Alpine Lake spinning round as we circle the drain

he really couldn't catch a break it seemed. just when he thought he was starting to get a little bit comfortable to rest and quit his own moping, he had new reasons to be frustrated to fuel it all. he tried hard at first to ignore the heavy footfalls of someone approaching and honestly he really hoped that they wouldn't want to investigate enough to find him.
but really, he should have known better.
really.
the tone of voice he heard may have been completely casual but the intent felt everything but; his eyes opened to blearily survey through the twist of brush and bramble alike to find a face peering through them. almost snub-nosed like a revolver and surprisingly, the face that he saw and drew into focus was definitely not that of a wolf. interesting.
and then he processed what was being said—namely, what he was called.
holy shit, he said, also realizing that more steps were approaching. fuck. but he forged on ahead with notes of disbelief working their way in. did you just call me a coyote?? like for real??
that didn't change the fact that he was definitely in a precarious situation, and one that he was already, immediately, trying to extradite himself from. one wolf-whatever was bad enough, but he definitely had heard more even if he couldn't see them. and he was pretty sure that he hadn't inadvertantly put himself in the lion's den of someone's home... which meant he was probably facing a prospective hunting party.
good for them, but bad for lakhos, who was by far much smaller than the behemoth of a hybrid watching him. he unfurled slightly, letting a yawn betray the fact that he felt just the slightest bit of panic eking its way in. it was not the time, but his brain was another story altogether.
i gotta say, i have been puttering around this place for who knows how long and so far i think you're the only one who's gotten it halfway right. these yokels think i'm so big-earred wolf—but i ain't. he wasn't really fully a coyote either, but he wasn't about to argue. the other coyote who had gotten it right didn't matter right now either.
he kept talking a mile a minute, stalling as much as he was trying to figure out a better way to assess the situation he was presumably in.
i'll definitely come out because i wanna see what you are, but i gotta figure out how the hell i got in here in the first place. shimmed my little way in, you see, he went on. i mean, if you're a wolf—which seems to be the trend here—then i haven't seen someone like you before. i mean, i'm not entirely a coyote either, i'm just a mutt, but you can't tell anyone anything around here. they don't listen, and he kept talking, finding an avenue to slip towards. it wasn't silent.
they were gonna eat him alive, he was sure of it.

pls forgive this, i literally have had two hours of sleep in the last 50hrs and i don't know what i'm doing with my life