《Patchwork》


 Chapter 1: A Really Bad Day

    <h1>Chapter 1: A Really Bad Day</h1>


    <hr>


    Today was supposed to be a good day thought Kallias. Just another basic training excursion into the fringes of the monster-infested wastelands, it was supposed to be easy, not like this. Kallias suddenly felt a short drop downwards followed with a spike of pain in the remnants of his right eye socket.


    Damn wasp couldn''t it take it a bit easier flying, or better yet let me go. I''m clearly near the max weight it can carry thought Kallias.


    Currently, Kallias was being carried back to what he could only assume was the wasps nest. The way it was doing it was horrifying to him, it''s claw had skewered through the bottom of his jaw and was coming out of the now empty right eye socket carrying him using his skull as a handhold.


    He''d been in full panic mode for a good hour into the flight before he started to calm down and think rationally. He was still alive, that was a good thing. That also meant another thing, he had finally awakened his power. Normally this would be a cause of great celebration but today it only brought him dread. It seemed like he had awakened a non-regenerative semi-immortality power, a great power for a civi, but for a fighter or especially a person in his situation it was hell on earth. He''d never be able to heal, nor die short of special means, what those means were he''d have to get it tested. Luckily his version of immortality sealed up the injured areas of his body, thus no bleeding out, which was a nice boon. It still left an empty hole though he thought as he looked through the hole where his liver once was. You win some you lose some.


    But enough of those thoughts, now he needed to survive. To survive he needed to move which was currently impossible thanks the to sting of this bloody wasp. Mother fucker. At least he still had his combat knife holstered on his belt. Once he could move again it would work wonders killing this wasp.


    A breeze of frigid air blew past his body. Holy shit it''s cold Kallias cursed, it was below freezing and he was without a jacket. It had been ripped apart by the wasp''s attack, looking at the white snow below him made the cold so much worse. If he didn''t have a wasp claw through his mouth right now his teeth would be chattering up a storm. Fuck fuck fuck fuck! he thought as the pain coursed through his body again. After the pain had stopped he had a flickering thought Hmmmmm, I don''t usually swear but it does help the pain. Maybe I should talk to Teach about it when I get back if I ever do...


    His thoughts that were quickly turning dark stopped short with the appearance of an approaching cliffside that was dotted with many meter and half wide holes. As he got even closer he could hear a faint buzzing separate from the one above his head, confirming to him that this was his destination. With the increase of the buzzing, he again tried franticly to break free of his paralysis, he could wiggle his fingers slightly, it was wearing off, but not fast enough.


    The wasp flew directly for one of the holes in the cliff, once it got to its target hole it dragged Kallias inside causing a muffled screech of pain to exit his mangled mouth. His heartbeat immediately shot up in fear of what the wasp would do after his yelp, but to his surprise, it did nothing and continued bringing him into the dark nest.


    Eventually, the wasp brought him to a large hollowed-out cavern that was filled with rotting corpses of every kind, from bears to the occasional human. As he was brought in the smell hit him like a brick wall and bile rose from his stomach only to get swallowed down. With a casual swing, the wasp threw him onto the largest pile, at the same time ripping its claw from his head. This time he didn''t scream but his remaining eye watered up. As he lay there in agony he couldn''t help but think what an awful day.


    Time moved on, how much time Kallias didn''t know, in this dimly lit cave there was no way to tell, the only indication he had was his growing hunger and gradual loss of his paralysis. Surprisingly he didn''t feel sleepy, though it was doubtful that it was his power keeping him awake, it was more likely the terror he felt that was robbing him of sleep.


    Suddenly he heard a loud squelching sound to his right, he froze. After a short while, the squelching continued and he slowly turned his still semi-paralysed head to the right to get a look with his good eye. What he saw disturbed him greatly, the outline of a wasp ripping the rotting flesh from a giant spider not more than 10 meters away from where he lay. It was not the sight that disturbed him it was the fact that he didn''t even notice the wasps presence until it began eating. They were so silent when not using their wings he thought with fear. The wasp could have walked up to him and taken a bite without him even noticing, the thought terrified him. He could only stay as still as possible and take shallow breaths hoping the wasp wouldn''t notice him if it did his near paralysed state would mean certain death in a fight against the wasp.


