King Elk Forest Storm

Staggered breaths fractured the stillness of the dark wood.

Running paws, barreling through underbrush. Collapsed onto the ground at the hips, air fell down her lungs without stop. The fringes of her hickory fur swept towards the earth, while the lush grass seemed to rise and embrace her neck and belly. Moths, in a flurry of anxious wings, disturbed the air from thickets flourishing at the bases of ancient, towering trees. Cloaked in the same blue of night that had painted the leaves, cloaking her, cloaking all.

No matter how hard she tried, she could not tame the beast that was her own breathing, the hitches in each inhale becoming shaky. Frantically searching over her back with a coiling waist, shot open eyes darted across the treeline, poised to vanish into the shadows at the slightest provocation. Near bloodshot.

Bags presented deep and ugly in the fur just under her sun-gold eyes, tarnishing her, sleepless, and diving soon over the next wall of flora. Water ebbed before her in a moonshowered lake beyond the overgrowth, and she scrambled, trembling.