(4)

Late at night, Cecil ran through the forest with all her might.

Though she technically hadn’t slept for well over 24 hours now, she strangely didn’t feel especially sleepy, nor even the exhaustion of her muscles burning after running that same morning. She had pondered whether this came as a result of her dying and waking up again, but at the moment, she didn’t have the luxury of stopping to think.

When she tried to sleep, Cecil could do nothing more than lay down on a pile of leaves. She lacked the skills needed to climb into a tree or make any temporary shelter, but discomfort was nothing new. The howling that woke her not long after she began to doze off, however, carried a primal fear.

Under the light of the full moon seeping through the treetops, she sprinted even as she tripped and stumbled over roots and branches, motivated by the impending death stalking her from behind.

Her right foot caught on a vine, and she fell to the ground, rolling forward and trying to scramble back to her feet, but her ankle refused to support even her meager weight. Now, the wet snarling came from directly above her.

Rolling over, she came face-to-face with a colossal black wolf. Standing over a meter tall and three meters in length, although it was nowhere near large enough to swallow her whole, she could easily believe the children’s stories her mother had once told her about small children who wandered alone being devoured by the monsters.

Worse, a second wolf, identical in size but slightly gray-blue in color, was approaching from the side. Not that she realistically stood any chance even when there was only one. An adult man could easily be mauled by these things, were he alone.

The black wolf lunged at her as she tried to slowly pull away, biting down on her injured ankle. She heard the wet crunch of the bone breaking inside the animal’s bloody mouth.

Crying out in pain, Cecil desperately kicked out with her other leg, striking the wolf in the head, trying anything to get it away. Surprisingly, blood flew that wasn’t only her own, and one of the fangs caught inside her shin bone snapped at the root.

Just as quickly however, her moment of relief vanished as the monster only grew angry, not fearful, its gaping maw no less intimidating with one large fang missing. This time, both wolves bit her legs simultaneously.

Screaming in horror, Cecil felt the ground, trying to find a stone she could at least swing, yet found nothing except leaves. Miracles did not happen twice. Both creatures began to pull her legs apart in opposite directions, lifting her halfway off the ground, twisting her feet in their jaws, until with a final sickening crack, her entire right foot tore off and vanished into the black wolf’s mouth.

Satisfied with its prize, it stepped back and began to crunch the limb inside its mouth, entirely unconcerned with the bones it was swallowing.

The second gray wolf, however, was still gnawing on Cecil’s leg, every single tooth feeling like a hot knife stabbing through her skin as it tried to tear off some meat of its own. She reached forward, now trying to shove the lone wolf off her leg.

Faster than she could react, the gray wolf had dropped her leg, and, her balance suddenly flipped over, caught her outstretched arm inside its hungry muzzle. The next second, those jaws snapped shut, tearing her left arm off at the elbow.

For a moment, Cecil stared at her bloody stump, her brain failing to process what had just happened, before the building pain overpowered the adrenaline, and she began to scream in agon once again.

Both wolves now stepped back as they cracked and crunched and chewed through her flesh and bones, temporarily sated by the meal, but Cecil could do nothing but sit and watch them eat, her attempts at pushing herself along the ground drawing a crimson trail along the grass.

She made it barely two meters by the time both monsters had swallowed, closing the distance with just a couple steps, drool dribbling from their mouths as they hungered for more of her.

The black wolf tore her other leg off halfway down her thigh. The gray wolf took her entire right arm at the shoulder. Now that they were aware she was incapable of resisting, they happily took much larger bites out of her.

With all four limbs devoured, Cecil fell flat on the ground on her back, looking up to the moon as a growing pool of her fresh blood soaked into the soil. Now, she could truly do nothing except cry and whimper, unable to even lift her head to look up at the predators killing her, only listen for the regular sounds of crunching bones and squelching flesh.

At least she was caught by one of the few things which would not try to fuck her first, she thought idly, as the wolves began to take thick bites out of her torso. Her hips and crotch were ripped apart by one, her womb and guts swallowed by the other, and they only continued alternating bites quickly from there, until her entire body vanished from the forest floor. It was the gray wolf that got the final bite, unable to fit her entire head in its mouth, so its strong jaws crushed her skull and pulped its contents before devouring the entire meal.

Neither skin nor bones remained of Cecil, only blood-soaked scraps of cloth scattering in the night wind. Thoroughly gorged, the wolves walked off in search of a cave to digest their meal.

Despite everything, Cecil woke up before dawn, alive and fully intact, though her hard-won clothes were obliterated, and not coming back.

Looking down at the spot where she had just died, she cautiously picked up the razor-sharp fang she had accidentally broken off in her struggle. Whether or not the small prize was worth the price of this fresh memory of being ravenously eaten alive by wolves, only time would tell.