    Squelch, crunch, slurp. The sounds of the wasp eating pushed Kallias even further to the edge of panic. After what seemed like an eternity the wasp finished and for a brief moment looked at Kallias and then exited the cavern. Kallias counted to 100 in his head before releasing a shuddering breath. Calming down he stretched a bit, to the best of his current abilities, which wasn''t much but they had increased, the sting was wearing off. He decided to turn his head and body so that he could watch out for any more wasps entering.


    A while after the previous incident Kallias was flexing his limbs, they were still stiff but he could use them with not too much effort, he could probably walk now if he tried. Just as he was about to get up he spotted a shadowy figure at the entrance. That was close he thought. Slowly he reached down to his knife gently un-holstering it with his left hand. If it came down to a fight he would go down swinging. Besides he knew their weakness now, being carried by one for several hours had given him plenty of time to look for weaknesses.


    It started crawling in his direction, in a few moments, it was above Kallias. Desperately holding his breath Kallias hoped the wasp would move on. But that hope faltered when the wasp stood directly on his stomach causing a short exhale of air to exit his body. Kallias watched as the wasps Antena twitched, at that moment he made his decision. He lept up under the body of the wasp towering over him, knife in hand with as much force as he could muster, he stabbed the knife in the gap of the carapace on its neck. Yellow blood started pouring out straight away. Even with the surprise attack, the wasp reacted swiftly, its abdomen along with its stinger swung towards Kallias''s groin. He franticly dodged the attack, coming within centimetres of getting hit. Retaliating he hacked at its thin neck again, managing to decapitate it with his effort. Despite its head being cut off, he wasn''t safe yet, the headless abdomen kept swinging wildly at his direction. He kicked at the abdomen trying to change it''s direction almost getting his foot stabbed through in the process. after half a minute of kicking the abdomen away, it finally ceased moving.


    With immediate danger out of the way, for now, Kallias collapsed onto his back panting heavily. His muscles burned as if lava had been poured down them, no doubt caused by the leftover venom in his system. With a few more minutes of panting, he got up to inspect his kill. The wasp was truly monstrous, it''s stinger was the length of his forearm and it was only a tiny fraction of the size of the wasp.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Staggering over to its head he felt a deep unexplainable urge to extract the eye out of its skull. Kallias instinctually knew the best way to do it and before long he held the eye in his hand. It was a dull red coloured compound eye at twice the size of a human eye, it looked beautiful, like a jewel. Kallias''s new instincts instructed him to put it up to the gaping hole that once was his eye socket, gently he inserted it. Abruptly his face started squirming around the eye, pulling it in place, shocked he let go of the eye. But instead of it falling out it was held firmly in place, strangely he felt no pain during the whole affair.


    A few moments later it was like someone had turned on the lights and Kallias saw a whole new world in bright whitish-violets, the world was like a mosaic pieced together with thousands of tiles. Kallias looked around the room in a daze, the act was completely natural like he''d been born with the eye instead of his normal right eye. Snapping out of his daze he was shocked with what he had just done what the hell have I done, I''ve turned myself into a monster he thought. But weirdly he felt no revulsion to what he''d done, he felt quite exhilarated and his instincts craved more "upgrades".


    Actually he thought to himself It makes sense that my power wasn''t just semi-immortality, I always had markers that I would awaken a healing, plant bending or animal type power, semi-immortality doesn''t fit the bill. But what is this power? I''ve never even heard of it before, chimaera powers, bio-integration maybe, I don''t know. I better ask the teachers once I get back. With his new power, he felt like he had better odds for his escape back to civilisation.


    Shelving his thoughts he gathered up his knife wiping the yellow blood off on his pants. He took a stock check of everything he had on him, 1 combat knife, a small pack of matches, a packet of cough drops and a small plastic bag. He''d put most of his supplies in his backpack and that had been ripped away from him. Mercifully he still had his combat knife along with his matches, they would be invaluable in this weather. Flexing his still burning limbs he planned to get out of this feeding pit as soon as possible. He walked to the entrance and quietly checked for any incoming wasps, with the coast clear he crept into the tunnels.


    Using all of the limited amount of stealth training he had, he walked as silently as possible down the way he thought he had come from. It helped now that he could see much better, the walls glowed with the white-ish light. It was probably some form of UV bioluminescence he mused. Now that he was over the initial shock of getting a new weird eye he found that he quite enjoyed the view, you could say it let him view the world in a whole new light. Stifling the beginnings of a chuckle he berated himself you idiot now''s not the time, now''s the time to focus. You can make stupid jokes once you get out of this hell alive.


