He instinctively ran. His body was unfamiliar to him and he stumbled forward. Back on all fours he was able to push himself forward with speed that felt more natural. He was moving faster than he had been able to move before. It was exhilarating. His tail helped maintain his balance as he shot through the night as the predator that he always had been.

  There were very few trees in this strange place. The sounds all around him were louder than anything he had encountered before in his hunting grounds. What made this place so strange was the feel of it, the wind against him felt thick, almost like a kind of water. He felt the air itself stick to him and soon he was coated in the stink of this place. He would have to bathe and for that, a river would have to be found.

  He ran through the night. He stayed as close to the deep shadows as possible. There were strange things here. Giant slabs of stone with starlight embedded into them jutted into the night sky. He could hear a river nearby. It wasn’t a river of water, but a concentration of swiftly moving machines, their parts moving and grating on each other made a noise that he didn’t like.

  He could smell something that wasn’t part of the overall neglect. It wasn’t prey, but it may well have been. It was a smell he had encountered only twice before. The smell of burning flesh was not something he was likely to forget. The scent he had caught was something akin to that. His stomach rumbled loudly, reminding him of his hunger and need to eat. He changed direction and followed the scent.

  The night was no longer his ally. The starlight was so close to the ground he could find little place to hide. It didn’t help that he was so much bigger now than he had been before. He tried to make himself as small as he could. He hugged the ground as he ran forcing his legs to bend almost unnaturally as he tried to remain hidden from the eyes of those who might find him.

  He found a thing in his way. It was metal with lots of holes through it. Honestly, the thing was more holes than metal. He reached out and gripped it, it clanged and jangled loudly as he easily pushed and pulled it, but it would not come down. It wasn’t much taller than he was so he jumped up and quickly climbed over the strange metal thing. Not stopping to wonder what it was supposed to do or be, he hurried on towards the smell of burning flesh.

  He found himself hiding in between two stone blocks. One block was a reddish color, almost of blood, while the other was of white stone. The smell of flesh was coming from a metal object that was being watched over by two humans. He could hear the humans chattering and communicating to each other. He didn’t understand what they were saying but he heard what sounded like two completely different sets of languages.

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  It was odd to hear something so different from the same species. He could not speak the words of the beasts that rode the wind, nor could he speak what little he had heard of his prey in the forest, but he never encountered a wolf who could not communicate with him. Hearing such different sounds from the humans was troubling and a little scary.

  His stomach rumbled and he gripped his midsection trying to quiet his traitorous new body. The two humans that stood at the metal object were laughing. The metal object was on fire, though he could not see where the fire was coming from. He could however see the pillar of smoke that emanated from it. His mouth watered at the smell that wafted to him from the object. He had never eaten flesh caught in a fire and if such a thing had been offered to him, he would have refused to eat it. But now all he could think of was how hungry he was.

  The two humans finally left the metal object and went back inside the red stone object. He jumped to his feet and ran forward towards the metal object. His tongue hung from his open mouth in anticipation. He cut a very undignified figure but he didn’t care. He had to eat.

  He reached out his hand toward the metal object and grabbed at it. He almost howled in pain. The metal object itself gave off a heat like nothing he had ever felt before. He kept his head and didn’t howl, though he wanted to. He quickly studied the object and pulled on the piece of wood that was attached to the thing. With a sigh of relief he found that the wood was not as hot as the metal, though it was still unnaturally warm.

  He yanked on the piece of wood and the metal opened itself up and his face was slammed with billows of smoke. He couldn’t help but cough and gag on the smoke as he inhaled and tried to look through the black gaseous mass that surrounded him.

  He heard angry shouts from behind him. He couldn’t smell anything but the smoke. His eyes were watery and couldn’t focus. He had to get away. Without thinking he plunged his claws into the metal object and thankfully he found a solid piece of meat. It was big, but also very, very hot. He was grateful that he hadn’t grabbed the fire that must be somewhere in the metal object by mistake. But his mind reeled at the pain as his claws screamed in agony at the heat that pushed onto his flesh from the piece of meat that he ripped from the metal object.

  Without turning around or hesitating he gripped his meal in his claws and ran. He ran back the way he had come and diving into the shadows hurled his body over the strange, more hole than solid, metal thing.