Pack Mentality

Awakening

Unbidden, he awakens. Even through the thick layer of ground and rock, hanging heavy above his head, the Alpha’s call is loud, commanding and unmistakable.

It stirs a primal urge in the depths of his still-waking mind, one he has not felt in millennia but responds to with a familiarity born of instinct: obey the Alpha.

Zilla is letting out a warbling cry of attention even before his eyes fully open, in a voice that is thick with post-hibernation sleepiness.

Taking stock of his body takes him a moment; his limbs move sluggishly, their movements having been slowed by the long sleep, and reacquainting himself with them takes him longer than it should.

He only realizes his call went unanswered after he’s blinked away the last of the bleariness distorting his vision.

Darkness surrounds him from all sides, forcing him to wait until his eyes grow accustomed to it.

Another call dies in the back of his throat when the eerie sight greets him: the tunnel is empty.

Suddenly acutely aware of how cold he is, Zilla turns his head to where his Packmate’s body should be pressed against his side and finds the spot empty.

Pack is gone.

A distressed trill escapes him, before he can stop it.

Where have his brothers gone, why have they left him?

The Alpha’s beckoning call arrives once again, in tandem with Zilla’s own cry of alarm-location?, though the saurian’s growing worry pushes it out of the forefront.

Silence and the returning echo of his own voice are his only answers.

For as long as he can remember, he has never been alone, until now; the thought makes him shudder, talons curling and puncturing the bedrock.

Without the warmth of his Packmates’ bodies to warm him, he feels like he is freezing.

There are no scents for him to pick up when he tries to sniff out the familiar smell of Pack, all long gone without even the tiniest of traces, as though they have never existed in the first place.

All he can sense is his own growing fear, pungent and fresh.

Unwilling to succumb to panic just yet, instead he wills his body to move, biting back another keening whine.

The underground system of tunnels Pack had chosen as their resting place, is an intricate maze Zilla soon finds himself lost in.

He doesn’t recognize some of the passages he pushes through, and the ones he dimly remembers being open before, he now finds to be blocked off by rubble.

With each passing minute, the ball of dread in his stomach grows, as he finds no evidence of Pack living in the area.

No scents, no shed scales, no tracks, nothing.

Desperate, he calls out again, his voice high-pitched and panicked, distress-distress-need-comfort-answer.

His cries are met with unrelenting silence once more, as the stony walls bearing down on him seem to be growing nearer and nearer, deaf to his pleas.

Breathing grows heavy and ragged, his heart beats harder and faster, filling his ears with its incessant thud-thud-thudding.

He feels like he’s been running aimlessly in circles for hours, long enough for his cries to devolve into nonsensical whimpers and wails.

A strange pressure builds behind his eyes, clogging up his sinuses and he snorts a few times, trying to clear his nose of the sudden obstruction.

It persists, despite his best attempts.