CHAPTER 0 – PART VI

I cannot believe she screamed at me! BECAUSE OF ME!!!

I'm the one who's terrified to see a beast person just casually walking about town. Why the hell would she draw attention to herself? I was just trying to be nice. I don't get it. What the hell is her problem?!.

I can feel my emotions flying all over the place: fight or flight, terror and confusion, curiosity, rejection, pain, frustration, annoyance... all mixed in with the exhaustion, hunger, and thirst I was already trying to push past. Everything exacerbating each other. I stand, stuck to the spot, slack jawed, and stare at her. Her shriek lasts for longer than I would have thought possible, certainly longer than I'd have the lung capacity for. I mean, of course she can scream like that, she's a beast person.

To be fair though, it's not quite a howl. Maybe she's not old or big enough yet to unlock that ability. What am I talking about? You don't unlock skills in real life. Even fantasy creatures in our world would just evolve to have a thing or not. Like how house cats can't growl like a tiger because they're too small, it's just a matter of how they've developed. Maybe her species just doesn't have the vocal chords for it.

While lost in thought, yet again, her cry of horror subsides. She takes one faltering step backwards, stumbles, and slumps to the floor. The light thud she makes flopping onto the dirt draws my attention back to her. She's pitifully sobbing; visibly shaking. I feel wretched.

I start moving towards her very slowly, diverting my gaze, reaching one hand out like I'm trying to let an animal get a sniff of me before I pet them. I know all this is what you do when you're trying to befriend a cat. I only really know cat behaviours. We have one, fat and affectionate little thing, and there's a few that live in my neighbourhood too, way more tough. No one really has dogs near me, but I assume this kind of non-threatening behaviour translates to a few species. I can't really work out what kind of human animal hybrid she is though. Kind of just, nondescript beast person sums her up best. Not like a bigfoot or a werewolf or a catgirl or whatever... I guess I can ask if...

...and I guess there won't be an if!!!

I'd started clicking my tongue and kinda cooing at her as I crept closer, saying calm things like "Oh, hi there. Who's a cute little beast girl. Oh, yes you are. You wanna be friends? Is it ok if I pet you? Go on, get a good sniff. See, it's ok. I'm not a threat. We're good, right!"

Honestly, I always forget how creepy baby talk is until I see someone doing it to a random animal in public... or an actual baby. It baffles me that the universal instinct for people when meeting a new animal is to treat it like that. Reminds me of that graph showing the correlation between proximity to cat and a decline in human intelligence. I think it's something to do with cute things causing parental instincts or something, but I was never really interested in psychology stuff.

Anyway, by the time I shuffle myself half way back down the street, she must have finally been able to hear me over her sobbing. She lets out another shriek, head down, gripping the grass by her sides, then starts scrabbling back away from me. It's enough to stop me in my tracks and I realise I'm making things worse.

That's when I heard it...

Shouting.

The same shouting that had been chasing me earlier.

Louder.

Closer.

Just as angry.

Just as hard to make out.

I'm still too tired to run away, so I jog to the far corner again, and check round it. No one seems to be coming that way. I look back at the beast girl one last time, the shouting coming up the hill behind her, back round the corner I'd come from. The corner I nearly ran into her from, where she's still sat on the floor, where they'll find her, and our eyes lock again. She's so scared of me. Absolutely terrified. But... but not of the people investigating her screams.

Wait, has she not noticed? That psycho who attacked me for bumping into him would probably kill her.

Before I even realise what I'm doing, I'm sprinting back down the road. I slide along side her, grab her by the shoulders to lift her to her feet, wrap one arm around her to keep her up and the other free to fend off her attempts to scratch me, and march us back up the the street so we can start threading our way through the alleys again.

She's almost as tall as me, but lighter than I thought she would be. Not as muscly either. She kinda just feels like a normal girl. Must still be a pup.

The shouting seems to be getting closer. We're not moving very fast because of her struggling, but at least she's not hurting me with her attacks.

"Can you not! I'm sorry for screaming in your face earlier, but right now I'm trying to save your life! You hear that shouting?" nodding over my shoulder "They've already attacked me once today. If they find you, they'll hurt you too. So, please stop fighting me. Let's just find somewhere to hide, ok?!."

She stares into my face in utter confusion, but she seems to understand the urgency of my tone.

Maybe the shift in fear from her to the people after us has made her realise there's no reason to be scared on me, or at least less of a reason. She doesn't respond, but her struggling stops, and she actively tries to keep up with me. I guess she doesn't speak our language, but her instincts are pretty sharp. There's a bigger bad behind us, enemy of my enemy, and all that...

