Family

The night was almost over. He was feeling tired. He had been running for nearly sixty minutes, but he could not stop now. Light would soon break through the clouds and there would be nowhere to hide from the Hunters.

He sniffed the air and found the scent picking up. His prey had moved back towards him. It was just a few hundred feet away from him.

He approached indirectly, using every bit of foliage available. His ears picked up the sound of something drinking water, just beyond the next treeline. He crept up to a very large bush, waited a second, then snuck inside it. His eyes peered out through the other side and he saw it. A young buck lapping up water from a small pond in a vast clearing.

He crawled out of the bush and crept up towards his prey. He closed the distance as quickly and quietly as possible. It had no idea he was there.

At that moment, the light shone through the leaves of trees on the other side of the lake and into his eyes and the eyes of the buck. He ducked down, hoping to stay out of sight, but the light betrayed him. That, and a shiny stainless steel locket that he wore around his neck.

The locket reflected right back into the buck’s eyes, which immediately froze. Any sign of movement would send it running. One of them was going to bolt. So he ran first. With a low growl he leapt out of the grass and bounded towards his prey. The buck turned tail and bolted for the trees. He was just about to reach his prey when he slipped and tumbled into the pond. When he surfaced, the buck had vanished from sight.

He growled in disappointment. A whole hour of hunting, wasted in an instant. To soothe his frustration, he took long sips of water. He shook the rest off and began his march back home.

The way back was easier in the light of day. He no longer needed the cover of the forest and was content to traverse across an open field. He thought he saw a large animal, but upon second glance, realized it was an overturned crate. It was clearly abandoned. All the same, he was weary. He did not wish to have an encounter with the Hunters.

He was only an infant when they had killed his parents. Too weak to walk, suckling the sweet nectar of life from his mother. His eyes had not yet learned to see properly. He first heard the footsteps, then the strange voices he could not understand, the growls from his father, the sound of thunder and the howl of his mother. Then he felt himself being picked up by a large smelly creature and blacked out.

He had woken up in an unfamiliar place. It was as large as a forest, but it had no prey and was surrounded by a wired barrier. Inside, there were four more of his kind. Two of them were adults and one of them a youngling, an orphan like him. She called herself Willow because of her soft and gentle nature. One day, a female Hunter entered their enclosure. She smelled different than the ones who had killed her father but he loathed her still. In his mind, all Hunters were the same. She greeted all of them as if they were not enemies, and picked him up like he was her babe. She had given him a name but he did not care for it. He was too young to remember what his parents had called him but he would not take a name given to him by a Hunter.

The adults she did not pick up, but knelt beside them. To his bewilderment, they licked at her face with affection. He asked why they did not attack her and escape. They said it was because she had saved them, just as she had saved him. He did not feel that he had been saved. He felt that he had been robbed of everything.

The Hunter continued to show up, with crates of meat for him and Willow. One day, a whole winter after his capture, the female Hunter placed a locket around his neck. She said the locket belonged to her son, and now belonged to him. He was not surprised. The idea that a Hunter would so willingly cast aside her child made perfect sense to him. Soon she would cast him and the others aside as well.

Sure enough, one day she stopped coming. In fact, no one came to see them. The Hunters had no doubt gone off to capture and kill more of his kind. Over the next few years, he heard that same thunder that had killed his father. That and the sound of burning flesh and terrifying screams. It seemed to be happening everywhere.

Without the Hunters providing food, the adults, Anya and Nyko had to venture outside the safety of the enclosure to find prey. They had not hunted in years, but they always brought home enough for everyone to stay alive. Then one day while they were out, there was a thunder so loud it shook the earth itself. The whole sky changed colour from light blue to a crimson red.

Anya and Nyko never came back after that night.

The next day, the two orphans began taking turns venturing outside to gather food for each other. He would go one day, and Willow the next. The outdoors were terrifying. There was carnage everywhere they went. Entire forests burnt to the ground. There were also a lot of corpses of the Hunters. Their bodies were mostly charred or mauled. Among these bodies there were always a few of his kind. The hunters had stopped hunting them. They were now killing each other over them. Truly, their greed and malice knew no bounds. And while most of the Hunters had perished, there were still a few roaming about.

