Protection
The moon was full. Listig and a pack of werewolves were resting in wolf form following the end of their third night of revelry. Most of the wolves were in a large throng, a pile almost in the center of a clearing. A few were in smaller groupings a bit away from the main group. Everyone wall curled up with at least two others, all except Listig that is. He was alone on the edge of the clearing. He laid his head on his paws and tried not to feel too bad for himself. He’d been left out and shunned for most of his life with this pack. It was not the one he had born in to. No his mother pack had been slaughtered when he was just a pup. He could just barely remember his mother as she had been alive. But her death he remembered vividly. It had been a night not unlike this one when hunters had found their small pack and slaughtered everyone but him. He had survived because he had been covered by his mother’s dead body and large leaves from a fern. Listig had been found and adopted by a family friend, a member of another pack. He was grateful to his adoptive mother, but she couldn’t keep her pack from treating him like a leper. They thought him cursed, because he was the only survivor and because he had a white streak of fur running from his nose to the tip of his tail. His eleven year old self thought that was poppycock, but quite a few of the members of this pack still, years later thought he would bring ruin to them. He’d been called förbannade, cursed, instead of his name more often than not by some of them. Tonight he’d decided to ensure his adoptive mother got to enjoy herself more. He’d insisted he’d be ok if she joined the main group. He’d lied and said he’d managed to get a couple others to spend the last bits of the night with him. Listig let out a huff. Being him sure sucked sometimes. Gunshots rang out and shook Listig out of his thoughts of self pity. He watched horrified as silver bullets sped from guns in the hands of three men. Within seconds every wolf in the main pile had been shot. Listig shot to his paws and started running away from the clearing, away from his life coming crashing down around him again. He ran hard and fast, fueled by adrenaline for a long while. When he slowed down and listened he didn’t hear, see or smell, anyone pursuing him. He didn’t let his guard down though. The hunters had somehow gotten the drop on the pack, so they had obviously found a way around the weres’ wolf senses. Listig kept running a bit slower for sure, but still moving away from where he had just survived another massacre. Eventually he came to a town. He’d somehow managed to not run in to any homes until he got to a street that housed a pawn shop. Listig raced to the door and ran right in to it, hoping against hope that his impact would open it.
