Blood Moon

Chapter 7 - The Return to the Clan

I am suddenly awoken by Riley, and he seemed a bit panicky.

"We're late! We slept in!"

We quickly woke up Jerrad and rushed back to the UCF. Everyone seemed to have left. Mr. Bub sat outside his cave eating a fish; while Mark tried to pester him to get a piece.

"Well it's about time, I thought that you guys left already; the only ones still here are Mark and me, Lyra and the other foxes, and you three", Bub said to us, "I also felt nice enough to pack your things for you."

Bub pointed at our three bags, so we grabbed them and put them on. I looked and saw the possums and skunks still cleaning up last night's meal. The foxes were laying down on some rocks next to the cave.

"Well, we'll see you next full moon Bub; we have to get back to make sure Asher hasn't invaded our territory, or our own clan hasn't ripped each other apart", I say quickly to Mr. Bub.

"It was nice having you here, I hope you had a good time and learned something?" Mr. Bub says.

"Don't worry, I learned some stuff and had a good time."

Mr. Bub and the remaining UCF members waved goodbye, and we started on our journey back home. The passenger pigeons that landed earlier were still there were still not scared as we walked through. The first field we walked through where the buffalo attacked Jerrad and me were back but stayed away from where the conflict had happened. The trip had run smoother back to the clan rather than to the UCF; our traveling speed dramatically increased so we could get back to our clan faster. By the time it was evening, we were between our denning area and our clan borders so we found a group of collapsed trees to sleep in for the night before getting to the denning area to see everyone.

"Hey Drake, I've been thinking," Jerrad says making sure he's not speaking loud enough to wake Riley.

"You're thinking, you never do that, unless you forgot a joke" I jokingly say.

"I'm serious, I've been thinking about your fight with Asher. When you attacked him, I thought I saw something in your eyes, like maybe a reflection of light moss, and then fire, but when I looked closer the color was fully covering your eyes like you were using your full rage to fight him."

"You probably saw the reflection of moss and fire," I say quickly," When staring at Asher in that moment I could see the moss and fire behind him as we circled each other."

"Ya but your fighting style changed too, when you first started it was your normal tactic, use agility to get away from an attack, and then strike, but it changed after he bit you. You then used brute force to beat him, it kinda scared me, to be honest." He says as he sits up to look at me

"I'm sorry it scared you, after the bite, my mind kinda just went hazy and I wasn't thinking. It actually scared me too", I say while turning my head towards him, "I'll try not to let that happen again."

"Thank you, it'll make me feel better to know that you have control while fighting", Jerrad says while laying back down and going to sleep.

"You're welcome, I'll learn to control it... even if it kills me", I say closing my eyes and heading into a deep sleep.

I woke up to a sound outside of the tree fort we were sleeping in. I looked at the others but I guess they didn't hear it, so I tried waking them up. I was going to pat their shoulders but my paw fazed right through their bodies. I freaked out for a second before hearing the sound again. Before leaving the sleeping area, I looked back to see if they would wake up but they didn't.

As I walked out, everything was different, the forest turned into the plains, short to tall grass, no other animals around, but out in the middle of the field was a big slab of rock, and on the rock were pillars; 6 pillars. I jogged over to them to see if they had any writing. Each one did, the first one I looked at, had a name from my clan and a different word for their job. It said," Jackson, Guard." I walked to all the others and they had, Jackson and Jack: Guard, Rhianna: Medic, Riley: Peacekeeper, Jerrad: Mindful Jester, Ben and Bailey: Elder, and then Franky and me. The pillar for Franky is different because his name is faded and mine is under his, with the word leader above it. On the stone I'm standing on, the stone has a circle engraved going around in front and the pillars.There was also some writing on one side "Blood's Round Table", I have no idea what it means, so I ignore it for now. As I walk around to study the pillars, Riley's start to glow and I can hear his voice calling my name. I get closer until I'm about a foot away. Then everything goes dark.