Curse of the Weretroll (rewrite)

Chapter 13

  "Ugh..." Branch groaned softly, slowly beginning to wake up the next morning, his head twisting and turning to try and chase his tiredness away...

     After hours of worrying about the wolf that had somehow managed to survive after all these years of extinction, and about Poppy who wanted to risk her life going after it... the paranoid survivalist had finally gotten himself to bed... but... strangely... that's not where he was now...

     Instead of being inside his incredibly safe and warm bunker where he had fallen asleep the previous night... Branch was now laying out in the middle of the forest once again, the little gray troll sleeping in a pile of leaves as if it were a bed...

     Finally forcing himself to wake up, Branch slowly rose off of the ground, standing up on his slightly wobbly feet as he subconsciously began scratching at his stomach, his eyes still half shut...

     "Where... where am I..." he asked himself in a quiet murmur, looking carefully around himself, his vision still slightly clouded...

     The village grump looked around his surroundings for a moment longer before quickly realizing in horror where he actually was...

"Wha... what's going on?" he asked himself in complete confusion, looking around the area in shock...

     Why did he keep waking up on the ground out in the middle of nowhere? Was he sleep walking?

Still unknowingly scratching at his itchy tummy, Branch slowly looked down to examine himself for injuries that would show he was taken here against his will, immediately realizing he was shirtless yet again, a big red rash covering his stomach almost completely...

"What the hair!?" he yelled out in shock when seeing the massive breakout, the gray troll still scratching roughly at his stomach...

     It was tingling fiercely, and no matter how much he scratched... the itch just wouldn't go away...

     What was wrong with him!?

—————

Luckily, the village was closer to his unintended resting spot than the night before, and Branch was thankfully able to find home rather quickly...

As he entered town square, other trolls rushed around in complete panic, pushing past him rather roughly...

"Hey!" Branch yelled out in an angered tone as a random troll rammed right into him, almost knocking the survivalist right down to the ground. "What's going on here?"

"It came back!" the troll yelled out, continuing to run without even looking back. "The wolf came back! It will destroy us all!"

     The purple glasses wearing girl ran off, Branch watching her disappear into the distance, the gray troll raising an eyebrow in confusion...

'I thought there were trolls guarding the village last night,' he thought to himself in slight panic. 'But if that were true... how did the wolf get in?"

He didn't notice at first, but strangely, Branch was still scratching at his stomach, the itch only getting worse by the second...

     This wolf must've been pretty cleaver if it somehow managed to get past the trolls specifically sent out to guard the village... which was definitely a bad sign... a really bad sign... that just made the monstrous beast even more dangerous...

"Ugh!" Branch suddenly screamed out in pure rage, the itch becoming unbearable, making it impossible to ignore... "Why am I so frosting itchy!?"

Quickly, he looked down at his stomach to see what was going on, gasping sharply at what he saw...

Fur... little pieces of fur were just beginning to poke their way out of his skin...

He blinked at the sight, his breath seeming to have stopped in fear, the little troll not understanding what was going on in the slightest...

     There was something wrong with him... he was sick... yeah... sick... that's it...

Just as he was about to run off to find help... something suddenly caught the survivalist's eye...

There was a footprint pressed into the ground beside him... and in that footprint... lie another strand of fur... a strand of fur... that was just like the one he had found the day before...

     Wolf fur...

Slowly, Branch bent down to pick up the mysterious item, beginning to examine it closely...

"N... no," he muttered under his breath as he realized something horrifyingly unbelievable... "It... it can't be..."

He looked down at the fur on his stomach, gasping in realization...

     His heart stopped, sinking down painfully into the pit of his stomach as his eyes widened in horror...

     The furs coming from his stomach... were the exact same as the strands he had found on the ground...

     His world seeming to fall to pieces all around him... the village grump dropped the strand of fur to the ground before quickly turning to run back to his bunker, the young troll desperately hoping no one would see him...