Face to Face

Luka looked at his watch constantly, counting the seconds ticking away. The time read four-thirty-three. The static from Ari's radio suggested that nothing meaningful happened. Yet.  

   As the moon stood in the sky, the air thickened with humidity. A certain mood of dread hung in the balance as the crossbow rested in his hands, waiting. Sweat trickled along Luka's olive skin, camouflaged by the darkness of the night. 

Then it happened. A vicious roar pierced the night, crows flew from the sky as a shiver violently ran down his spine. He shuddered, and he didn't even see the beast. He knew it was an alpha; he just knew. 

   It wasn't even a minute later before a coarse of howls soon followed after. Luka was quiet for a moment before taking a deep breath; this was always the most nervewracking time... when the beasts came alive. Ari's radio went from static to nothing as Luka quickly climbed a tree to get the best view of the night. His breath came out in huffs as his eyes scaled the forest surrounding the plateau. No beast was in sight, and Luka wasn't sure if that was a relief or a horror. 

   He walked along the thick tree branches, his footing never wavering. Then it happened. He then heard a hoarse yelp, begging for mercy without the need for words. Luka started to maneuver his way through the tree branches towards the source. The air wooshed by him as he skidded towards a sudden halt; his eyesight catching the mere blur of a beast. The black fur nearly was hidden, but, with having done this for such a long time, Luka saw the beast resting in an open patch of land in its full glory.

   His breathing was quieted as his father's words haunted him. Luka grasped the crossbow and started to line up a shot, but nothing sent terror down his body more than what happened in a fracture of a second. 

   The monster turned and stared at him, right in the eyes. Its breath remained heavy, saliva dripped around its muzzle. Yet, surprisingly, no blood was spotted on the monster that sat before him. 

   Within a moment, the beast had lunged itself towards Luka. It startled him as he was slammed along a tree trunk, his back cracking in the process. Fear overtook him as his crossbow fell helplessly to the ground. Luka was forced to look face to face into the beast's eyes. The gold shone brightly, but there was still humanity within them. Luka wanted to scream and thrash, but he was so trapped within those eyes and so that he remained frozen, both in fear and in admiration. 

   His body refused to cooperate with him. What once was being frozen with fear now led to his hand reaching to feel the fur of the monster; it reeled backward from the sudden movement, and they both noticed that the weight of the branch started to creek underneath them. 

   Luka's body finally awoke from its trance and he sprung into the action as the branch started to split apart.

   "Run!" He shouted as the beast seemed to recognize this dangerous situation as well. Luka jumped from the branch and proceeded to land awkwardly on his ankle. He hollered in pain as the branch soon fell on him to add insult to injury. He attempted to stand up, but pain radiated from his ankle up to his leg. 

   "Fuck!" He shouted into the air as the beast that once stood there was nothing but thin air gone into the night.  Luka started to crawl his way to his crossbow, but he was stopped by the buzzing of the radio going off. He reached and saw that the radio was half busted due to the weight of his fall. So many curse words came out of his mouth that a sailor would have been put to shame. Yet, he was able to hear the half coherent words of his cousin begging to know what happened to him.

   "Luka?" The radio screeched in static, hurting his ears in the process. It took a moment for Luka to collect his thoughts, his hand raising to touch his face as the pain in his leg continued to radiate throughout his whole body.

   "Luka, do you report?" The radio talked brokenly as Luka managed to hit the button to be able to speak.

   "I report. I have been ---" Attacked? Luka scoffed at the idea as it seemed far from it. The beast, as bloodthirsty as it may have seemed, looked more or less curious.

   "--- injured," he finished as he dropped the radio, yelling in the process as his entire left leg throbbed in agony. All he wanted to do was just shout into the night sky and feel no judgment whilst doing so.

    Frustrated. Hurt. Angry. 

   That's how he felt. Luka wanted to grab the radio and chuck it into the woods, but blood was leaving his body fast as a new wound made its way into his mind, his head. 

   His hands grasped and felt around for any sort of injury, and it remained on the side of his head. A nasty scrape cut its way from his ear to halfway up his scalp. 

   "I'm on my way, give your coordinates," Ari radioed as Luka looked towards his half broke radio; it was supposed to give coordinates on the side that was completely dismantled. The radio was a small handheld device that acted as a walkie talkie and compass combined, and what remained was a somehow working piece of trash. 

   "I can't," Luka huffed in agitation as he once again attempted to crawl to some sort of pathway.

   "Why not? Found some good treasure you want for yourself?" Ari half-joked on the other line, but Luka was beyond livid.  

