Day was almost here and Edith hadn’t slept a wink. She couldn’t not be skeptical of the four wolves snoring away. She kind of trusted Maiken but the rest of his pack? She was sure they didn’t like her.
Standing up, she glances back at them. She was going to go for a short walk, she needed to get up and move. She pulls her cloak around her and puts on the thin hood. She glances back at them and at her basket before deciding she would leave it here but take her dagger. Concealing Kindness in her boot, she starts her walk.
The smell of rain calms her and she feels herself relaxing. The woods always gave her a nervous feeling but it was beautiful while it was raining. Rain makes everything better for her. But now with only the aftermath, she was starting to feel a bit nervous again.
She swallows those nerves, determined to be brave and finish a simple walk. Why did these woods always creep her out? There was just a feeling… a feeling…
Of being watched. It had nothing to do with the current woods but now she felt like she was being watched. It was an odd sensation and she looks around quickly, looking for the pair of eyes boring into her.
She always thought the saying ‘Be careful of what you wish for’ was stupid. Now? Not so much as she watches someone step out of the cover of the trees. The someone isn’t alone.
There are three of them and blood is smeared on their lips. They smile at her simultaneously and she can see hair and skin wedge between their rotten teeth. They have been Savage for a while.
They giggle and point at her and come closer. “Hey, darling!” One of them says, the youngest one who looks close to thirty. She is shocked that he’s so young. “Could you come closer! We’re a bit tired and we love it when food comes to us. It makes it sooo eady.”
Edith takes a step back and the second one, a girl not even five, steps forward. She reaches out with bloody hands toward her like she’s her mom. The sadness of this almost crushes her. Such a young child…
The realization hits her hard. These Savages in front of her… they aren’t old. They are supposed to be old! The Disease is supposed to only affect the elderly.
This means the Disease is evolving.
She takes a step back and then they leap forward. A scratch on her arm is all they gift her though because a mess of black fur pounces on the little girl. The wolf flings her by her shirt back into the woods and turns to the other two. They grin at the excitement and lunge toward him.
Maiken swipes at his face but he narrowly dodges and hits him with the branch he had taken from the forest floor. This makes Maiken jump back but the Savage leaps forward again, clearly not wanting the fun to end.
Hot breath on the back of her neck and a swipe. Edith gasps in pain and stumbles forward. Her back had been slashed and it was soaking her hood in blood. She turns around and faces the woman, the third Savage, who had hurt her with Kindness in her hand as pain courses through her back, and feels wet.
The werewolf, hearing her gasp of pain, turned his head to check to see if she was all right but at that exact moment, the man decided to attack. A tumble of black fur hits the tree with a loud thump.
They all turn to her. All three of them and Edith realizes that once they had been a family. It’s evident that they all didn’t get the disease at the same time but as each of them got sick they stayed together. Tears prick her eyes which makes her almost miss the wolf that had pounced on all of them, knocking them over like dominoes.
But instead of black fur like she was expecting, it was brown.
She watches as the wolf kills the three in seconds and finishes the job they couldn’t do.
Fenrir looks at her with his brown eyes and shifts back it his human form. A boy with fluffy brown hair and a beauty mark under the corner of his left eye. He tries to smile at her but it looks like a grimace.
And then she remembers Maiken and rushes to his side, falling to her knees next to him and pulling his body into her lap. She watches his eyes flutter open and stare up at her.
“If this is heaven, it isn’t so bad.”
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