Can You Hear Me Now?

Chapter 1

Her head throbbed, vision swimming, as she sat upright.

With her eyes now open, she could see fuzzy shapes of grey and black. Her sight blurred and she contemplated laying down again, but her instincts told her to stay alert. Something trickled down her cheek, smelling of blood.

She tried to rewind her memories to recall how she ended up in this new place, but her mind just spun in aching circles till she was nauseous. She had no idea how she got here.

She squeezed her eyes shut before leaning on her paws, which she then realized were bound with thick tendrils of rope. Her eyes weren't cooperating, so good thing her other senses were top-notch. Touch told her it was stone. Smell told her there was creatures here of different species. Sound told her about as much as her sight did.

Sight. Let's try that again.

She opened her eyes. The thin beams of light from the cracked rooftop revealed some objects. Fortunately without giving her a splitting headache. Unfortunately also showing her she was in a prison cell. Metal bars about as thick as her forearm traveled vertically and horizontally from stone floor to ceiling. All the walls were stone. She's been captured. Well that explains the headache, she thought, they must have hit me over the head to knock me out.

Everything was shades of grey except the tufts of her ginger fur littered about the stone. Although she remembered nothing, she knows she would have fought against her captors before being restrained like she was now. Her paws were tied with rough tendrils of rope, the same treatment was done to her jaws. She could just barely turn around in her prison.

She tugged and pulled, trying to slip her nimble paws out of the ropes, but they were too tight. Only once her wrists were rubbed raw did she stop. If these kidnappers had even a drop of sense, they would have taken her weapons away, but she checked anyways. Sure enough, her bow and arrows where nowhere to be found. She sighed, disappointed but not surprised.

She attempted to stand. Bad idea. She growled as her head pulsed even more and she found herself back on the ground. Annoyed, she fought to stand again, but soon decided better and sat still.

After a few moments her head cleared.

Once her ears stopped buzzing, she could hear shuffling from down the hall. She realized her struggle to stand must have caught the attention of one of the guards. Suddenly alert, she awkwardly scrambled upright till she was on her knees.

The blood pulsed in her ears. She nervously waited for some towering silhouette to cast its shadow over her figure, but no such thing came. Only more frantic shuffling and the tugging of rope.

They were tied up, like her. Another prisoner, perhaps. They had a familiar woodland smell to them, but not the way her species did. She did recognize it, but couldn't quite put her paw on it.

She inched closer to the bar door. The noise had come directly from her right. If she looked, she might be able to see the source of the sound...

She stuck her snout through the bars.