Page 4 of Untamed

The pool is interesting enough to make the disappointment fade. It's deep. The water must have been making this hole for years and years, maybe even hundreds of years. Woah.

Reaching down, I touch the surface of the water with my fingertips. It's warm, but when I get brave enough to plunge my arm in, I feel the icy cold just inches below the surface.

"Holy goddess," I breathe. I plunge my whole arm in, feeling the sides of the pool, but I can't feel the bottom. What if it goes down hundreds of feet? If I fell in and sank to the bottom, how long would my body fall? Weirded out by the thought, I take my arm out of the water.

I'm cold now, standing around in a dark cave with an icy-wet arm, in nothing but my loincloth.

Time to go, I guess. I turn around and find my way back to the bend.

The scream of fear shatters the muffled drips and drops of the cave. My entire body jolts, adrenaline rushing to the surface. I take a step and trip. My head hits the rock wall, and all I see is black.

2 - The End of Tarkik

Tarkik - 11 years old

My eyes feel crusty. Blinking, I open them slowly. Ithurts. My head is pounding as hard as Pa hammers the meat for winter storing.

Groaning, I sit up, my hand held to my head. It's pitch dark, and I panic.

Where am I?

It takes a minute to remember. The cave, the pool, thescream.

Stumbling to my feet, I feel the drip of liquid down my forehead. Blood, I must have knocked myself good. I feel dumb, but that scream is all I can think of. Maybe one of the females saw a snake? Yeah, that must be it.

Now it's so dark in the cave that I have to make my way out by feel. Luckily there aren't any real twists and turns, but it is a long distance before I can see the opening.

It's night, almost a full moon, so the night sky is bright enough that I can see the forest outside the cave when I'm still twenty feet away.

The scent hits me, invades my nose, making me gag. Blood. A lot of blood. It smells like a slaughter. My own cry of fear now echoes in my ears. I stumble to the mouth of the cave and lose all feeling in my knees.

"Eoff," I whisper.

Eoff is lying in a pool of his blood. Sightless eyes stare up at me. A deep gash across his throat tells me that he was killed quickly and mercilessly. An unshifted pup to the claws of a wolf shifter.

Choking out a sob, I reach out and touch my friend's cheek. Cold. He doesn't feel real anymore. Standing, I look around for any others. Anyone, really; Skylar and Greta, the killer, myPa. I feel guilty, but I really want my Pa, even more than I want to find out that Skylar and Greta are not hurt.

Once I get to my feet, I manage to break into a wavering, wobbly jog that eventually turns into a sprint. As I get closer to my village, I smell smoke.

And blood. More blood.

I'm sobbing when the village comes into view. Huge gulps of air, choked off by my tears. I wipe the back of my arm across my face. Snot and tears cover me. I don't care. I just need to know what's happening.

I see bodies. My feet slow, caution finally ripping through me. There are bodies here, some on paws, some on feet, a lot of them aremypack. Goddess, my pack isdead.

I creep around the outside of the village, searching for any familiar face that isn't dead. No one, there's no one. Part of me wants to run away, deep into the woods, to hide in the trees and pretend as though I never saw any of this.

My stumbling feet carry me home to the packhouse, or what used to be the packhouse. Blackened timber smolders in still-red ash. At first, I'm not sure that this unrecognizable place is my packhouse, but then I see the bodies.

My Father. My uncles. My cousins. I suck in nothing; no air can make it into my lungs. My knees are shaking again, shaking, shaking, until I can feel my teeth rattle in my head.

The bravest, strongest males I have ever known are all skewered on long stakes in a line of death in the center of the village. My eyes fall away from their bodies, only to be snagged on something shiny, cerulean blue. My mother is next to my Father's feet, her pretty dress torn to shreds around her body. She looks like Eoff, with eyes staring sightlessly up at the moon. I can't look at my mother. She's naked. I turn my eyes away.

Oh, goddess, what do I do? Looking around blankly, I see nothing. I hear nothing. The world is dead around me, nothing but silenced voices and the sound of broken timber creaking.

I sink to my knees in the dirt. I'm freezing cold. Everyone is dead. The attackers are gone. I don't see anything. This is a dead place, now.

And I am alive.

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