He had a close encounter only a year ago. He had wandered too far from the barrier in search of a rabbit. He was just about to nab it when he heard the deadly thunder. The bolt zipped right past him, singing the tip of his tail. He never saw where it came from but the Hunter could not have been far off. Willow needed to go on a hunt for two consecutive nights while he recovered from the trauma.

Over the years, He and Willow grew closer together. Now they were expecting a child. In her current state, Willow was unable to leave the enclosure. This meant He had to do all the hunting for the three of them by himself. There was no one else who would be able to do it. Certainly not the Hunter who had abandoned them.

Having reached the big road, he decided to rest for a minute. The road remained unchanged. Just the same three metal moving crates much like the one on the field, but larger. Two of them empty, and one of them overturned and containing the remains of a Hunter’s arm. It was one of the few victories that his kind had had over the enemy.

Seeing the arm made him think of the meat he could have gotten earlier. He cursed the locket around his neck. It had cost him and Willow their dinner. But it was more than that. It was a symbol that had no meaning and all meaning. It represented an attachment that he had for his family; for Willow, for his parents. Not for the Hunter who had wrapped it around him.

He realized he was getting lost in thought again. Willow reminded him that he could not afford to get distracted out in the wild. He quickly surveyed his surroundings. It was the same as usual. A clear sky. Empty road except for the three metal crates… three?

His eyes darted left. There was a fourth crate. A big black one, the size of two bears. It was in the distance but it had definitely not been there before. And it was moving. His hair stood up. Hunters. They were heading right for him.

He had not seen a crate moving in a long time. It was fast, definitely faster than he could run. He had to get off the road and into the forest. It would not be able to follow him there. He turned tail and ran to the other side. To his panic, he saw the crate swerving towards him. It was closing the distance. With one last effort, he leapt off the road into the trees.

Unfortunately, he had forgotten the steepness of the ground. As he landed, he desperately tried to stop, but there was nothing for him to grab onto. He slipped and tumbled down the ravine, slamming right into a tree. There was a flash of pain in his body followed by darkness.

He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t move anything. He could only hear the sound of the crate roaring to halt. It was happening all over again. The sound of footsteps. The sound of Hunters coming for him. And he was helpless.

But he had to get up. He couldn’t just lie here. He had to protect Willow. He had to protect his family.

The footsteps were getting louder. Closer. He had to get up.

With all his strength, he forced himself to his feet. His head was still ringing. He needed to get his bearings before it was… too late. He heard a voice. They had found him.

It was over.

His eyes opened to see a lone female hunter standing a few feet away from him. She was staring at him, as if admiring her prize. He was in no state to fight back. But maybe he could scare her off. He growled as loudly as he could, bared all of his teeth.

“Dakota?”

He froze. That name. He had heard it before.

The Hunters’ language had always been unintelligible to him. But he recognized names. It was how the Hunters addressed Anya, Nyko, and Willow.

And Dakota. That was his name.

She approached him cautiously. She stopped just a few steps from him and knelt down. She beckoned for him to come closer. He did, and she touched the locket he was wearing. She fiddled with the locket for a second, and it opened up. Inside, there was an image of him back when he was just a pup. And she was holding him with a smile.

It was her. The female hunter who had found him all those years ago. But she was not a hunter. She was the one who had fed him and cared for him. The one who he thought had abandoned and forgotten him like all the others. And yet, she was right here. And she recognized him instantly. She had loved him all this time. He had never loved her back. But now, she was here again. She had come back all this way for him.

She held out her arms and Dakota walked right into them. It was a warm embrace. For the first time, he felt happy to be with her. She walked back to the black crate and opened the back door. She motioned for him to come in. Her words were still unrecognizable to him, but her actions explained everything.

They marched up the ravine, back onto the road where the black crate stood. She grabbed a part of it, and opened a door. Dakota stared at the entry, and then at his mother. She smiled again and motioned for him to follow. Almost as if she were saying: You don’t need to be afraid anymore.

Dakota walked up and hopped into the seat alongside her and they made their way back to the Sanctuary. She spoke Willow’s name and he barked in delight. After so long, they would be together again.

Just as all families should be.