anything and everything

Feral Ahri

Age 15, a few months after her house burned.
~~~

Ahri pressed her hand into the wet earth, leaving a handprint in the mud. Why were there no tracks? There should be tracks. This was a hunting trail, she was certain of it, but she couldn't find prints of any animals. Ahri wrapped her arms around her stomach as her hunger pains demanded to be satisfied. She needed to eat.

Ahri leaned close to the earth and took a deep breath but it was the same as yesterday, the same as the day before, the same as every day since the accident. There were no scents. She couldn't smell the trees, the water, the mud. More importantly, she couldn't smell any prey.

Ahri clenched her fist and brought it down into one of the puddles beside her. She was splashed by it but she didn't care, the rain had already soaked her. It started shortly after she began her hunt but she refused to quit. Tears slowly fell from her eyes, mixing with the rain that ran over her skin.

She had been hunting for almost ten years. Even in the dead of winter she could dig up field mice that had burrowed deep under the earth or locate a hybernating squirrel in its nest. Now in the rainy season of spring, when baby animals should be easy prey littering the forest, she couldn't find anything. The only thing Ahri had caught this week was a little mouse that she'd given to Mocha. Ahri hadn't eaten in nearly two weeks. She often chewed on grass or sticks in her kitsune form to try to numb the pain but it never worked for long.

Ahri wasn't certain how long she sat there for but the rain began to lighten so she got to her feet. She wiped her hand along the rough bark of a tree to clean it of the mud and wandered back towards her camp. She had found a small cave that she could crawl into in both forms. Mocha was left there alone while Ahri hunted. Ahri didn't like to leave her alone but Mocha was too young to hunt. 

Ahri began the walk back to the camp slowly. She had to conserve all the energy she had or she wouldn't be able to hunt when prey was available. She'd come out again after the rain stopped. When the birds started to sing again, other animals should come out of hiding as well.

Ahri was only a short ways from her camp when a loud yowl broke the peaceful silence of the forest. Mocha!

Ahri broke into a run and burst through the trees to her camp in time to see Mocha get pinned down under the hands of a large male. A woman to his left grabbed Mochas tails and pulled them flat before raising a knife to chop them off.

Ahri didn't think, she didn't panic. She felt a surge of energy and a nasty snarl ripped from her throat, starting the humans. Ahri ran forward and tackled the women to the ground, the sudden blow knocking the clever from her hand. No time was wasted as Ahri lowered her mouth and bit down on the women's neck with all her force. The woman grabbed a rock from the ground beside her and hit Ahri over the head with it, kicking and struggling to free herself.

Ahris head throbbed but she didn't release her hold. She sunk her teeth deeper into the woman's throat, enjoying the warmth of blood flowing over her tongue. It tasted like... Meat. A new hunger took over Ahri, a new desire. She would protect Mocha. They were going to eat weak tonight.

Ahris hands pressed on the woman's shoulders before she violently jerked her head side to side. She wanted more blood. She wanted to eat. It was so warm, so thick, she needed more.

The woman's screams were gurgled and silence as she chocked, her second strike with the rock much weaker than the first yet Ahri had forgotten about the second male.

She heard the deafening bang of a gunshot before she registered the searing pain across her back. She dropped the woman, knowing she had lost far too much blood to survive. The woman still gasped for breath, clutching at her neck as if there was any way to save herself.

Ahri got to her feet and stared at the male that frantically was trying to prepare his gun for another shot. He'd missed every vital organ, he'd skimmed Ahris back for fear of shooting his own wife. 

Ahri hardly felt the pain as adrenaline coursed through her body. It wouldn't stop her from moving, just a little graze. A little bloodshed of her own was a small price to pay for a meal this size. Ahri had once hunted a young buck by herself. He'd kicked her in the shoulder and nearly broken it but the meat she feasted in had been worth the pain. This little injury was just a payment for the prey that was about to fall.

Stop him from standing. Stop him from shooting. Feast.

Ahri ran at the man though she was not aiming high as he expected. He picked himself up and went to aim for her head as Ahri dropped to the ground and dug her claws deep into his ankles. She remembered what her father told her.

If you cannot catch a prey that keeps running, sever the tendon in their legs. They will fall and you can make the kill.

Ahri grew her claws out, making several deep cuts and severing his Achilles tendon. Ahri rose to her knees and drove her elbow into his back, knocking the man down on his front. She grabbed the gun from his hands and flung it away from her into the forest.

The man pushed up with his arms, trying to force her off, to get up and defend himself. Joints were always so vulnerable. Ahri had fallen once and knocked her shoulder out of its socket. Extremely painful, surprisingly easy to fix. Ahri pressed her knee into the man's back and pulled back harshly on his arm until she heard the satisfying crack and knowing she had dislocated it. The screams of the man were ignored as Ahri grabbed his other arm and did the same. No arms, no legs. Her prey was defenseless but Ahri wanted more. They had dared attack her family, dared raise a gun in a starving kitsune. They had caused her pain, she wanted them to suffer. She wouldnt kill him. He didn't deserve that mercy.

With a sick grin Ahri called Mocha over, her little sister coming out of the den. "Come, eat with me."

- - - -

When Ahri awoke the next morning her head was pounding and for a short while she didn't remember what had happened. She left mocha to continue sleeping and walked out of the den. When the sun touched her skin she realized she was still covered in blood. Two bodies lay on the ground near her den. One a woman, untouched except the torn flesh on her neck and a puddle of blood below her.

The other a man. There were no injuries on her neck or over other vital organs but that was all the more sickening to see. The man was half eaten with no mark of a kill. Ahri and Mocha... They'd eaten him alive. They'd let him bleed out as they feasted on his flesh.

Though Ahri felt sick thinking that she realized she did not feel guilty. She wasn't going to starve, Mocha still had her tails.

Ahri picked up the clever thrown in the mud and looked at the glint of the metal as she turned it. She then knelt beside the man and got to work cleaning her kills.

Why waste good meat?