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A short story that just kind of poured out into my keyboard one evening, fuelled by the feeling of being trapped by life and hemmed in by civilisation.
I'd like to think this will feel evocative to a lot of therians.
Content warnings:
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It's eleven at night and now the music and shouting are shaking the floor.
Tired and head full of fuzz from a day full of noise, and I have had it with everything!
So okay, fuck it, and fuck you, and whatever, and out into the night.
There's no sense left to make me stop for anything, I put on shoes on the way out just from raw habit.
And now - I won't admit to myself - I'm just a bit glad, because it was warm all day but the night is cold air and sharp stars.
I take a path, any path, and I have no idea what's in those shadows and I'm sure more than a t-shirt is usually recommended, but I'm out and that's all that's in my head.
There's not much room with so much fuzz taking up space!
The line of mud bends uphill and all I hear is pant, pant, as my body wonders what happened.
Trees well up either side and the trail turns to a wallow, bred of recent showers and a hundred feet.
I'm splattered and soaked, and if there's a horror out there in the trees, I won't see.
Best not think about that.
Try to unthink what I just thought, too late!
Nightmares multiply.
A semblance of sense cries, “Turn back! Turn back.”
Bad luck for reason though, that wire is shot, collateral damage in an encounter with civilisation.
I am a machine for one thing only: legs bend, muscles fire, lungs inflate, oxygen circles.
Steps are taken, heedless of reason or logic.
What is mind, what is thought? All that is me is a marking of time.
So it goes.
For a while, at least.
Eventually, I wake up, or something runs down, enough to ask what on Earth I think I'm doing.
Did you pick up your keys?
Did you lock the door?
Is this safe, does this help?
Uhhh... no? no. maybe?
The voice in my head is silent again, in shock or amusement, I wouldn't know.
I slow the machine, helmed by a mind once more, and wonder.
But the seed of the madness is still there.
It's a human glare.
It's a human smell!
It's a city of rot, even if only I seem to tell.
The logical thing to do now, of course, is to turn round and figure out where the hell I am.
I mean, it's not like I'm that fit, or move that fast, so I can probably find some landmarks.
For some measure of “logical”, I guess?
I can't do it though.
I've had it with measure, I'm so restrained I'm bound up in invisible shackles.
I feel like I must be 100% sensible choices by mass by now!
Add one more reasonable decision and I'll explode into a miasma of lukewarm smiles and careful, “I don't want to be a nuisance, but,”-s.
So I keep going.
If there's no such thing - scientifically speaking - as hell, then logic be damned!
Lights recede.
Muscles complain.
Where is this? There is no one to reply.
The darkness is viscous. Portentous.
Some old buried instinct spins up, blowing off a thousand hours of dust left by my brightly lit office, “Danger! Danger!”
Well screw you.
I'm here on following-my-gut orders, and now my gut can't stomach it?
Come on, there haven't been bears or anything else but men on this stuffy little island since history was new.
“Have there?”
I'd give the voice in my head a solid glare, but my eyes won't roll round far enough.
With the boost my senses get from the fear, I can feel the depth of the silence.
All I hear is my own clumsy crashing.
All I see is faint light on bark.
I'd turn back, if I knew where it was now, but it's well and truly gone so I plough forward instead.
It wasn't what I intended, but I move faster, then faster, away from the bears that aren't here.
If this were a horror story there'd be a root to trip me, but there isn't, and I'm still accelerating.
Can I outrun the dark if I'm fast?
Can I run onward 'til morning?
But I'm not fast, and time is mostly imaginary while my endurance is very much not.
Logic must have left a while ago now - so very sensible - so I'm flat out through the gloom.
Trees spiral past, and I throw myself along hoping not to test my theories about trunks being solid.
Running from humans, or am I running from bears? They're kind of the same if you squint, and don't get enough air!
The darkness must be very fast, or very stretchy, because it's still there, right in front.
I think of the humans, the noise, and I growl and keep going.
I want out! Away! I don't care!
My anger flares to a snarl, and I dig hard at the ground, push it faster, imagine claws leaving scars.
Out, out, out!
Imagine tearing free of this body, this groaning machine.
Stretch longer, and smoother, and faster and faster!
And the forest runs past, flowing quicker and quicker, the power of thought?
I push into the image: fleeter and lighter, sleeker and sharper.
My air is long out, I double over in pain with colours dancing before me, but I will not stop.
Enough is enough, all out, all in!
The ground's getting closer, not ideal when running, so I put my hands forward to pull me along.
Imagine more talons, get me a grip, but something's amiss.
The trees are still moving, quite quickly indeed.
The colours are weird, but I feel less winded than earlier.
Surely crawling should be slower, not better?
But here I am, four sets of feet springing smoothly inward and outward, bouncing the ground serenely beneath me.
I feel much better, like I've stretched some stuff out, just a bit more and I'll be really on top!
So I let myself lengthen and shorten, and lean into the smoothness, my claws slice below me, and my snout points in front.
And y'know, the forest isn't so dark, or so scary?
Perhaps I was the monster, all snarling and hairy?
I've been going so long, I think I could use a good nap.
Curled up, tail to ears, paw on my face.
It's so quiet here, it's really quite nice.
Best of all?
No humans.
Not one!