    Rounding a corner he saw another large cavern but this time it was much larger and filled with a more traditional paper wasp nest. Looking closer he concluded he had certainly gone in the wrong direction, in the papery substance that made up the cells huge larvae were wriggling around inside. oh boy! he thought this is not the place I want to ever be.


    In the middle of his thoughts, he noticed movement at the edge of his new senses from further down the tunnel and darted into the nursery. Hiding at the side of the entrance with his knife ready he waited for the wasp to either pass or attack him. After a few intense minutes of waiting, he started to count to 100 once he was finished he stuck his head around the corner. That turned out to be a terrible decision as he saw no more than 2 meters away from him the face of a wasp.


    Jolting back inside the nursery Kallias saw the wasp leap into action after him. As it rounded the corner he swung at its neck, its reaction was much quicker than he expected. Its razor-sharp mandibles snapped onto Kallias''s right arm and dragged him down towards its abdomen where its stinger was out and already jabbing towards his torso. Changing the direction of his swing he hit the extended stinger with the knife wishing that he could deflect the attack. To his surprise the knife cut part of the way through the stinger cracking the length of it, rendering it unusable.


    As payback, the wasp violently swung him by his arm causing a guttural roar of pain to exit his mouth. As he was getting flung around like a rag doll the wasp jabbed at him with its front claw. In a panic, he used his foot to try to block the incoming attack getting rewarded for his efforts with a claw penetrating through his left foot. Realising that he was in a dire situation he put his everything into his next attack jabbing the knife right through its exposed neck, twisting the knife for extra effect. This prompted the wasp to drop its grip on his right arm leading to him falling on his back, in the process winding him.


    The wasp likely sensing its approaching doom lost its mind started buzzing its wings and flying around the cavern hitting the walls repeatedly until it stopped moving and fell to the ground. Lying on the ground in exhaustion Kallias contemplated how close he had been to dying, if anything had gone differently he felt like he would have been a goner. He mentally made a note to never again slack off during the combat classes once he got back.


    After the pain started to subside he sat up to get a better look at his right arm. It did not look good, it was dislocated at several places including the shoulder. But that was the least of his worries, bones stuck out at several places and his bicep looked like bloody ribbons after the wasp had grabbed him there. The fading of the pain was marked by his body sealing up the areas around his injury''s, at this point, it was clear he would never be able to fix his arm. Weighing up his options he wiped his knife off on his pants and clenched his jaw as he brought the knife up to his shoulder and awkwardly cut off his arm. Thankfully the action was relatively painless, less than when it got destroyed. This was probably his ability helping him again as it already considered his arm a dead part.


    With his arm now lopped off he wanted to test if it could be reattached with his ability, pressing it against his stump he felt no movement from his ability, while he had wished for a different outcome his instincts told him that once a part was dead or separated he would never be able to attach it again. Dragging himself to his feet he noticed that his left foot was considered dead to his body now as well. He couldn''t see the damage with his shoe still covering it but the amount of blood that caked the shoe was evidence enough. Deciding not to replace it he stumbled towards the corpse of the wasp. The act of walking with his dead foot felt like what he imagined walking with a peg leg would be like.


    Once he got to the wasp''s body he looked at the front limbs, they looked like a combination of a normal wasps limb and a scorpions front pincers. They had two thin but razor-sharp claws that came together to a sharp curvy sword-like point, this was what went through his foot. The limb itself had the same joint structure as a normal human arm except with an additional section in between the shoulder and its version of the Humerus. It was about 1 and half times bigger than the normal human arm size, not ideal but it would have to do. Kallias let his instincts guide him as he extracted the wasps front right limb.


    As it was attached, his stump and the wasp''s limb merged into one with some of the carapace moving to cover the stump. When the merge was completed he felt as if he had been born with the arm instead of his old one. The extra joint proved to be no problem and he could use the arm exactly how he wanted to. Its extra length was also no issue as his body automatically knew how to move with the increase in limb size. Testing out the new arm Kallias brought the two blade-like pincers to a close and stabbed them towards the plated abdomen of the wasp''s corpse. To his shock, the pincers pierced straight through the abdomen with little effort. Holy shit! he thought giddily this arm is so strong. With this new arm his odds of surviving just ticked slightly upwards.


