In Dark August

Chapter 9

You might be wondering how I lost the competition. It's quite simple, really. One moment it was fine, maybe even more fine because I knew I could win . But once I hit the ground, my ankle giving way, my body slamming into the dirt, scrapping skin and spilling blood, it hits me harder than the fall. I couldn't win.

I remember we were down to the final rabbit. Liam motioned me with a bob of his shaggy head, and continued into the thick brush. Other wolves were here also; the scent of them swirled in the air and clung to leaves on plants. We both knew that there wouldn't be a considerable chance that these wolves left something behind and we certainly knew that when it came to competition, pack-mates could do anything to reform their rank (consider fighting as one of those things). Now, it didn't get to the point someone got terribly hurt, but a wolf would prefer victory rather than injustice.

Liam had halted suddenly. I had to dig my claws into the dirt to stop from crashing into him.
I curved my long body around to question him when my eye caught something else.
A glint of bright light that reflected the summer sun stuck out from the green ferns and tiny plants. I blinked a few times to adjust from the unexpected glint.
Stepping away from my companions side, I inspected the object. It was a silver type of metal, with dents and scratches etched across it. To my surprise, hidden in the shadowed part where the ferns blocked the light, was splattered with dark blood. The smell of the coppery liquid made me quail in distaste.

Other wolves had been there and tried to open the metal contraption, but the blood confused me and I questioned to how blood was spilled.
I turned to Liam and found a puzzled expression in his eyes also. He then lowered his head to beckon towards the ground where it was churned with wolf pad prints.

These tracks where scattered everywhere, large and small. I sniffed around until I came to the same striking smell from the metal, blood. This blotch of stench was only a few feet away from the metal and seemed to have smeared south, followed by skidding marks. It must've been a hurt animal fleeing from the metal, but how could the metal be dangerous, it looked harmless? Even as I was halfway between wolf and human, the metal never came to mind to how it could harm anything. That's what I'd thought.

Coming back to the metal contraption, I took a whiff. Something was definitely odd about it by the way of an oily unnatural scent that wafted to my nose. I cocked my head to the side to check on Liam. He had abandoned his post to sniff around the outline of the small clearing, trying to pick up any unexpected scents. I knew that if anything happened, I could rely on him for safety and support. But, just to be safe, I took note to keep a keen eye on him just in case he wouldn't uphold his outlandish and most of all redundant task of assisting me. At that thought, I pulled my attention back to the metal and crouched low to avoid the plants, inching forward. Inside the little cavern of plants was the metal, but it seemed to have taken shape and resembled a sphere like cap. The dents I saw earlier were non other than holes. This puzzled me to  why I didn't catch it earlier.

A strange pulling feeling seemed to tug on my belly, as if to warn me to get away from it as swiftly as I could. This unsettled me as well.

 I've been taught several times that if a moment comes when an instinct deep down in your gut appears to caution you, take the opportunity to follow it's lead. I've also been taught that if, in any circumstance either complicated or simple, you ignore this magic feeling, dooms-day will come and strike you because you were foolish enough to not follow the damn feeling. And what do you ya know? I ignored the damn feeling.