Chapter Three

    I woke up less cold than the day before. Maybe the work I did hadn't been a waste after all, I thought. I stretched and put on my coat, foraged and took back some berries, and grabbed my crossbow to go and hunt. As I waded through bushes and looked at tall trees, I wondered about the mystery hunter in the woods with me. I rushed through the usual questions: Why was it here? What was it? What did it mean for me? Another question hit me: what if it wasn't alone? Many predators live in groups, or at least have families, like humans and bears, and if it wasn't alone, what would I do? Should I try and scare them off? Should I slip away? Hide? Those and a million more questions circled in my head as I made my way to the deer carcass I had killed the day before.

    Like the day before, when I got to the deer, I found only bones and the prints in the snow. They were big prints, as large as my hand. I walked around to make sure I hadn't missed anything the first time this had happened. Nothing. Fine, I thought. I'll find out the thing behind all of this, and then make a good decision about all of this. I was going to follow the tracks of the killer. Sure, literally walking in the footsteps of a thing that had just killed a deer wasn't the smartest thing to do, but what was I going to do otherwise? Let the thing walk up to my doorstep and knock? I was going to have to take matters into my own hands.

    I followed the tracks for quite some time. Through pricker bushes, thick shrubs, near-frozen rivers, and steep, rocky hills, I finally came to a frozen waterfall with a cave hiding behind it, with a stone path to access it. I dropped down near the path behind a hill to see the cave. I wasn't going to show up right in front of an angry parental carnivore and get shredded, that's for sure. That's when I saw them. The carnivores weren't bears or cougars or anything like that at all. It was much, much worse. There was a pack of wolves living smack-dab in the middle of the forest where I lived. I didn't like it. Not one bit. Is a pack of bloodthirsty, snarling wolves suddenly appearing near my cabin? Not good for my survival chances or my hunting prospects. I hunkered down to look at them. They were pretty cool-looking for an apex predator. They looked sleek and streamlined, with long, narrow noses and thin legs. Four of the wolves were different colors than the rest. One was gray: it was small and had the same blue eyes that I had seen before (I knew it), and the other two were red, possibly a mom and her pup, judging by the size. 

    Suddenly, the red wolf pup stuck her nose up in the air. What was she doing? She acted as if she were howling, but she didn't make a sound. Was she smelling something? I froze. I had forgotten to check the wind when I had laid down on the hill. Sure enough, the wind was blowing directly toward the cave. I didn't want to stick around to become wolf chow, so I sprinted to the trees. Panting, I ripped through the brush, splashed through the river, and ran through the forest back to the safety of my cabin. When I finally got there, I slammed the door and locked it, panting. Wolves were one of the worst predators I could have had. If I got a kill, and a pack of wolves showed up, if I didn't back down, two bites, and I'm done for.

    As for my hunting opportunities, they practically vanished if wolves are in here. If they got one unfamiliar whiff of something, they'd be gone. No more groups of deer, at ease and calm. Maybe one deer a day would come to the place I use, and it would be swarming with wolves for sure. I'd have to be more careful in the woods from now on. Crosssbow at all times, even when I'm not hunting, just to be safe. If I was reckless I'd be dead within the week for sure.