    Gathering his belongings and making sure his knife was holstered in place he hobbled towards the entrance of the nursery. Taking a deep breath he prepared himself to at long last get out of this place.

 Chapter 2: A Chilling Discovery

    <h1>Chapter 2: A Chilling Discovery</h1>


    <hr>


    As he went to leave the room he turned back to look at the paper nursery and had a devilish idea. He knew he needed to escape and by this point, the rest of the hive knew something was on the loose killing wasps or would soon figure it out, he needed a distraction and the nursery was the perfect lure. He hobbled toward the nest where the grubs were moving about and cut a piece of the papery substance off the nest, then pulled out his matches.


    He tried to light one and after a few failed attempts the phosphorus tip fell off. Storing the leftover stick for later use he pulled out another one that fell to the same fate as the previous. This caused a slight panic to well up in Kallias, he only had less than 10 of the precious matches left. His new arm was making the simple process much more difficult. Striking the third match it burst into flames, careful to make sure the flame didn''t go out he slowly lit the torn piece, it caught easily and started to spread fast. Placing the burning piece near the bottom of the nursery it too caught fire.


    Making haste Kallias limped toward the exit, checking the way was clear before continuing back the way he came. He had been going towards the centre of the nest last time so he set his destination as the feeding room he had been in before, where he could hide out as the wasps moved around the nest.


    Reaching the feeding room''s entrance he walked in and saw another wasp feeding on the corpse of a wolf near to the entrance. The wasp reacted swiftly turning to face him, but Kallias was faster his right hand stabbing right through the middle of its face. It could only twitch as it died being held immobile by his right hand.


    This arm keeps getting better and better he thought. Except for the matches, that was a shame he sighed bitterly in his mind. Now that he wasn''t focusing on a fight his senses came back to him along with the overpowering rotten stench that filled the room. Coughing a little he managed to keep his stomach down this time. Now he just needed to wait in this disgusting room until the wasps were drawn away by his little distraction.


    After what he estimated to be half an hour of listening to the wasp''s movements through the walls he concluded that it was likely safe to move on and try to find an exit to this maze. Lumbering through the halls he often saw the movement of wasps in connecting passages scuttering past in the opposite direction. In those moments he froze and hugged the walls as tightly as possible hoping that the wasps wouldn''t investigate the movement. Occasionally a wasp would be coming down his tunnel causing him to hide in a side tunnel. Fortunately, the wasps running around either didn''t notice or care about his presence as he managed to dodge every wasp.


    Another half an hour passed and he noticed a streak of light distinct from the violet white glow that surrounded the tunnels coming from a connecting passageway. Changing directions he followed the new tunnel for a short while till the tunnel opened up to a meter and half hole that looked directly into the starry night sky. Taking a pause Kallias looked in awe at the night sky with his new sight, it was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen. Composing himself he then stuck his head carefully out of the hole looking at the ground far far below. Dread threatened to breach his mental defences, how on earth would he be able to get down from here.


    Breathing deeply he tested his right arm as a sort of makeshift pick against the sheer rock cliff face. With a not-insignificant amount of effort, he managed to make a handhold, trying his weight on it his arm slipped and a plate-sized chunk of rock came loose and fell to the bottom. The sudden change made him start to fall out of the hole, catching himself right before he fell out he pulled his body back inside. With his heartbeat in his ears the fear he felt came back in waves I can''t do this, I''m not a trained rock climber I''ve only ever done it once in a gym. Oh god! I''ve found the exit but I still can''t escape, am I going to die here? If only I''d awaked a flight power- his thoughts switched gears as ideas started spawning, checking his idea with his instincts he knew it was viable. Taking one last look at the night sky he turned back to the tunnel and awkwardly walked into its depths. It was time to change who was prey and predator.


    It only took around 5 minutes for him to find his target, a lone wasp. He tried to sneak up on it but it noticed him and turned to attack him. It lunged at him attempting to bite him, unable to get a clear attack with its stinger in the fairly cramped tunnel. Shoving his combat knife in the path of the oncoming bite he used his right arm to stab towards its neck getting intercepted by the wasp''s own front arms. This was not going as he had envisioned. Unexpectedly he spotted movement behind him with his right eye. Dodging as hard as possible to the left he saw another wasp''s mandibles scrape past, missing him by the skin of his teeth. He couldn''t celebrate his dodge for long as he felt a searing pain from behind right where he had been stung before, glancing down he saw a claw penetrating out where his liver used to be, he could also feel several ribs that were broken.


