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Chapter 9

We take off like bullets in the direction facing away from the bushes the growling was coming from. I'm sprinting for my life, the pain in my leg almost making me pass out, my legs flying as fast as I can make them. Stone is a couple feet behind me, but keeping up pretty good.
Twigs and leaves crackle beneath my bare feet, but the skin is so tough I don't feel a thing. There's a benefit to never having shoes to wear. My heart has sped up in seconds, so now it's pounding against my chest, hurting my ribcage. My ears are angled backwards, and I hear the Beast chasing us, not far behind.
Leaping over a fallen log, five feet into the air, I risk a glance behind me. Maybe twenty feet back, not far enough at all, there's a large brown shape running through the brush. I look back ahead, just in time to barely clear a large rock, my toes pushing off the top.
I can jump pretty high. That's my cat DNA working. I always land lightly, and ninety percent of the time, on my feet. I easily pounce over seven foot boulders and incline, and hit the ground running. Stone however, was not part cat.
He's strong, I can give him that. He's as nimble or light as me, so he has to go around most of what I leap over, though he can still jump rather high. We run down a steep incline- Well, I launch myself into the air at the top, landing at the bottom and running without stopping. Stone skids down the rocky slope, trying to keep his balance and speed at the same time, which is much easier said than done.
His arms whirl around like pinwheels, and he's trying not to lose his footing. Suddenly, a large tan shape hurdles over him, landing ahead of him, and closing in on me fast.
Putting on a burst of speed, while limping on my bad leg, I risk another glance back at the creature. For most beasts, there aren't specific names for them. There's too many variations, since they all evolved differently. This one has the build of a very large bull dog, with short glossy buckskin fur. Behind it, a long, thick tale drags on the ground. On it's head sits a vicious rack of antlers, sharp like arrowheads. It's nose is long and thin, delicate almost, in sharp contrast with the rest of it's body. It opens it's mouth, and the inside of it's mouth is lined with teeth, like a sharks, but they seem to extend all the way down it's throat. Suddenly, they begin to rotate a hundred miles an hour, making a horrible chain-saw sound. I wince, imagining the unfortunate animals who had disappeared down that gullet.
I look back ahead, and my heart stops. Up ahead of me is a cliff-face, a hundred feet high. Not even I can jump that. I keep running right up to the wall, until I'm forced to stop. I reach out and run my hand over the stone- smooth as silk. I can't climb it either.
I spin around to face the Beast. It has me cornered, with no way out, and it knows it. It's slowed down now, and is approaching me with a glimmer of hatred in it's eyes.
My back is pressed up against the stone, as if I'm hoping a secret door in the earth would open up. No such luck.
Staring into the face of death, I'm suddenly scared I might die. So many close calls, always coming so close, but what if this was it? What if there was no miracle this time, but this really was the end?
I can feel the monster's hot breath on my face, and it reeks of rotting meat, and blood.
So what if this is the end? If I'm going to die anyways, I won't be doing it cowering from the grim reaper. No, I would stare death back defiantly in the eyes, like I've always done to everybody who gets on my nerves.
The Beast's eyes have found mine, and I hold it's gaze, glaring back at it with all the same hatred. The war between Man and Beast is ancient, archaic, even. It's as much a part of our blood as our DNA. That is why the simple idea of a combined army was laughable.
GRRR-OO-WW-LLLL. The Beast's mouth opens wider, wider still, never stopping, opening impossibly wide, big enough so I could simply step into it. Death's doorway is pink with whirring teeth.
I can't dodge to the left or right because the cliff curves in around me, and the Beast is so huge it blocks the opening. I know I'm about to die.
The Beast snarls one last time. I stare into it's black, empty eyes, and snarl back. I don't know if it cares or not. But I feel disappointed it doesn't even react. My last act of defiance shall go down in the history books and the act of defiance that nobody even cared about. I close my eyes.
I wait for the bite, the pain, the blankness. But nothing happens. I'm beginning to get really ticked off that I can't die the way I want, so I open my eyes, to see...
The creature has shut it's mouth, and is wriggling backwards out of the enclosed cliff. I'm wondering why, when I hear a snarl that makes the Beast whimper. Then I realize the monster is wriggling to stay in the enclosed space, away from whatever was trying, successfully at that, to drag it out.
I'm thinking, crap, now there's a bigger monster trying to eat the monster that was trying to eat me. Now that's a food chain.
A gap opens up between the rock and the monster, and I get a glimpse of...
