[TheRaisin]

BTW, having started this story, I intend to see it through to the end, so bear with me if it gets a little long.

O-kay, Chapter II!

Skrit stood looking back at the forest that had been the home of his pack since it first came together generations ago. He stood conflictedly for a moment, not wanting to abandon his ancestral home but at the same time knowing he could never go back. Finally, he turned and uttered a short bark to his followers: it was time to go. With quiet steps and bent heads they walked off single-file into the freezing desert night.
Silently they trudged across the barren landscape, never resting. Skrit knew they had a long trek ahead of them, and although they could go many days without food, they would be hard pressed for water. Finally, just as crimson sunlight was beginning to show over the flat horizon, they came to an ancient outcropping of rocks, probably left millenia ago by gigantic glaciers. Skrit stopped and rasped out a command: here they would stop and gather their strength.
As the hulking females and their offspring went to find shelter and set up a temporary den at the middle of the ring of stones, and the sleek males leapt onto the outer boulders to form a perimeter guard, Skrit, ever vigilant for anything potentially harmful to the pack, climbed up the jutting, oblong slab of rock pointing south at the edge of the small outcropping. Reaching the tip of the humongous slanting crag, he looked out over the rapidly heating, lifeless wasteland. He could not see the edge.
Once on the ground, he told the assembled paramites that they would sleep here for the rest of the day, doing as little as possible to conserve energy, and would set out again as soon as the coolness of twilight came. Taking his own advice, he wandered further into the silent, looming sentinels. Finding a small niche, he settled down and soon fell into a restless and unnerving sleep.
Soon, strange heat-induced dreams came to him, images of great, shining structures, spewing smoke into the blighted sky. He saw forests being torn down by giant, moving boulders, but boulders such as he had never seen: they moved, as if they weren't boulders at all, but nor were they alive. And worst of all, he saw paramites, scrabs, countless other creatures being herded into great, humming buildings from which eminated horrible shrieks, and he knew it was a place of death. After hours of such torment, Skrit awoke. The sky was now darker, fading into blue, and the air was cooling. He knew that the pack would have to move soon, lest they lose valuable travel hours.
As the small group set out once again, he looked back uneasily at the dark, omious shapes jutting into the sky. He was glad to be gone from this place, but he could not help feeling that his dreams had had meaning, and that something evil was lurking in the distance, across these parched lands, waiting to devour any life within it's grasp. And that would soon include him.


Whew! Okay. Finished. Umm, having been sick as a slog, it may take me a few days to get the next chapter up. Don't worry, I'll get to it soon.

TheRaisin would like
To hear your comments of praise,
It may help him write.