    While still impaled he turned his right arm and attempted to hit the second wasp in the head. He managed to strike the wasp across the eyes, damaging them severely. Upon receiving a hit the wasp ripped its claw from Kallias''s body taking chunks of liver with it. He ducked avoiding the now erratically attacking wasp, letting it strike the first wasp. Using this distraction Kallias struck with both the knife and right arm against the first wasps unprotected neck, this time ending the attack with its decapitation. Leaving it to flinch on the ground he turned to the blinded wasp. Stepping away from its wild swinging arms he waited for the perfect moment, running through its head with his right arm.


    The wasps now dead Kallias took a quick damage report. It looked like his liver was well and truly done for, before it just had a hole through it but now at least 2/3rds of the liver were gone or in tatters. His last 2 ribs on his right side looked to be broken, not good, but he would have to make do. Now he needed to do what he came for. Grabbing the first wasp he started to extract it''s four wings, once that was done he removed the thin t-shirt he wore. Grabbing the first pair of wings he let his instincts guide him as he firmly held them to his spine between his shoulder blades like previously he felt the wings connect but this time they felt incomplete. To fix this feeling he attached the second pair just slightly below the first.


    Flexing his new wings he looked at them from the corner of his eye in astonishment, he knew that with these wings while he couldn''t fly and lift himself from the ground like a flight power, but he could descend extremely slowly and move around in the sky with great mobility. This discovery made his power even greater instead of only healing and replacing parts he could add more onto himself, with this he felt nothing was impossible. Grabbing his shirt he cut open a flap in the back and after a few frustrating moments trying to get his wings through the hole he got it on, now his back was even colder. Looking down at the corpses of the wasps he felt another idea coming on if it worked it would be priceless. He then started to extract the wasp''s stinger and attached poison sack, pulling out the plastic bag in his pocket he put it inside saving it for later when messing around wouldn''t mean death.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    Carrying the bag with him in his left arm the stinger poked out of the top and swayed as he limped to the exit he found before. Peering over the edge he had faith in his ability and new wings but couldn''t help but feel nervous if he failed here it was all over. He wasn''t able to fully stretch his wings in the tunnel so he hung himself over the edge and began to beat his wings, generating the buzzing he had heard from the wasps earlier, he wasn''t going to be able to stealth well while using his wings, that was for sure.


    Pushing away from the edge he took a leap of faith and found himself hovering a small ways away from the edge. He noticed that while I looked and felt like he was hovering he was, in fact, descending at a very slow rate. Slowly he tested his manoeuvrability in the skies finding that he was very acrobatic and could take sharp turns, but couldn''t fly backwards, he avoided descending knowing that he needed as much airtime as possible and once his altitude was gone he wouldn''t get much if any of it back. Wasting no more time he looked for the north star knowing that if headed in the opposite direction he would be going out of the Wastelands.


    As he travelled he was left with the sights of the beautiful night sky and the white hellscape below. After an hour he was reaching less than 10 meters away from the tallest snow-covered trees, as the trees were sparsely populated he estimated he had around 20 more minutes of flight time if he dodged the odd tree that popped up in front of him. As he was inspecting the few trees he caught the sound of buzzing in the distance. Turning his head he recognised the silhouette of several wasps flying towards him. Whether they were hunting him down or not he chose to abandon the flight time he had left diving towards the snow. He needed to hide but the few trees were not going to help him so he resolved himself to dig into the freezing ground burying his body under a meter of snow.


    The cold was a thousand times worse than flying without a jacket or walking around in the cold nest. The snow and ice soaked through his pants causing the last part of his body with any warmth to succumb to the cold, despite this it was still the warmest part and his left hand was buried in its pocket. Shivering uncontrollably the snow pressed down on him shifting from a stinging pain to a painful burn that increased with every passing moment. As it got worse he decided to sacrifice his torso to protect his face cutting the t-shirt away and pulling it over his face to protect it as much as possible from the cold. 5 minutes passed and the pain was nearing unbearable levels, in desperation, he tried to discreetly look out through the snow, distressingly the wasps were still in the area forcing him to wait longer.


