Ran as fast as I could. Hoping I was travelling straight, further away from all the others. It was difficult to know for sure. I looked to the starry night above, but I had no knowledge of the constellations to help me find my way. My dad had tried to teach me when I was young, during nights spent as a family, on a picnic blanket, stargazing. All I cared about back then were the stories that went along with the stars, not identifying them in the night sky or navigation.
The sound of others grew louder and fainter. I wasn’t sure how much distance was between them and me; only that I had run and run the entire night, scared by my own shadow, spurred faster by the sound of breaking twigs and the crunch of leaves under my own paws.
I was exhausted. I had started the night exhausted. I felt it in the pain and lactic acid build-up in my muscles, in the way I tried to run, but despite my best efforts, I had slowed to a trot.
I had no choice but to stop and rest. My legs, even with four of them, would not carry me further without rest.
My tongue was long and annoying and hung from my muzzle as I panted. It was dry and sticky, and I had accidentally bitten it more than once.
In school, they taught us about the shift: how our bodies would tear themselves apart and reconfigure, grow anew; how our senses would be amplified; how we’d be able to run and jump and see and hear and smell like we never could in our human form. But there was no lesson on how to manage an absurdly long tongue. There should have been.
For a moment, once I stopped, I could hear only my own panting and the rapid beat of my heart. But gradually, other sounds came to me. Scuttling sounds of small creatures across the ground and other similar sounds higher. I looked up without thought and caught a glimpse of a squirrel's eyes watching me, the poor creature, statue-still at my movement. I wouldn’t harm it. The hoot of an owl, the flap of a bat's wings, the murmur of running water.
Water.
I needed water.
I’d never been so thirsty in my life.
I listened carefully, pushing myself onto shaking legs and following the sound, until it was loud—until I saw silver moonlight dancing on inky black.
The river wasn’t very wide; maybe thirty feet, give or take.
I lowered my face into the water and lapped it up greedily.
It was freezing. The kind of cold that was refreshing after hours of running without stopping.
I enjoyed the taste too. Fresh. Natural in a way that tap water wasn’t and bottled water claimed to be.
Water was tasty.
Water was distracting.
I heard the sound of something snapping; it was too loud to be rodents or small mammals.
I lifted my muzzle from the water and became a statue like a squirrel.
I scanned everything I could see without moving my head.
There were only the sounds of the water and the forest.
After a while, I laughed at myself, creating an odd sort of chortling sound. I was paranoid, hearing things. I went back to lapping up water.
Until it happened again.
Once was my imagination, but twice…
Above the treeline, the dark night sky on the horizon grew a lighter grey-blue.
The night was almost over.
How ironic was it that I had made it so far, for so long, only to lose the game of cat and mouse at the last moment?
Snap.
Too loud to miss.
Too close to ignore, to pretend it didn’t happen.