Stone, holding the monster by it's tail, dragging it away from me. I realize his gloves are off, and there are small black claws on the tips of his fingers, instead of fingernails.
I take the chance, while the Beast is distracted. It's mouth is only partially open, so it can let out a pathetic whimper. I feel insulted that this cowering monster was going to eat me. I deserve better than that, at least a nobler creature.
Darting it, my hands grip the monster's delicate snout, snapping it shut. I feel it breathing, underneath my hands, and push harder. I'm pretty strong. There's a cracking sound, and the bridge of the skull is crushed by my hands, cutting off it's air. It moans, but I've turned.
"You. Try. To. Eat. ME!" I roar, pounding my fists into it's thick skull with every word. I leap up onto the top of it's head, and run along it's back, out of the enclosure, and to Stone, who's panting and snarling. I stop for a second, scared a little.
The only really wolfish characteristics about Stone are the tail, the ears, and now, the claws. But I've never seen him angry like this before. His face is contorted with rage and strain, and suddenly, I feel like I'm standing next to a wild wolf. The way his muscles contort and stretch in his face, makes him look like a snarling wolf.
"Ash!" He looks up, and sees me running down the huge creature's spine. The rage instantly vanishes from his face, and he looks relieved. Heaving a final time on the creature's tail, and finally pulling it from it's hiding place, he turns to me, looking me up and down, as if to see if I'm hurt. Not that I minded.
"I thought-I-"
"Later," I say, running around to the monster's front. It's still trying to breath through it's shattered nose, making horrible dry rasping noises, blood dripping from it's snout.
I'm wondering how I'm supposed to finish it off, when Stone takes care of that. He walks over with double blades, like ninja swords, one in each of his hands. At first I just think, Oh, he's got some swords, he's gonna chop up the Beast. Then I realized Stone was holding much more than swords.
He approaches the cowering monster, twirling the swords like pin wheels. I actually feel a breeze. The creature growls, and rises again, not able to breath, but fighting back.
Before I can react, the Beast swipes at Stone with a huge, dagger-clawed paw. I scream, but Stone dodges and rolls under attack, popping up, and spinning, raking both the blades across the monster's thick hide, tucking and rolling again, under the creature's belly.
The Beast moans in pain, and Stone is on his back under the Beast. It seems to realize that too. I've backed away a good ten feet, out of range of the creature, but I can't get there quick enough.
"Stone!" I scream as the monster's legs shake, from pain and suffocation, and it falls to the ground, straight onto Stone. I rush forwards, straining against the heaving sides of the Beast, but I can't budge it.
"No!" I'm pushing in vain on the furry rough hide, tears forming in my eyes. Everyone, everything good in my life. None of it lasts. My mother, my safe home, and now Stone. All of it, gone.
"No..." I sob pathetically, still hitting the dying Beast, as if one more good heave might send it toppling over. He's dead, crushed by a monster as he charged to save my life...
Suddenly there's a groan. I tense up, staring at the Beast. Is it not yet too wounded? Is it coming back for more? It moves, ever so slightly, under my fingers. I leap back, claws shooting from my fingertips under my nails, not that that would be much good.
A growling sound... But different from the Beast's, almost... Canine.
"Stone!" The body of the Beast is rising up from the ground. I see him again, eyes closed with strain. He's on his back, legs bent and shaking, his feet holding up the Beast. His swords are both jammed hilt deep in the chest of the creature, blood dribbling down the blades from the wounds, onto his hands, dripping down his arms and onto his face. But he's alive.
I stand stationary, watching as he pries the dead Beast off himself.
"A little help would be nice!" He grunts, without looking at me. Oh, yeah. I run forward, and fling myself at the Beast. With him holding it from underneath, it topples over, landing with a heavy thud right beside him.
I get to my feet, turning and facing Stone, before rushing up to him.
"You're alive! I thought-"
"I thought you were dead, back there, when it jumped over me and cornered you. I saw it moving it's head, and I couldn't see you, and-" He shakes his head like a dog, specks of blood flying from his hair and flecking my shirt, but it's filthy anyways. When he looks back up, his jet black hair is spiky from the drying blood.
"How did you-That thing must have weighed a ton-?"
"It did." He grimaces, picking up his right foot in his hand, his knee bent. He twists, and there's a cracking noise from his ankle. He does the same for the other.
"That's better. I think-" He suddenly stops, looking up the face of the cliff, which stretches as far as I can see on either side of us.
"What?"
"I think we're here."