Chapter 3: Chapter 2

I was jolted awake by the sounds of snuffling and the rustle of leaves nearby, my mind clearing up from the post-sleep haze and the post-too-much-blood-lost haze. 

Stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid, my mind went. I should've known better! How can I just walk a bit and just lie down under a bush, away from my territory?! At the very least, I should've marked this as my new territory! 

Glancing down at myself, and finding that I was actually in my defenceless two-legged form, I quickly shifted back into my quick furry form and tensed, waiting for the ambush. 

I knew from experience that it was at night that the truly dangerous furred and scaled and whatever-they-grow begin hunting. They were the ones with the claws sharp enough to cut stone, the ones with a hide tough enough to withstand the claws of the ones who can cut stone, and the ones who can spit fire and control water and do things I have no idea how they do it and- I stopped that line of thinking.

There was no point in scaring myself here. Right now, I need to concentrate on the noise.

And, to my expectations, the big, horned maw of a tough one poked out the bushes, just next to me. 

I was out of there the moment I saw the tip of its horns. 

Attack it while it was -slightly more- defenceless? Only if I wanted to go cold a death from being trampled! 

Stay still? Cold from being trampled!

Play dead? Cold!

Don't even entertain that thought, me! That's how you go cold! I could try to shift into a tough hide, but I would be too small anyways. I would just be a smaller, slower, weaker, version of it. 

Besides, for whatever reason, when I do shift into forms other than my two-leg form and my quick furred form, it always takes longer, and it always makes me much more tired than the other two forms.

So I don't shift into other forms. To be anything but my best is to go cold.

I could hear its hoofs as it runs after me, and gradually, I hear the hooves of all the other tough ones' hooves.

Another thing that makes them even more deadly is that they like to travel in groups. They also have very, very sharp fangs. Like a quick fur, but slightly flatter at the back. They also liked to play with their prey.

The best way to escape them is to climb a tree. 

But there are no good trees nearby to climb.

I had been instinctively running in the direction of my territory, but I forgot that trees are sparse there (Another reason to expand it), and that it's actually more like a clearing with some berry bushes and skinny, tall prickly trees.

But, tough ones don't stay in one spot for long, so I would live so long as I find a suitable tree to climb.

I recognized where I was going. I was heading straight towards the big furred one that had attacked me earlier. Suddenly, even though I was escaping from a group of tough ones, I thought of something. What if I lure them to the den of the big furred one, and then get the two to try to cool each other? And then while they're doing that, I'll run away quickly back into the now cool long slimy one's territory, and climb the tree she kept smashing me into?

As much as I hate to admit it, my territory was probably the smallest there is, the long slimy one's being the second. The both of them were small enough to be encircled by the big furred one's territory. The only reason the long slimy one's and my territory exist is because the big furred one was too busy sleeping and eating berries to cool us. The long slimy one just didn't need that much space, while I was just weak. I longed to grow just like the real quick furry ones. They also moved in groups, like the tough ones. 

They were all bigger, tougher, and stronger than me. And while they weren't as tough, quick, and strong as a tough one, they ran for much longer, their fangs were sharper, and their jaws stronger. That was what I wanted to be like. If only I had never had a two-leg form, and was instead born into a group like the quick furred ones. 

No, my mind was wandering again. 

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I had almost reached the big furred one's territory.

I wonder, why hadn't any other ones thought of my plan?

I entered it.

I ran.

I ran.

My legs were so tired.

My jaws had begun slavering long ago.

I had lost feeling in my paws.

I ran.

I ran.

There!

I see it!

The den dug into the roots of the fallen down tree!

I could hear the hooves of the tough ones behind me. They could sense that they had entered the territory of something.

They were slowing down. 

I was there.

I gave a loud bark towards the dark hole under the fallen tree.

I heard the growls of the awakened big one.

Then I turned to the right and loped back from where I came from, making sure to stay away from the fight, and away from the other territories.

I couldn't run anymore. The recently healed wounds had begun aching and hurting. It felt like my skin was tearing itself apart. But I can't stop. I need to get to the long slimy one's -now mine- territory, and to a big tree. Any big tree. Why did I want to go back to the cold long slimy one again? Oh no. My tired haze is settling in. That's why my thoughts were like this. I need to quickly sleep.

Spying the closest tree to look like it might hold me, I shifted into my two-leg form, because my quick furred form can't climb.

Settling in on a sufficiently high and thick branch, I slept. It was hardly my first time sleeping in a tree, after all.