North, East, West & South

Chapter Seven: The Beast

His paws pounced on the ground sending a quake up his spine. Sweat running down his hairy face like a waterfall as his heart punched its way out of his chest. He couldn't breathe. Panting, he leaps over logs and thorny bushes and his eyes ran around the woods alert. He grabbed the tree barks for support leaving behind claws marks that were deeply engraved into the tree. One by one his blood dripped from his forehead and a gun wound on his shoulder. Bark! Bark!! The hunters' dogs raced after him, barking at the top of their voices. The hunters' guns roared through the sky and air piercing through trees in an attempt to hit him. He took a glance behind him but saw nothing but smoke and dark figures running around. He's whole weight on his hind legs. Quivering and shaking he kept running. His vision was shaky but he refused to die. His fur was soaked in his own blood and behind him was a trail of blood and it drew the hunter's hounds closer.

"Catch him!"

"Shoot him!"

He went down and ran like a beast he was and leaped high and far as the bullets went past him. Few missed, few scraped his skin while the rest plunged deep into his body cracking and breaking his bones. He fell from a cliff top ahead after one of the bullets hit his right hind leg and he went tumbling down. The hunters were persistent and some stood up there shooting at him as him went down while the rest found other ways down to finish him once and for all. The rocky grounds grinded him and screamed in pain as he rolled down. He landed on a pointy rock that tore through his skin splitting his spinal cord in two and the bullets hit him in the stomach. Blood oozed out from every part of his body. His green eyes were ready to give up and let go of his grip on life. Fear captivated his heart, his situation was hopeless and the woods were surrounded by hunters and blood hounds. He struggled to drag little amounts of oxygen into his lungs but they seemed to be clogged with blood. He was bleed internally and externally, he reeked of death and blood. He laid on the big rock with his eyes flickering to close but he struggled to keep them open. His mouth was wide open exposing his sharp fangs and bleeding tongue. His fur was ruffled and rough and he felt death nearer and nearer. The rock suddenly cracks a little and the breaks off sending him down the rock filled hill at an alarming speed. His head was hanging from the side of the rock and it banged and smashed into rocks along the way. The rock clashed with another sending him high into the air.

"There he is! Shoot!!" A hunter in a red hat with red beards and a bald head yelled out as soon as he saw the beast in the air. His companion aimed at him with a pistol but missed.

"Move aside rookie!" The hunter shoved him to the left and aimed at the beast with his good old trusty rifle which his father and his grandfather used to hunt back in the day. The hunter is well known for his accuracy, he never misses a target. BANG! The bullet went tearing through the beast's collar bone. "Yes!" The beast fell and landed heavily with a loud thud into a river heading for a waterfall. His blood entwined with the river intoxicating it with his fluids. He couldn't move and the river took him away his whole body has been brutally damaged.

I won't survive this one...

He thought to himself as he felt his soul slowly drifting away. He was tired of fighting and was ready to give it up.

"Kavax, no!" A woman's voice cried out.

His eyes quickly widened just right before he went over the waterfall. The hunters ran further down the woods but their dogs got there first. The pressure of the waterfall crushed him deep into the river but he swam up enduring the pain of his broken body. His right paw clenched to the soil and his claws went in deep to ascertain a firm grip as he pulled himself up from the river which was surprisingly deep. He could hear more of his bones crack and break. Coughing out nothing but water and punching his chest heavily, he looked up to see several blood hounds growling and flashing their sharp fangs at him. He wasn't a werewolf or any beast known to man. His crooked and twisted yet sharp and pointy horns protruded from his forehead. He had two long, sharp fangs sticking out at his upper gums and two below. His body was heavily adorned with a lot of thick, dark brown hair. His long tail all soaked and wet laid on the ground rolling on the sand. Drops of water and blood dripped from his drenched fur. His body heals itself but due to the excess wounds and damages on his body, the healing process slowed down at very low rate. He had to survive and avoid getting injured again. The dogs pulled their hind legs backwards in place, ready to attack. He couldn't see well since blood covered his left eye making the image he saw all red half way. A hound with cracked teeth leaped at him, knocking him down and biting on firmly onto his fur. He jumped on his feet and struggled with the hound but it tore through his thick fur with his teeth and claws. With a swing he slashed the face of the hound and watched it fall flat on the ground bleeding slowly to death. The hounds became more agitated at the death of their comrade and howled loudly to respect his bravery and honor. He was struggling to breathe, to stand, to live but everything in the woods were determined to kill him. The hounds lashed out and pounced on him, all at once. Their teeth sank into his skin from different parts of his body. Five bit and dragged his tail from behind. He flung as many as he could away and some hit trees and rocks but even wounded they still returned. They seemed more determined than him.

