Umbral Feast

<~> Chapter 1 - Helena

I wiped the sweat from my face as I got to the top of the last hill. My body was burning up despite the cool night air of late fall. I took a short breather when I got to the end of the hiking trail that overlooked the city. I turned around and took in the glittering city lights in the distance and retied my long black hair. I clicked my flashlight off and slipped it back into my purse so I could take in the view.

This was my favorite spot in the entire city. It was pretty dark up here on the mountain but the trail was still open for another hour or so... give or take. Barely enough time for me to get back down before the park rangers gave me shit again. It's worth it to be up here after sundown though, the city glow looked so magical from all the way up here. I stretched my sore muscles. Training for a triathlon is no joke but I've never been in better shape in my life and it was really starting to show, I looked over my lean and muscular body with pride.

I sat down on a bench and thought about the progress I've made since I started training. I was starting to get kind of chubby after I lost my last job so I committed to getting back in shape by signing up for the city triathlon about six months ago. The training was grueling when I first got started but after a while, I got into the rhythm of it. I basically look like a completely different person now, I never thought I would be athletic enough to go jogging up mountain trails. The triathlon wasn't for another two weeks but I was already sure I would be able to finish, I wouldn't get my hopes up to place in the top ten percent or anything but part of me secretly thought I could do it.

"Helena, you'll never be able to run that thing! You're just a fat chick." I thought back to what my cruel roommate said when I first told her. What a bitch. It did give me the motivation I needed early on though, it's a bit funny to think that it was spite that got me through those first two weeks.

I took a deep breath and stood back up. I didn't want to leave yet but I didn't have much more time to dawdle. I slipped my phone out of my shorts and peeked at the screen, 11:40. Yeahhhh, I wasn't going to get back to the gate before the rangers gave me a hard time. I slipped my phone back into my pocket and pulled my little flashlight back out.

I stretched my muscles and started to jog back down the slope. I couldn't see all that much right now, it was a moonless night and while I could see the ranger station in the distance at the end of the trail, it didn't give off enough light to see much without the flashlight. I had been going for about fifteen minutes when I first heard it.

The loud growling stopped me in my tracks. I turned and looked around with my flashlight. If it was a coyote, it would be best not to try and run from it. I was better off scaring it away with the flashlight first. I was still panting from my run and the idea of fighting off a wild animal wasn't helping me calm my breathing.

I started yelling while trying to figure out where the growling was coming from. Even if I couldn't see it, hopefully my yelling would scare it away before it decided to attack me, coyotes can be pretty skittish.

My yell caught in my throat when I finally saw the thing that was growling at me. It was not a coyote.

My flashlight was looking at the legs of a giant dog, No, some kind of wolf. I could barely see the thing, it had pitch-black fur and the only reason I noticed it at all was because of the shadows it cast behind it. It had come up from behind me. My heart was racing now as my flashlight traveled up the monster's huge form and settled on its face.

Giant eyes reflected the light back at me and long strands of drool fell from the creature's snarled teeth to the ground below. I gasped and tried to slowly back away. Whatever this giant wolf was doing here, I doubted a little bit of yelling was going to do anything to scare it off. ...Maybe it was just protecting something, puppies maybe... I was better off just slowly backing away. A tight grip on my heart told me that it would chase me down if I tried to run.

For a moment I thought it would let me go. It hadn't stopped growling but it didn't follow me as I backed away... at first.

I had walked this trail maybe a hundred times by now. It was bumpy but there shouldn't have been anything huge to trip over, yet I somehow managed to find one of the few loose rocks and fell onto my butt and rolled backward through the rocks and gravel. The moment I lost my footing my flashlight slipped out of my sweaty hands and rolled down the trail away from me.

Those eyes. They didn't stop glowing when my flashlight left its face. Bright white eyes in the darkness were still watching me. But only for a moment. The creature howled into the sky and before I knew it I was running. I don't even remember scrambling to my feet but now I was sprinting as fast as my legs would take me. I couldn't see anything other than the small park ranger station in the distance much too slowly getting closer.

Pain blossomed in my right arm as the giant dagger-like teeth sunk into my flesh. I didn't cry out in pain, no, I screamed and wailed my fist into the giant monster's head instead. It felt like punching a concrete wall but I didn't stop, adrenaline pumped through my veins as I tried to fight it off as hard as I could. I felt blood pouring out of my arm, it felt cold against my burning hot skin.

Its piercing white eyes illuminated the monster's head so I aimed my fist at one of those huge glowing eyes.

A stray thought entered my head about being unable to feel the ground. I only processed that I heard the thing yelp after I realized I had been thrown through the air.

