Feral

• Lily Donald, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2018

“Run… Run away and don’t come back,” those were the last words I heard him say before I bolted, the last words I heard him say until my life changed forever… I ran in terror, afraid to look back to see the monstrous creature chasing me… afraid that if I looked, it would catch me… it would chase me down. Left, right, and left again, the way to get out of the temple was imprinted in my brain, for I had lived here for years, until, it seemed he turned feral and turned on my sister and I. He then told me those words… and the chase began.
I swerved into a room covered in curling ivy, a room my sister and I used to play in when we were little. The sights and smells were all so familiar, I could almost hear her voice… The memories of the old times still haunted me….Then the monster stuck it’s face into the ivy, it frightened me so much I lost all feeling in my body and froze… The monster had black lifeless eyes, a long muzzle filled with razor sharp teeth, claws as sharp as knives and a furry body almost like Amarok, the lone wolf, its hackles were raised and it looked as if it was preparing to pounce.
Something must have knocked some sense into me because at that moment I knew exactly what to do. I scaled the wall using ivy as my footholds and jumped across the room, aiming for the stone ledge near the little tunnel my sister and I made when we were four. I crawled in and wriggled to the left to get to the little hideout we made, but instead of finding a little room with a bed and bookshelf carved into the wall, I fall into the throne room... I had played right into the hands of my father. I made to escape, but another two of his monsters stopped me. One picked me up in its jaws, piercing my skin and scarring my chest. My father laughed, nothing like the laugh I knew from when I was little, this laugh was a blood chilling laugh that made you want to scream and shout in surrender. “You were never going to escape me, son, I know you all too well,” he began, “you never had a chance against my beautiful creations!” Again, he threw his head back and laughed... Then he ordered his monstrosities to get my sister.
When he chucked me into the cage, her hands were so cold and her face looked so pale. I shook her shoulders trying to convince myself she was alive, while staring at the horrors that held us captive. My sister finally awoke and whispered to me, “Itari, you must free our father from this curse, free him from the haunter, please help him escape,” and it was that moment I promised myself that I would free my sister, no matter what it took...