Spring 80, 513AV
Aaron's senses tingled. His sleek, black coat of fur shifted in the breeze that swayed the grass around him and shook the trees free of a few leaves. His golden panther eyes were almost slits as he slept, his eyes half-cracked open. His ears were pressed against his head, his entire body laying low in the tall grass.
Crack!
Immediately, Aaron's senses returned to him and his eyes snapped open, his ears flipping up and searching for the sound that he had heard. Humans. The smell was all over his nostrils, as if he was laying atop a pile of living humans. His haunches lifted, followed by his upper body as his eyes came clear of the grass that had formed a barrier around him.
There they were. A group no less than five, all dressed in simple, tattered leather bodies. Their clothes were made from the hides of cows, something that made Aaron's stomach churn. His gauntlets had remained on his front paws when he shifted, his wrists having been just thick enough to fit the gauntlets in both human and feline form. His eyes narrowed and he could feel an urge to charge at them all.
"There's one 'round here somewhere." The fatter of the five slavers said, his eyes sweeping over Aaron's hiding spot and missing him as they approached. One of them brought out a weighted net and another drew a blade. Slavers. Aaron hissed to himself, a move he would soon regret.
The man's eyes snapped back to Aaron and he pointed directly at him. "There he is, lads! Fetch the kitty!" He called and the four others responded by rushing forward, forsaking their quiet approach to yell at Aaron. Typical. Aaron found himself thinking as he watched them close the distance. He was on the edge of a forest, with heavy plains grass between him and the men. They closed the distance rather slowly, the weeds seeming to cling to their legs. Fifteen meters. Ten meters. Five meters. Too close!
Aaron let out a mewl and leaped back, narrowly dodging the weighted net with his cat-like reflexes. The slaver growled in frustration as he went to retrieve the net. Aaron bolted back a few dozen feet, but once the men got free of the prairie grass, their speed increased as well. Through the trees and brush, the cat and his pursuers darted. Time seemed to slow. Aaron found himself to become more perceptive of each moment.
His paws landed softly, brushing the dirt beneath him. His feet were down first, quickly trading places with his front paws. The gauntlets clanked softly at the shifting of the weight. A leaf passed by Aaron's face just off to the right. A caterpillar clung for dear life onto the leaf. Aaron could almost hear a soft squeal from the insect, but that must have been his imagination.
His back paws struck again, in front of his front paws, which quickly raised and moved forward to touch down once more. His breath became heavy. Each breath seemed to let out a puff of water vapor between his lips. His whiskers tingled. His eyes widened. His feet dug into the ground and he slid to an immediate stop. A blade chopped off two whiskers from the side of his face as it fell before him. A slaver had swung around and gotten in front of him. There were still four following. Adrenaline kicked in and before the man had a chance to lift his blade again, Aaron was off, veering to the right and darting away. Fear had begun to take over. Close... too close.
Time sped up, his movements becoming faster as trees whizzed by. The others were close on his trail, only lagging back a few dozen feet. Still within sight, though. Aaron glanced over his shoulder mid-stride to see that only two were following now. One other he could see further back, hunched over and wheezing. Aaron wanted to do the same. To stop simply and take a break to catch his breath. The thought made his legs feel like lead. His paws began to hurt. His face stung from the proximity of the blade that had torn two whiskers out of his upper lip. He hissed loudly, frustrated at the taxing feeling in his body. He'd not run like this since he'd almost been ran over by horses.
His paw hit the side of a fallen branch, one he didn't realize was there until he struck it, his paw slipping forward and out from beneath him. His body shifted forward, the lack of a pillar of strength to hold him up causing his face to collide with the ground. He skittered over dirt, feeling a rock jut into his side. He finally came to rest on a bed of leaves in the center of a cluster of trees. His body had swung three-sixty when he tumbled, and he was now facing the hunters, who had slowed considerably, a pleased look on his face.
Why have they...? Aaron stood on three legs, his paw twisted horribly, causing pain to wrack his body.
Snap!
Aaron's eyes widened as he heard the sound form beneath the leaves. But it was too late. Within an instant, his entire body fell through the pile of leaves, tumbling into darkness. The hunters had placed a pit trap beneath the leaves and Aaron had foolishly fallen into the trap... quite literally. His body hit the bottom, his eyes still focused on the exit to the hole. Pain wracked his thighs as his butt struck first. Aaron let out a cry of pain, which only came out as a hissing sound again. Then his head struck and it struck hard. His vision blurred and he felt something warm trickle down the side of his face. He couldn't move. Red blurred his vision even more and he realized he was bleeding.
His body went weak. He felt the energy drain from him as he lay there. Five figures leaned over the hole and sneered down at him, saying something that he couldn't hear. His ears filled with the buzzing sounds of a million bees, his head ached with the stampede of a dozen elephants. His mind was just as numb as his body. Finally, his vision failed him and he felt himself falling into the blackness of his deafened mind.
He fell. He fell for hours. There was no bottom of the black abyss into which he fell and the light above him dimmed until it was a speck barely seen by his own eyes. He felt himself change. Light engulfed his feline body and when it dimmed he was his human self once again. He felt pain, he felt the wind rush past his face. He felt his life flash before his eyes. And then... there was nothing.
