiara, what's the plan? When we hunt the beast, where is everyone going to be in position to one another?"
Petlos scoffed with a hint of disdain as he approached the party leader.
Kiara ignored Petlos as she, unconventionally, led the party.
"Since the supposed leader won't come up with a plan, I guess I will. Akio will obviously be stationed in the back to fire her arrows, Maxwell and Clint will stand in front to form a defensive wall—not that anyone smart couldn't have assumed—while I will stand in front of the leader and Akio with my Falchion in case the beast pushes past the twins."
Petlos then turned to Kiara amidst his passive aggressive confrontation.
"You just stand back and cast that weak ass shit you call magic, or better yet just stand out in the open as bait for the beast, so at least if we lose a party member, we won't be hindered in the actual fight."
Immediately, Akio grabbed and pulled Petlos aside past a few of the trees once the outburst stopped.
"What's wrong with you?! You know this is the first team she has ever led, and yet you still decide to treat her as if she's supposed to do a veteran's work," she persisted angrily.
"Okay, I'm sorry. Maybe I went a little overboard, but she was trained to do this. Why am I always the one who has to step up? I'm only here because I don't want to see you or the twins get hurt, so forgive me if Kiara taking this mission, that could get us killed, too lightly is pissing me off," Petlos expressed.
"Thank you, I'm glad that you care for me, but this isn't going to get better if you just insult her instead of guiding her down the right path."
Petlos let out a sigh.
"Ok, fair point."
After traveling for a few more hours, the party of 5 set up camp for the night. Maxwell and Clint talked amongst themselves while setting up their own tent as Petlos left his own tent with Akio asleep inside. He approached Kiara's tent, entering slowly as she finished setting up her things on the inside.
"Hey Kiara, look I'm sorry. The nerves are just getting to me and truth be told I'm just worried about Akio. I don't want to see her wind up dead because of negligence."
"It's fine. Honestly, I didn't want to lead a group yet and I know I'm not ready. I understand why you said what you said back there. I can tell you really care for her," Kiara said with sincerity.
Petlos looked at her in a flustered manner then laid his hand on her shoulder to reassure her, without words, of his feelings.
"I'll do whatever I can to help you. Let's get this shit done and go home."
Amidst the new found friends and their heartfelt moment, a distant howling can be heard.
"Do you think that's what we're looking for?"
Kiara asks timidly.
"Most certainly, that has to be a Great Wolf."
The two began to listen silently for a trace of the beast's presence, but to no avail.
"We will head out first thing in the morning to catch it while it sleeps. And when we get home, we can tell the tale of how the courageous leader, Kiara, led us to victory."
Kiara smiled as the two shared a hug within the tent.
"Good night, Kiara."
"Good night, Pet—"
Blood rained from the severed stem of Kiara's neck as the lifeless corpse fell to the ground with the hungry red eyes of a monster glowing amidst the dark.
"KIARA!"
He yelled with an intense scream as the Great Wolf was inches from his face overtop of the neck of Kiara's corpse that he was still holding onto. He froze in shock to the sudden death of his friend in mere moments and the sheer size of the creature before him.
Petlos had underestimated the inhuman abilities a predator could perform when stalking its prey. Maxwell and Clint quickly ran towards the sound of Petlos' voice with weapons in hand.
The beast, as if it were some sort of embodiment of death, quickly snapped Maxwell's metallic shield in half with one bite taking his left arm with it.
"OWW—"
The screaming of Maxwell was cut off with the snap of the wolf's jaw taking the entire right side of his head clean off.
Two party members had fallen.
Clint, in horror of seeing his brother's mangled remains, fell unconscious causing his own shield to lay flat overtop of him in the snow.
Petlos attempted to slash the wolf with his falchion consumed with rage, inspired by vengeance, but it's almost as if the beast found it fun to play with its food by dodging every slash easily with no counter.
The Great Wolf let out a roar power enough to force Petlos to fall. It approached for what seemed to be the kill, but it stopped in its tracks as a flying arrow descended from the distance striking the Great wolf in the eye.
The wolf howled in pain as blood poured out of its eye. The now enraged wolf turned its predatory eyes towards the archer.
"NO DON'T YOU DARE, TAKE ME INSTEA—"
The wolf without hesitation in a single stomp crushed Petlos' skull into nothing but the remains of small bits of brain matter.
Three party members had fallen.
Akio, feeling the dread of watching her loved one die in front of her, felt the urge to fall to the ground in despair. But with the incoming threat approaching her, she knew that she had to put her feelings aside to survive.
With a desperate flurry of arrows, she hoped to strike and weaken the wolf, if not at least slow its approach, but it amounted to nothing as the Great Wolf allowed the incoming arrows to pierce its body and continued charging on.
Akio let out a shriek of tears, "You've taken everything from me!"
The beast then forced its jaw shut over top of Akio's head, keeping its mouth shut just enough to hold her head and allow a few final hopeless screams. With a final muffled, painful shout and plea from Akio the wolf puts an end to her noise with a powerful bite.
Only one could still breathe.
After a successful hunt, the beast was now soaked in red. Once the beast had finished its feast, it then hid behind some pine trees covering itself in a bit of snow. It stalked the lifeless body of the sole surviving party member throughout the entire night waiting for its prey to move.
The next morning, Clint arose slowly, delirious and stricken with memory loss from what he experienced the previous night.
The memories came pounding back into his head at once when he heard the roar of a monster. He turned his head around only to see his lower half was missing from the rest of his body.
None were.
The beast wandered back to its den to begin resting for the next hunt. Due to the keen senses of animals, predators can always feel when they have become another's prey. "You've been through quite a lot, haven't you?" A tall, muscular man slowly approached the beast through the snow with an axe made of bone.
He was wearing tattered clothing that seemed to resemble a cloak that covered nothing but the area above his shoulders with pants made of cloth. The garments showed off his entire torso and had a hood hanging from the end with a line of cloth acting as bindings down his calves and shins. From behind the cloak, appeared to have torn thinner than the range of his shoulders, now resembling that of a thin cape rather than the back of a cloak. The attire did not appear to suit combat or the weather.
The beast growled softly, lowering its head to the ground. It began to slowly circle the man, sensing that he is most certainly a threat.
The man stopped in place thirty feet from the beast allowing it to leap. Almost quicker than the eye can see, it attempted to clamp its jaw with all of its force onto the man's arm, but the man had already evacuated the target out of the way. A mighty punch was the man's response with the same arm that the beast had tried to devour . The force dislodged its snout making it start to appear deformed.
The wolf then yelled from the pain as it bled from its mouth.
Oh how the tide has shifted.
"I will put you to rest," the man said as he grabbed the large beast by the throat.
The beast's head was slammed into the ground. The sound of the impact could be heard from a great distance. Oddly, the sight of the beast's head, now forming a ninety degree angle with its own neck, did not evoke emotion from the victor.
The man spent some time skinning the wolf's hide with his axe and then cooking the meat. It took a few hours to cram down all the edible parts of the wolf. Finally, he collected the bones into a pile, cleaned off the hide, and began to head inward to town.
In the background, a small black sphere of gaseous energy can be seen faintly and unknowingly to the broad man.
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"Am I going to die?" A boy shrouded in black proclaims amidst the starry sky.