    His body was on fire, the cold burned like he was thrown in a furnace. He tried to distract himself from his suffering by chanting a song in his head he''d long ago learned in school 99 bottles of Snapple on the wall. Take one down, pass it around, 98 bottles of Snapple on the wall... he repeated it like a mantra until he got down to 1 bottle and tried his luck again, looking through the snow he found no wasps around. Scrambling as fast as he could he pulled himself from the snow. Reviewing what he had done he admonished his stupidity, he thought himself safe in the snow, being semi-immortal. He had neglected that he could still get injured and that frostbite existed, he wasn''t able to see any damage or blackening yet but he could tell he was severely frostbitten all over his upper body as his ability was sealing off large swaths of his skin. Fortunately, this meant most of his muscles and joints were saved though it was painful to move and his joints were stiff. Another small ray of positivity was that his face was saved from the worst of the damage due to his t-shirt, he made up his mind to keep the t-shirt tied to his face and suffer more effect to his torso, it was worth it to protect his face.


    He had learned a valuable lesson right now, but the cost was extreme. Shelving his misery he once again aligned himself with the stars and shambled at a slow pace towards eventual safety. 2 hours into his zombie-like shuffle his pants and shirt felt almost like leather armour losing considerable flexibility after getting frozen stiff by the cold environment. Kallias was woken from his daze like walk when he heard a loud howl not too far away from his position, then another from behind, and another to the left, more followed coming from all around him. Fuck me! he cursed, of course, its wolves.


    Scanning around he saw that 5 hulking black direwolves surrounded him, this was bad, really bad. Remembering back to his training he stood his ground and lifted his arms up to make himself look bigger, at the same time he tried to make as much noise as possible. Which was hard considering he still was without a tongue to shape the sounds, making it sound like a loud guttural gurgle. It seemed to have some effect on the approaching wolves as they stopped coming forward. Seconds past by and they remained in a stalemate until one brave wolf tried to attack Kallias from behind. Catching its movement with his right eye he punished the attempt by stabbing it in the snout causing it to yelp and run away. The rest of the wolves responded by growling and starting to back away. Kallias didn''t drop his guard for at least 5 minutes after they left, standing there expecting another ambush.


    The encounter with the wolves over he was never more grateful for academy training, it was simple, prove yourself a bigger threat that what it was worth to attack, but it was very effective. It helped that being a relatively skinny teenager meant he wasn''t worth much as food. Flashing back through the day he thought All this stress can''t be healthy for me, dear god it''s only been less than a day and I almost lost my life how many times? Oh god, I''ve lost count.


    Deciding to make sure that he would be able to defend himself if he ever did get attacked by the pack again he pulled the plastic bag off of his shoulder. He grabbed his knife and cracked a line down the underside of his right arm''s forearm. His instincts were silent now, unable to guide him in his experiment. Pulling the poison sac and attached stinger out of the plastic bag they were thankfully unharmed. Putting the poison sac in the gap it merged into the arm, to cover up the new weakness he placed the stinger over the crack sealing it as it merged with his arm. Now his forearm looked like it had one of the blades that the assassin classes used running down its length. Unlike their blades, he couldn''t retract his and it stuck 15cm over his wrist, which wasn''t much comparing it to his claws but it was pretty inflexible. While his power helped integrate the parts this addition didn''t feel anywhere close to as natural as the other parts felt, he was able to will a drop to excrete from the end of the new stinger. Satisfied with his new weapon he started walking south again.


    Shuffling through the icy wasteland he reached a grove of trees that he recognised from the initial flight over, a small jolt of joy shot through his system, he was close to the campsite now. A few more hours walking and he should make it back just after dawn by his estimates.


    Entering the forest it immediately became harder to see as the starlight struggled to make its way through the snow-covered canopy. Stumbling through the forest, every now and then tripping on a hidden root Kallias made his way through the forest checking the north star for his bearing when he could see it. He put his hand on a small boulder to rest for a bit and jumped back as he felt a soft fur. Wheeling in place, knife drawn, he looked at the furry boulder, it was a direwolf. With further inspection he concluded it was dead, its skull caved in. He wondered if it was a wolf he had seen before, taking in his surroundings he saw 4 more similar mounds, deducing that they were likely the same pack he had seen before. What on earth happened here he wondered. The tense silence was broken by a whimper followed by the bounding body of a small dark-coloured bear running towards a small hill. On second viewing the hill was also furry, he had mistaken it as it was also covered in ice tricking his perception. Putting 2 and 2 together he stared at the bear cub in horror.