Control: An X-Men Adventure and Wolverine Romance

Campfire

The storm had lessened over night. The mother bear was restless, she had left me with the cub, presumably to look for a food source which thankfully wasn't me. For that reason, I was content to be her baby sitter. I chewed up the last of my beef jerky and gathered more snow for water in my pot. I had about a handful of pasta left which I ate after throwing it in to boil. The little bear cub grumbled when I was focused on cooking and stoking the fire; all because I'd had the audacity to stop scratching behind its little ears for a while.

The previous night I had realised that if I had my own claws out, which were as tough as his mothers, he could happily gnaw on those rather than me risking my bare fingers, and he seemed to enjoy play fighting with me - he was essentially a little toddler. He clumsily rolled onto his back and I batted his head playfully. He let out a little grunt of excitement.

The snowfall was getting lighter by the hour. It saddened me to know I needed to go soon, but I had to keep moving. Suddenly losing interest in our little game, my new little buddy toddled over and threw himself down practically into my lap. I stroked his brown fur absent mindedly as I tried to plan my next movements.

I was getting restless when the enormous shadow of the mother bear finally reappeared at the door. She had a large salmon in her mouth. I gently prodded the baby awake and he excitedly ran to greet her. The mother watched me expectantly. Suddenly I began to wonder if she expected me to eat it with them. She grunted looking from me to the fish.

This was crazy, this had to be some kind of hypothermia induced hallucination. There's no way a bear would do this... The only explanation I could form was that she somehow knew I had let her shelter with me. Very cautiously I approached and she watched as I used my claws to tear out a chunk of flesh from the salmon. I took it back to my corner - and put it on the fire. Seeming satisfied with this, she then began to chew strips off for the baby and herself. This was like some delusional hippies' idea of nature, not the reality that should've played out - I was dumbstruck, but ate my bear-caught salmon in silence, grateful to feel full for the first time in days. Maybe there was something about my claws that separated me from humans in their eyes.

Maybe I could stay just a little longer. I hadn't seen signs of my pursuers for days now and they couldn't be finding the wilderness easy, it wasn't like in towns or cities where cctv was everywhere. I decided to stay until the morning. It would only be a few extra hours. Then I could set off at first light. I needed to rest my eyes a little more and settled back down.