   "No, you fucking idiot! My radio is busted, and I am out here with a broken fucking leg and a concussion!" Luka screamed into the radio as he pounded his hands on the ground in utter frustration. 

   The night was once again calm as monsters roamed around freely; Luka, for once in a very long time, was absolutely terrified. Though he might mask it in rage, he was nothing without his weapon or even a bit of confidence. 

   "You're a fucking hopeless idiot. I will get my men on it, just try to conceal yourself and we will be there as soon as possible. You know your dad is going to be pissed at ---" Luka chucked the radio away in fury. It tumbled roughly ten yards and the last bit of energy seemed to drain away. Luka defeatedly laid down among the squashed grass and let out a long sigh. He wanted to punch something, but he knew that he had to save his energy if he wanted to survive the night. Whether it was due to the roaming lycans or due to bacteria that would want to enter his wound, Luka knew it would be a very long night. What he didn't know was that a pair of eyes watched him and his every move. 

---

   What was once a young college girl now was a monster woven between the life of the night. The lycan, formally Katrina, was nothing but spectacular to all that saw it. It knew that it was a force to be reckoned with, and it wanted nothing but utter respect. Through the woods, it traveled, but not once did it crave the need for blood. Instead, it looked for its pack. It ached to lead to the point where panic surged through the eight-foot beast when it could not find its family.

   The lycan only grew more agitated with the howls echoing throughout the night. It knew it didn't belong, and it wanted to traverse across the lands until it could find its home. Yet, something within it knew that its home would be nowhere close to where it resigned. 

   The beast had hidden in thick trees when its ears perked up at sudden commotion coming from only meters away. The strong nose detected another Lycan along with its prey, and the beast was tempted to find the two in order to dissect what was going on. With only a few quick leaps, the beast encroached the other lycan cornering a little deer cowered within the crook of a few trees. It also smelled the faint scent of another creature tucked away within the trees. With a quick glance, it caught a gentle flash of a human hopping from tree to tree, like a little jackrabbit crossing across the plains. The beast was taken aback by the grace the human ran with, but disgust made it bear its canines as it saw the crossbow strapped to its back. The beast took note as the human swiftly taking it out and lining up a shot. 

   The other lycan then stopped and peered in the direction of the beast. The beast let out a quiet roar and made an expression of fury if it dared to kill any form of life within the perimeter. It was even more outraged when the monster took note of the human and crashed him into the trunk of the tree.

   The beast just about roared into the night, but it remained patient. Besides the fact that its sharpened claws had clenched around a smaller tree trunk, crushing it in the process. The beast laid the small tree down quietly to not draw any attention away from the human. The other lycan had looked at the human, and the minuscule creature, even within fear, managed to hold a hand to its face. That was before a large CRACK broke through the quiet of the night and the human crashed to the ground, what was left of the wood falling into him. The other lycan had fled towards the beast's direction and the two shared a brief before it had run away in order to join the rest of its pack. 

   The beast watched the human struggle and go through fits of rages before giving up entirely. It waited a minimum of ten minutes until it decided that the human had fallen asleep. Despite being equipped to kill, the beast had walked over and kept its eye on the human who had closed its eyes and rested quietly. The beast loomed over the human and felt a claw go to graze the side of its head. It was stunned to see blood dried and flowing out of a wound. Immediately, the beast sniffed around for any other scents but none were fresh. Following its instincts, the beast curled its large claws around the fragile human and lifted it with ease. 

   The human grumbled, but the injuries to its body were too severe for it to awaken in a conscious state. The beast had carried the human to the nearest pathway, which, in reality, was roughly one football field away. The beast once again sniffed around for other scents and picked up multiple new ones that were coming it's way, fast. In a frenzy, the beast placed down the human in plain sight and gave one last glance before fleeing into the woods. 

   Despite its massive size, the beast moved with the grace of a ballerina. It crossed through the forest at a rapid speed as it crossed multiple critters on its way, most of them utterly terrified at its mass size of the beast. It soon came to a stop as it spotted multiple other lycans gathered around hunting for some sort of prey. When the beast came around, unveiling itself in the moonlight, it collapsed.

   The sound radiated within the small gathering, and a lycan, another alpha, had launched over to the beast. It let out a small whimper before allowing the beast to transform back into a small, frail girl. The girl lied there for a moment before the beast covered her with its massive frame, letting out a roar to anyone who dared look her direction. 

   The night lingered for a while longer before the sign of dawn started to awaken. The beasts let out one last cry before the sun started to rise. The alpha female had taken it upon herself to cloth Katrina in large robes and get her set in a small tent that they had set up the night before.

   Unbeknownst to anyone, the ramifications of that night were already among them as dawn rose.  

End of Face to Face