"Arrruuuh!" He howled in pain and anger and with the bit of strength left in him he shook them off and ran deeper into the dark part of the woods but a few dogs still held on and kept attacking him as he ran. The pain course through every part of his skin was unbearable. His feet quaked but he kept running and wiggled his tail till the hound biting onto it fell off and hit a heavy aged log. The hound suffered a major concoction. Two more held on to his left and right shoulders tightly and he had to lose them. He ran and tilted to the left smashing the hound on the left into a tall tree but also struck his left shoulder on it too and stumbled down a small hill till he hit the ground with broken spine and heard more of his bones shatter.

"Ugh!" He twisted his neck trying to see where the last dog was but couldn't see anything and so he laid back hoping to heal up faster before he eventually dies. ROFF! ROFF!! The dog leaped from the hill and attacked him as soon as it landed on him. The dog seemed more persistent than the rest and its teeth were sharper too and it tore through him rapidly and rabidly.

"Roooar!" The beast roared sinking his sharp fangs into the dogs head ripping it right of its body and blood pumped out like water from sprinklers. More blood spewed on him as he spit the partially grinded head of the hound out. The head rolled away in to the dark mist that surrounded the woods. He stared straight at the tree tops in exhaustion. He suddenly hears people running around. He tilts his hairy head over to his left and saw the hound's chewed up head roll back to him. An eye from the head popped out and faced him.

"Ughh!"

Moaning came from the mist but he couldn't quite see what was making it. It might've been hallucinations due to the severe damages he has suffered. But then a foot proceeded from the mist and it was disgusting. The skin was rotten and decayed with bugs and worms crawling out of the leg with strange green liquids that reeked. He was too weak to stand but turned around and laid on his stomach trying to stand to his feet but couldn't. He was a sitting duck for whatever that was about to emerge from the other side. DUM! DUM!! The loud footsteps became louder. The legs came forward and he saw the legs were in vintage blues boots with holes in it. As the legs approached, a toe fell out of the hole in the boot. He looked up to see a dead man wearing a torn blue royal outfit and on his head bald decayed head was a rusted and dented old crown. He had no nose and his skull could be seen from behind. His wrinkled hands had worms slithering around on it. He had a gold ring on his middle finger and it had the royal family's crest. Behind him was a decayed woman with a dented crown on her head. Most of her hair had fallen out and she had no nose as well nor lips. Her skin was severely torn and her royal cream gown was covered in blood and was ripped apart at every corner. Her body was exposed and that was how he saw her wounds. She was wearing a wedding ring with a blue diamond on it and it was still reflected the sunlight that made it look shiny. He had seen those rings before and their outfits suggest they're royal bloods.

"Mom? Dad?"

"Kavax, you have shamed the royal family." The dead man was King Hugh Edmond and the other was Queen Seraphim.

"I'm sorry; i-i-it was my fault." He kept forcing himself to stand but just couldn't. The more he attempted, the more his bones cracked and it was excruciatingly painful. He cried out in pain and fell flat on the ground.

"You're a monster, you deserve to die!" His mom screamed at him. Suddenly more dead people that were still somehow alive emerged from the mists. He stared at his parents with so much love hoping they would have mercy but the dead have not heart and can't be compassionate. He rolled over and used his right arm to drag himself on the dirt hoping to get away. Dealing with the hunters was much better than being killed by his dead parents. The dead were everywhere and then hands popped up from the ground and grabbed on to him. They pulled him by the tail and his legs. His muscles stretched causing him more pain as he bled more. His parents glared at him with empty eye sockets. The dead hands in the ground had a firm grip on and they pulled him slowly into the ground. He held onto a rock as soon as his legs had went in but then his mom walked up to him and smashed her crown on his head bruising him more while his dad stomped on his hand and it slipped off the rock.

"Mom please don't do this."

"I also pleaded with you but look at me now." She smashed her heavy crown into his injured eye.