Young Writers Society

((Yeah looks great; sorry about the parentheses instead of spoiler, on iPad))

I uttered a low growl in response to the grangor's glare, breathing hard. My eye slowly faded back to pale ice blue as the cat stood and disappeared into the forest.

That was one hell of a day. Shaking the water off myself and my uniform, I turned to Mike and the stranger.

"You two alright?" I asked, checking over my dog with a quick and practiced eye.

"Swell." James heaved through shaky breaths, still trying to come down from his adrenaline rush. His hand went to his head, which seemed to be throbbing from hitting the ground. He'd hit the side of his face, and as his fingers brushed his cheek he could feel the bruise already beginning to form. It was better to get hurt from being clumsy than to die at the claws of a giant cat, though. "You?"

"Not dead, so I'd say pretty damn good." I sagged against the wall, partly in relief and partly in exhaustion. I took off the wet jacket of my uniform, thanking the gods I still had sleeves to cover up my tattoo and numerous old scars; the only ones I couldn't hide were my missing eye and that little one on my jaw.

Ralys could feel his blood pumping in his ears as he dashed toward the mouth of the cave. He was able to skid to a halt, turning quickly to check on the safety of his new companions. The man faceplanted- Ralys would have found humor in it if they werent so close to being mauled by an animal -and the animal... Ralys felt every hair on his body rise as its yellow eye looked over each and every one of them, its body just too big to fit inside the cave. Ralys found himself afraid the rocks my crack and burst under the fierce animal's strength and their lives would be gone. He took a step back and did his best to hide his terror behind a grimace.

And then it was gone.

Ralys wasnt sure if the monster being out of sight was better or worse. The feeling of impending soon while it stood before him, or the anxiety and paranoia felt now knowing he had no idea where it was. A lovely set of options indeed.

He cleared his throat and answered the woman, his words surprisingly steady even though his hands shook uncontrollably, "I've been better."

He took this time to examine them both a little better. The woman was very obviously a warrior; if her garb didnt give it away, her personality thus far definitely did. The man however seemed a mystery. He looked like a stereotypical madman, and the fact he was residing in a cave didnt help him much with distancing himself from that stereotype.

"I'm Ralys, by the way." He spoke. If he was going to trust these interesting characters with his life, the polite thing to do was to introduce himself.

"Glad you're alright, Ralys. I'm Mike." James huffed, still breathing hard. He stood up, deliberately slowing his breaths as he looked between Tasha and Ralys, and Tasha's dog. After a moment of silence, he let out a long sigh, followed by, "Well, I guess we should get moving then. Deeper in the cave we are, farther we are from the monster, right? Let's get a move on." He gave a wave of his hand, leading the way, spotting Tasha's horse waiting just a bit further down. He didn't draw any attention to his slowly bruising face and the cut from the grangor's claws grazing his shoulder. He was lucky, that it wasn't deep - just enough to draw blood, though, but it wasn't as if the grangor hadn't tasted it before.

"I'm Tasha," I introduced myself shortly. "Tasha Hunter." With that, I followed Mike deeper into the cave, listening carefully to Mike's and Ralys' actions; we may have faced the grangor and Mike may have offered us shelter, but I still didn't trust either of them.

I went over to Nightmare and greeted her, stroking sopping wet neck and leading her down the tunnel after Mike.

James could sense the tense anxiety in the air, and although he was never much of a host or a talker, he could easily put on that mask, or, at the very least, try to fill the silence for all of their sakes.

"Fun fact about this forest, the odd plant life and environment aren't what make the presence of animal life so sparse. It's actually mostly due to the presence of the grangor that make this territory hostile for any other predatory animals to live here, because they can't compete with the grangor. Doesn't mean there aren't creatures that still persist though, despite it all. It's mostly smaller prey, which explains why, apart from the grangor's hyper territorial tendencies, it's hungry to eat... us. Uh..." James cleared his throat. Maybe that wasn't the best thing to say to make conversation. "But uhh, I mean, obviously you guys didn't come here for the wildlife and you don't need a tour guide. So uh, Ralys! How'd you end up here?"

Ralys let out a breathy laugh despite himself. The humor of Mike's gradual descent into a trainwreck of a conversation was not lost on him, however along with the humor came a tense feeling in his chest. If they were one of the grangor's only source of food out here, it was doubtful it would give up on them so easily.

