A Friend At The End Of The World (Pt 4) by JamesIronwood on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

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Published: Oct 8, 2018

Literature Text

After our mishap at the library, the three of us decided that maybe we should leave the city center and move outwards towards the forest. We wandered around the outskirts of the city for a day or so, and oddly enough never saw another living thing. Kind of made me a little paranoid if I’m being completely honest. Surly not everything had just up and left, right? It just didn’t feel right. About the time we decided to call off our wandering, we made it to a clearing just beyond the forest boundary. “It’s been a long day, why don’t we take a quick break here?” I ask. “Not a bad idea,” Aurora responds. “I agree. My legs are starting to hurt anyways from all the walking,” Spitfire chimes in. The three of us sit down and rest for a few minutes. However, once I go to get up, I swear I heard a few voices in the distance. “Ok, am I going crazy, or is someone out there?” I ask. The wolves both take a quick listen. “No, I hear that too,” Spitfire responds. “Should we go see what it is?” Aurora asks. I nod, and we set off towards the voices.

We eventually make our way to a grove of pine trees, where the voices begin to get a little louder. I slowly peak from behind one of the trees, and at first, I’m slightly surprised. Two men are just standing there talking to each other, then one of them kicks something in front of them, and I hear a small whimper. I move closer to see if I can figure out what the noise came from, Spitfire and Aurora following right behind me. I gasp when I finally figure out what it was. Another giant wolf (seriously, how is it that I only ever find wolves out here? I ask myself), only this one is bright blue, with purple fur on its underbelly and yellow eyes. My surprise quickly turns to anger when I discover that the poor creature is stuck in a bear trap. “So, what do you think we should do with this one?” I hear one of the men ask. The second one shrugs. “Hell if I knew,” he replies in a gruff voice. “We got sent here to find us a bear, not some dumb dog.” He then turns back to the wolf and kicks it in the side. The wolf just whimpers again while the two men laugh. “Let’s just go back to the camp. We’ll grab our guns and come back,” the first man says. “who knows, maybe we can use this thing as bait to catch us that bear.” The men quickly run off, and that’s where I made my move. “Stay here,” I whisper to Aurora and Spitfire. “I’ll see if I can get the trap of its leg. You two make sure to warn me if those guys come back.” They nod, then I creep over towards the trapped wolf. As I’m walking over, I step on a stick, and the noise alerts the trapped animal. It turned its head towards me, and my heart almost broke. Its eyes were filled with sorrow, and it almost didn’t care that I was there. I quickly made my way over to it. “It’s ok, I’m not gonna hurt you,” I tell it. “I just want to get you out of this thing.” I quickly grab a thick log lying on the ground and quickly pry the trap open, trying carefully not to put the wolf in any more pain. Once the trap is open far enough, I jam the log into the gap, giving me enough room to move the wolf’s leg out of the trap. The wolf just lays there in complete disbelief. “Can you put any pressure on that leg?” I ask it. “We need to get out of here before those guys come back.” The wolf looks down at its leg, then back at me. “I don’t think so,” it says in a quiet female voice. “It hurts too much.” I nod, then quickly signal for Aurora and Spitfire to come over. “See if you two can help her stand up,” I tell them. They nod, then try to help the blue wolf to stand. They manage to succeed, and we start to make our way out of the clearing. “Thank you for this,” the blue wolf says. “I should probably introduce myself. My name is Saphira.” I look quickly behind my shoulder to make sure we weren’t being followed, then look back over to Saphira. “I’m James. This is Aurora and Spitfire,” I tell her. Saphira smiles. “Thanks again for the save back there. I was sure those two were going to kill me,” she says. “Well, that was the plan, but then you had to go and get yourself rescued,” a gruff voice says from behind us. I turn around and see the two men, guns drawn. I quickly pull out a pistol from my pack and aim it at them. “I’d drop that if I were you pal,” the other man says. “We got you outnumbered.” I hear a couple of snarls come from behind me and watch Aurora and Spitfire move to either side of me. “What, we don’t count?” Spitfire asks them. The two men look at each other quickly, then look back towards us. “Hmmm, I guess you have a point. Maybe we just kill that blue one and call it a day?” the second man says. Saphira growls at them, and then I notice her leg. Much like when I met Aurora, her leg had healed very quickly. She stands up and walks over to my left side, next to Aurora. “I don’t see that happening,” I respond. “Screw this, let’s just kill this guy and get out of here,” the first man says. The three wolves let out a series of savage snarls, making the two men jump. “You so much as aim those things at him and we’ll rip you both apart,” Aurora says. The two men just stand there for a moment. “Ah, to hell with it. This ain’t worth our time.” The second man says. They quickly turn and run off. I breathe a sigh of relief. “Let’s get out of here before they decide to bring some of their friends back with them,” I suggest. We all quickly run back towards the city. By the time we make it back, night had fallen, so we take shelter in an abandoned coffee shop. I sit up against the back wall, the three wolves snuggling up to me. The four of us quickly fall asleep, waiting to see what tomorrow would bring us.