I landed hard on my side and had the wind knocked out of me, the contents of my purse spilled out everywhere. Those white eyes still followed me but the left one had dimmed. The eyes raced over to attack me again as I rolled onto my back and without intending it, blocked the creature's giant head with my arms while it tried to snap at my face.

The wolf monster dug its giant teeth into my left arm but the pain didn't even register, I reached around next to me, looking for anything that could do something to it. I found something hard and tried to bash it into the side of its head but the thing broke against its huge teeth. I reached around again and found a familiar handle. I flicked the snap and pulled my survival knife out of the sheath and tried to hack into the monster's neck to get it off of me.

More blood than I could have imagined sprayed onto my face and I suddenly felt like I was sinking into the ground. The hard surface under me disappeared and it felt like I was falling.

The ground reasserted itself again hard.

The air in my lungs was pushed out of me and blood poured all over me. There was so much blood that I was forced to swallow mouthfuls of it just to taste air again. My eyes burned as it got into my eyes and I coughed as I cleared out some of it that had gotten into my lungs. I was coughing, trying to clear my airway when something heavy landed on me and I was knocked out.

***

It was pitch black when I woke up again. I could hear a trickle of water. Like a stream.

My body hurt.

Something was crushing me and I couldn't see anything. I felt around and eventually realized what had fallen on me. The monster.

...I killed it?

I tried to move my arms and legs, it didn't feel like anything was broken. I could still move everything, my hands, my feet. But I felt like a giant bruise and it kind of hurt to breathe. I tried to push and twist my body to free my limbs so I could get better leverage but the thing on top of me was just too damn heavy. I was pinned under the corpse of the thing that tried to kill me. The bastard was going to get me even in death.

I licked my lips and tasted blood. Who knows what kind of diseases I would get from drinking animal blood. I blinked my eyes and realized something. My face wasn't covered by the monster, I just couldn't see anything. It was pitch black here, there weren't any city lights, my flashlight was gone, there was no sun.

I listened to my surroundings. There was water and an echo. I was inside something? Had I been pushed into a cave? I didn't think there were any caves anywhere near the hiking trail I was on, how did I get here?

***

Time passed by. I had no idea how long I'd been pinned under this monster and had nothing to gauge it with. I still held out hope that someone would find me but it had been so long. The park rangers that gave me shit all the time would be able to pull this huge animal off of me. Someone would find my flashlight, my purse... me. Right?

I was starting to feel nauseous and the world began to feel like it was spinning. It felt like I drank too much and was getting vertigo but there was nothing to look at to help stabilize myself. I took a deep breath, or at least as deep a breath I could take while pinned under this giant thing.

I took inventory of myself. It felt like my right ribs and hip were bruised when I took that first fall. My right bicep hurt, no surprise there, the monster had bitten deeply into that, and my left forearm had deep wounds from when I tried to block my face. There was no way that wasn't going to get infected if I didn't get some treatment soon. My left ankle hurt, it doesn't feel broken or sprained but the whole area feels swollen. I could feel scratches all over my body from when I rolled through the dirt and everything felt caked in blood, I wasn't sure how much of it was my own though. On top of all of that, my entire body was sore like I had overexerted myself and all my muscles ached.

Strangely, despite all the time that passed I wasn't hungry or thirsty. I had been jogging and was out of breath when all of this started but I didn't feel even remotely thirsty. Maybe it was all that blood I drank? I laughed at the thought. That would be ridiculous.

My hands and shoulders were getting cold. I couldn't do much about my shoulders but I dug my fingers into the fur of the giant wolf to try and warm them up. Despite being dead, this thing was warm like a blanket lying on top of me.

After a while, I drifted to sleep.

***

I woke from the splitting pain that rooted itself in my stomach. The moment my eyes opened I vomited to the side. Now that I was awake I felt sweaty and freezing at the same time. I must be feverish. Do I have rabies? Is that a symptom of rabies? God damn it am I going to die from rabies? Or would I starve to death under this giant monster first?

I began to cry. I felt terrible. I felt broken and hurt. I'm drenched in sweat and I don't know where I am. I can't even see. I dry heaved, unable to get anything else out but the nausea remained. No, it got worse as time went on. I felt so cold, my body was burning up but I was shivering like I was sitting in ice water.

Then the pain. It felt like hot needles were plunged into my bones. It started at my stomach and crawled up my spine, down my limbs, and eventually my head. When the pain got to my skull I screamed. Maybe I was already screaming before that. My eyes hurt so much now, it felt like hot pokers were being forced into them. If I hadn't been pinned I probably would have tried to tear them out just to make the pain stop. It was too much. I couldn't escape it. I begged for it to stop. I begged to pass out. I begged to die. But eventually, I blacked out.

Saine

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