บท 50: Chapter Fifty
Sandra had found a bush to hide within. It was hard to keep her breath quiet when she was beginning to realise just how good Katie was at tracking her. She wanted to win this game, but when Katie caught wind of where she might have gone, it was merely hopeless to watch her through the opening in the leaves as Katie slowly made progress, heading towards her.
Each time she had been found in under ten minutes no matter how still and quiet she kept. Katie would circle the entire clearing until she chose a direction that inevitably would lead her to Sandra. A feat that scared the young girl every time she watched it happen. Katie never asked that their roles be switched for she seemed to be enjoying the role of hunter.
Nevertheless, Sandra could not imagine what was making this easy for Katie. Nothing was making sense to her. Seeking was essentially meant to be the harder part of the game and yet Katie made it look so simple. This was beginning to feel more like a training exercise than the fun that Katie initially thought of it as.
While she waited for her talented friend to inevitably find her, scuffling sounds in the opposite distance caught her ear. She was so used to this place being empty that her ears could easily pick on abnormal sounds that did not fit the area. She looked back causing a rustle in the bush she was hiding in. Katie, no doubt heard her, but merely froze. Sandra could tell from the tension in the air that she too could hear something other than her friend's disturbance.
"Sandra, you can come out now. Let's wait for our parents in the cabin," Katie called out, but Sandra's eyes were glued to the darkest inner parts of the woods she'd heard the sound coming from. Having been raised by a hunter family, their closest instinct was to think that something unfriendly was coming. They could both feel it in their gut that something was amiss and that they were not doing anything to help the situation. "What is your gut telling you, Sandra?"
Sandra began to tread backwards slowly making sure to be as quiet as she could manage. The scuffling sounds began to sound louder and more distinct. They were soon the undeniable sound of a running werewolf, paws striking the ground with force fierce enough for them to know that it was on the run. Sandra wasted no time in running back to the clearing, passing Katie at the edge who followed behind her.
Before they could get to the door, the wolf lunged out from the cover of the trees and quickly closed the gap, barring their entrance. The dirty wolf snarled at the two kids, baring its teeth at them menacingly. Wounds and cuts riddled it's fur as though it had been in a fight with another and lost miserably. No, this was different. Realisation soon hit as the children recognized the knife wounds that this wolf had been subjected to. It was being chased by Hunters. There wasn't a hint of mercy or compassion behind the eyes of the beast that stared at them. Only a single emotion came from it, plain and simple murderous intent.
Katie looked at her friend and found that she was rooted to her position, shivering and entirely grasped by fear. Sandra's eyes were slowly starting to show signs of despair, "Sandra, we are junior hunters, aren't we?" The question came across Sandra as ridiculous… completely ridiculous. The wolf before them did not care for the title they gave themselves. They were going to be killed, one way or another and there wasn't a thing they could do about it.
She was too stunned to speak as well. The werewolf lunged at them, a deranged look in its eye. Katie chose the moment to push her friend and trip the werewolf, using it's weight against it, she made sure to throw it off its balance. There wasn't a second to waste. Wolves did not stay down too long. "The cabin, Sandra, now…"
In that moment, a myriad of thoughts went through Sandra's mind. Why her friend was risking to sacrifice herself when there was nothing she could do against the werewolf. Katie could move and she had kept her cool this whole time that they had faced the werewolf. There wasn't a hint of fear in her. This was the difference between a hunter and a junior hunter. A hunter was not phased by emotions of fear. A hunter sprang into action the moment it was required of them regardless of whatever state they were in.
To be consumed by emotion the way Sandra was merely meant that there was nothing that she could do to defend herself. The couple of years she had gone through training could not show when faced by a werewolf. She was no different than a human in this situation and she understood that. One might call it cowardly, one might have even called it despair, but Sandra did it anyway. When her best friend was facing a moment where she might have gotten killed, she ran. She did not look back either, for she knew there was no way that Katie was going to allow the wolf past her.
Katie heard the wolf growl and a struggle behind her that almost had her freeze in the spot and go back for her friend, but this wasn't the time to play the hero. There was something else she could do to help and didn't involve staying behind to rescue her friend when she knew she'd only freeze up. She got into the house and began frantically tossing everything about in search of something. It didn't matter what state it was in, she just needed to find it.
It was something a hunter family could find lying anywhere in their house… a dagger. Specifically, one that was designed to hold poison used in killing werewolves. Katie found one strapped to the underside of the dining room table and unsheathed it. It was used and old, but it would have to do. It was better than nothing at all.
She opened the door and froze at the sight before her. Katie was pinned to the ground whilst the wolf tried to bite her neck to end her life. Katie, however, summoning all her strength, punched the wolf's jaw to have it miss its target just in time. The momentary daze was enough for her to crawl further into its underbelly and come out from its side. She'd thought her momentary escape through as she faked getting out from one side and turning to the other while the wolf was stuck going the wrong direction.
Everything Katie was doing was futile, but the determined look on her face showed otherwise. This girl was not going down without a fight. Instead of Katie running away, she used the wolf's momentary confusion to her advantage and struck on of the visible wounds it had in its side. As the wolf whined in pain, she struck the same spot repeatedly in an effort to get the pain to confuse and slow it down more.
"Katie," Sandra screamed throwing the knife at her.
Katie couldn't help the smile that formed on her face as she leapt out of reach of the werewolf and grabbed the knife midair. The wolf froze at the sight of the knife. It looked between the knife and the face of its wielder. For once its eyes showed signs of intelligence. He was thinking about the idea of attacking a child. Sandra didn't know why, but it was at that moment that she relaxed completely and felt safe.
She watched Katie circle the wolf, her eyes glued to it and her face locked in a serious expression that was bound to arouse fear in the wolf. Snarling at the little girl, the wolf attacked. Katie sidestepped and ducked, allowing the wolf to pass by her. The thought of stabbing the wolf's initial wound which was softer than going through its hide was an idea she could not pass up.
This was the first time she was using a knife with the intention of killing a rogue. With all the stories of how despicable rogues could be, there was no hesitation in her actions as she drove the night into the side of the wolf and got to work performing an act that made Sandra vomit her entire lunch. Nothing about what Katie did to that wolf could be termed as merciful.
Once Katie had finished stabbing it the first time, the wolf had lost the will to fight then and Katie had been left with finishing it off which she did swiftly without a second thought. The adults arrived only minutes later to a scene of a bloodied Katie holding a dagger and staring at the corpse of the wolf that had just attacked them.
The children's parents, along with the hunters that had accompanied them stared at the scene in silence and a mixture of expressions. What they saw before them was somewhat incomprehensible. "Are you girls okay?" Aunt Marie called out, snapping everyone back to the present….
.............................
"It was then that I swore to train harder and never be a burden to her again. That is also the day, however, that she became unreachable. With each passing day, her abilities began to improve exponentially until she was the unstoppable force of nature you see now. One could say she was an unstoppable force of the gods. I remember it like it was yesterday," Sandra concluded the story. She couldn't help but smile at the looks on the boy's faces as they listened to her.
"You mean 'force of a god', don't you?" Jason corrected.
"Oh yeah, 'force of one god', because that is what she is... Prometheus, no other," she said. To Sandra, it didn't matter if they noticed how nervous it made her. Katie's case was so bizarre that there was no way they would suspect that her context was indeed what she'd intended to say and would have spilt premature secrets in turn.
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