Savior in the Dark
Leaves kicked up as he cut through the forest. Boots crashed just as heavily as the booms of rifles pierced the air. His shoulder was hot from blood soaking through his tunic, and Ryan was tired. He had been on his way home, so close now to the settlement his pack called theirs. His stomach had growled, days having passed since his last hunt...
It was just a pig. A sow no more than to years old. But he had been too hungry to think that the pig's owner would be home. With friends.
He hadn't had the chance to shift, forced to keep running on two strong legs. As he'd cut through a clearing, they'd clipped his shoulder. It was enough to have him slowing down, enough to make his head spin. All he could hear besides the guns, the shouts behind him, was his own blood pumping. Ryan leaped over a fallen tree, but failed to notice a branch some feet away. He tripped, hit the ground, and rolled own the hill. What caught him was a tree. He let out a loud groan as his back cracked against it. A normal human would have been done, but he staggered to his feet.
He ducked under a ledge, or rather - fell under it. Scrambling to get his pistol, he laid on his pack. He could hear them, still on his trail. Mind growing hazy, Ryan grunted, thinking he had to have caught two bullets, judging from the pain. He slumped, thinking this might have been it. As his eyelids fluttered, he thought he saw a mountain of a man coming over his way. The shouting had ceased. He fought to prop himself up, but it was no use.
The scent was the last thing he reocgnized. It wasn't human, wasn't a wolf. "B-bear...?"
and then he was out cold.