"Are there more of them?" Ralys asked Mike, sensing that he was the one that knew the ins and outs of... whatever was happening. "Of the grangor, I mean," He added. More questions zipped through his mind, but he tried not to seem too eager for answers. After all, after the bit of a scuffle they just had, bombarding Mike with questions probably wasn't the most polite thing.

"Doubtful," I answered. "For multiple reasons. Firstly, a creature that large is probably very territorial with a large territory because it has to have a lot of food to sustain it; that was one of the reasons my howling at it worked. Secondly, unless it has a mate, they are probably pretty widely distributed. Lastly, if I'm correct in that Mike has been here a while - at least a year - and the grangor hasn't left, it's not migratory, meaning we won't have to deal with more if we're sitting in a migration route. Make sense?"

Thank the gods I hunted wolves. Knowing the ins and outs of large predators certainly aided me.

Oversized deer-kitty, Wolfsbane snarled in the canine tongue. I couldn't help but agree; answering, however, would probably be unwise. No reason to let Mike and Ralys in on the fact I could understand dog and wolven speech.

James let in a short breath as if to say that neither of them answered his question. about how Ralys got here. But it was fine. He understood that their only common ground was that they were all running away from the grangor and that would likely be their only common ground until they left. When and if they left was still up in the air, because of the danger the grangor posed. So of course they would ask questions about the grangor. It only made sense.

"Tasha's right. There's only the one, here in this forest. And if there are any more in existence, I hope I never have the pleasure of meeting them."

He wasn't surprised that she'd drawn the conclusion that he'd been here a while. Although, he himself had lost track of time. He knew several months had passed... perhaps, it had been about a year. In which case... he really needed to get out.

Ralys nodded as Tasha spoke. She seemed fairly educated on large animals. Or maybe he was just stupid? His brows furrowed at the thought. No, she was just educated. "I'm not sure how I ended up here," He admitted, thinking of his next words carefully. He didn't want to spill his guts to a couple of strangers, but he didn't want to give them a wrong impression of him, either. "The last thing I remember was waking up, then that... thing- that grangor found me out in the trees, and now I'm here."

Had he been drinking? He couldn't remember, but he wouldn't necessarily be surprised. His fingers traced one of the scars through his sleeves as he followed mindlessly. He could remember vague images of walking... walking...

"I had a backpack!" He suddenly blurted. But quickly he composed himself. "It's not very important, but I had some things in there like food and a knife," He said. "I'm not even sure where it might be," He added, trailing off as he squinted in thought. Waking up in strange places with little to no recollection on how he got there was not fun.

"No time to go find it, unless you want the grangor to eat you. If we plan on getting out of this place we need to find a way to either kill or evade the grangor. I prefer the former, but the latter may be more feasible. Then again, if we choose to try to evade it, we have a higher chance of being ambushed."

Fighting is insane, Bane protests. You do realize it's a lot bigger than you, right?

"Any thoughts? Mike, you've been here the longest. What can you tell us?"

He responded with a sigh, feeling heavy weight in his stomach. "I've tried evading it... and it hasn't worked. The only thing I've been able to use against it is it's size. That's why I've been able to hide in here. And, for brief moments, I've been able to find it's blind spots from behind... but... it quickly compensates with it's ungodly sense of smell and speed. I've... never walked away unscathed." His hand went to his shoulder, covering his most recent wound.

"I've tried killing it. Twice. Failed, both times. Almost died myself. The only fighting chance I had was with surprise..." James shrugged, freeing both hands as he held them out palms up. "Killing the grangor is not something I'd try alone. Again." He was hesitant to commit to slaying the creature and divulging more information until a more definitive plan was developed, or at the very least, everyone was in on it.

"You were alone," I pointed out. "Now there's three of us. I don't know about Ralys, but I'm a trained soldier. The grangor is big, and it is still an animal. We can play off it's instincts, like how we got away earlier by howling at it." Hell, my entire life was spent fighting an impossible war. There wasn't much of a difference now, whether it was feline or canine or an army or a single adversary.

After taking the long way around, they finally made it back to James's little spot in the cave where he'd been camping out. The fire had been brought down to dying embers, but all else looked the same.

James let in a sigh and held his hand on his forehead. "It's not... impossible." Just terrifying, and extremely dangerous. But it was the only way out, and with someone else helping... they just might get lucky. "I'm willing to try..."