We wind through a few more back streets, trying to stay diagonal from the shouting, but they seem to be keeping pace. At least they're no longer gaining on us. I start scanning the buildings around us for a short wall to jump over, a garden to cut through, a shed to hide in, something, anything... I start panicking a little.

I feel a slight pinch on my free arm. The beast girl peels my hand off her shoulder, taking me by the wrist instead. She takes off at a trot, just a little faster than we've been going, and leads me further up the hill. We actually make it to back of the village, only the steep slope of the mountain rising up behind the final few buildings. She pulls me along a narrow gap between two walled properties, both of us having to slip through sideways. On the other side, she stops.

We take a minute to listen. She pats her clothes down, no longer holding my hand, but doesn't run away. We wait while the voices get closer, following the route we took like blood hounds. I spot some shadows loom at the far end of the street on the other side of the gap. I don't dare pull my eyes away, squatting down on instinct to become as small as possible, waving at the beast girl to come look too. She crouches down right next to me, but a full head above. Her chest hovers above my head and I can feel the heat coming off her body.

I tense up completely.

The wait is excruciating, but I need to see the guy chasing us. I need to see the face of the person who attacked me. But, having a girl, even a beast girl, this close to me, is hard to handle. I've never really been this close to a girl before, and remembering that I had my arm round her and was holding her hand only a minutes ago, I start blushing and want to scrunch my eyes closed.

I blink away the most intense part of my embarrassment... and steal a glance up at the beast girl.

God I'm pathetic, but she really does have a cuteness about her.

NO!!!

I can't be acting up right now. Focus!

I nip the fleshy bit between my thumb and index finger. It brings me back to my senses, just in time to see the giant barge round the corner.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!.

No wonder she wasn't scared, that damn thing isn't human either.

I slowly look up, half expecting a fist or foot to be on it's way to greet my temple. A turncoat springing their trap now that reinforcements had arrived.

What I wasn't expecting was to see the beast girl go pale. I honestly didn't think it'd be possible to see a creature go pale when they got light downy fur on their face, but the colour drained out of her as if the world had suddenly turned black and white. She was more scared of him than she'd been of me.

It was shock when we'd bumped into each other. Adrenaline and the unknown.

It is pure animalistic fear paralysing her now, like a rabbit in headlights. She knows him. She's scared of him. She knows what he can do, what he has done, and is terrified of being found, here, now, with me.

I reach up and take her hand.

She jumps slightly, but doesn't even let out a yelp.

She glances down for a second. Lets the smallest of smiles reach one side of her mouth, then it passes. Her eyes drawn back to the gap. To the source of her fear beyond.

I look back too.

He's gotten closer. Really slowed down. I assume he knows the area and that it's a dead end on that side of the gap. He must be taking his time to check every nook and cranny, every potential hiding place. We both pull away from the edges a little, trying to make ourselves smaller and less noticeable. Unable to stop watching. I can finally make out what our pursuer actually is.

He's no farm worker.

Not some country strong human.

Not even another beast person.

He's an orc... and he's huge.

It wasn't steel toe capped boots he cracked my hand with earlier either. He's wearing a mix of metal and leather armour, but his boots are entirely shod in black dirt caked iron.

I grip the finger I felt crunch earlier. The pulsing in it like a homing beacon, tracking the orc's advance. I've never had a broken bone before, but I'm pretty sure this is what a broken finger feels like.

My leg cramps up.

I grit my teeth and try not to groan. I'd been squatting in an awkward position, not moving for far too long, and hadn't realised the creeping ache in my tendons and thigh. Lowering myself onto my left side, away from the gap, I keep as quiet and as out of sight as possible. Every time I nearly slip or topple, I stop, brace myself against the wall, wait a moment, then ease myself down a little more. I actually start crying silently from the pain. Holding my shin so that my leg can't just shoot out like it wants to. The combined pain of my leg and my finger start to block out literally everything else; static filling my vision, blood rushing in my ears.

I make it to the floor.

I slowly let my leg straighten, trying to keep it off the ground so that it doesn't scrape on anything.

My mouth opens, letting out a silent scream, as I clench my eyelids shut against the pain, and then draw a long quiet breath. I want to pant. I want to shout and cry and writhe about, but I know I can't. I know I have to hold it in to keep us safe.

I recover enough to look up at the beast girl.

She's staring down at me in comprehending pity, it seems she's been watching me for a while, then her attention snaps back to the gap.

I hold my breath, watching her expression turn grim.