Continuation. Watch out for hungry monsters.

I think I start too many sentences with introductory phrases.

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“You thick or somethin’, boy?”

The beast’s yellow eyes gave the young man a quick once-over and returned to meet his gaze. Meanwhile, drool was beginning to accumulate around his mouth and the thin outline of ribs could be seen under the fur. The monster also stood on two legs that were bent abnormally, as if they had been meant to carry around the frame on all fours. The young man decided he smelled something fierce as well, but that was the only feature that didn’t seem inherently dangerous. At least not at the moment.

“You’re a werewolf,” he repeated, still trying to recover the breath and wits that had been stolen from him. After the words came out, he felt another slight tug in the direction he’d been heading and chanced a quick glance. Nothing appeared to be lurking, but what he assumed to be lucky hunches hadn’t exactly been detailing the situation for him up until now. He returned his gaze to the beast and began to slowly feel around the base of the tree beneath him with the one arm that was still comfortably attached.

“Well you sure do seem to be outta the loop. If I been told correctly, no one’s used that term since the Fracture, though I ain’t got nothin’ against it. I go by Rook if’n you gotta know, but that’s not gonna be real important to ya for long. Tilt ya head up for me.”

Without actually allowing him to do anything, Rook craned the boy’s head sideways and lifted his clawed hand extending a large, dirty claw. His course of action was painstakingly obvious, and the young man’s eyes bulged as he began to kick and flail despite being pinned. Another quick tug occurred at that moment, pulling at the fingers of his frantically searching hand, but it was ignored; the young man’s attention was focused elsewhere.

“No, wait! This isn’t real! What’s going on!?”

“Real?” the beast replied, pausing for another eternity. “What ‘ent real, kid? You just wake up or somethin’? I gotta admit, I don’t normally get to talk to my food, but one doesn’t just find a P…”

The young man interrupted, not caring at all to hear the beast’s reasoning: “YES!”

“…What?”

“Yes! I just woke up!” He rasped. Then, looking away from the monster, he spoke to himself, still preferring words to silent thought. “This cannot be happening. I must be dreaming.”

Rook gave another quizzical glance but shrugged it off a moment later. “You’re a strange one, ain’t ya? Things that happened ain’t exactly secret ya’know. Guess it don’t matter anyway.”

With that, he leaned the boy against the tree and released him before quickly pulling back his instrument of death. The young man watched in horror as the clawed… paw was pulled away while he sat frozen in fear once again.

Suddenly, the twinge that had turned into an itch on his good hand began to burn, and his fingers clamped shut in reflex to the pain. In a last ditch effort to protect himself, he shielded his body with his one working arm while Rook’s claws rushed toward his neck.

Instead of feeling his life ripped from his body, there was only a slight touch of pressure as his arm was swatted to the side. Rook immediately recoiled in pain and let out a roar.

“DAMN IT!”

The curse was followed by a cacophony of grunts and growls as the beast’s attention was now entirely upon the large, sharp stick protruding out of the flesh between what the boy assumed to be his thumb and fore-finger. With a look of disbelief, he examined his hand that had been burning only to find it itching again. Saving that thought till later, he jumped up as fast as his dislocated shoulder would allow and began to run in the same direction he had taken before being tackled.

Rook took time away from his impaled appendage to notice the commotion and reached out with one paw to swat at the sluggish young man. Fortunately, his grasp was a half of a second too late to knock his prey down again, but his claws raked across the back of the boy, inflicting more pain and eliciting a cry as he took off at a stumbling run.

“Get back here, Pure!” he yelled, before taking the time to gingerly slide the stick from his paw and set off in pursuit.

The young man once again rushed painfully through the trees and the brush, not allowing himself to go perfectly straight, but intentionally taking routes that would be easier for his relatively small body to fit through than that of the snarling beast behind him. He was still following his supposedly helpful, physical hunch, and the young man forced his way through the trees. While he was making a conscious effort to avoid the branches and roots above and below him, he couldn’t help but think that they seemed to be bending slightly, almost as if trying to avoid him. He took this new thought and, yet again, shoved it in the back of his mind, as he could still hear the frustrated growls of Rook behind him. He clutched his arm tighter as a reminder of what he was trying to avoid while the beast in pursuit fought against the low-lying branches that the boy was sliding in and out of.

As he crested a rise in a small though unforgiving hill, the young man caught sight of what appeared to be a clearing shining brightly through a break in the trees and changed course. Gaining speed down the hill despite the injuries, and making his way toward the only noticeable landmark before him, the boy broke through the trees but was suddenly and unceremoniously dumped to the ground again. The massive force that took him down for a second time remained pressed against his bloody back when he came to a rest on the earth below him.

“Y’know kid, I can run faster‘n you downhill. Even with all them rotten bushes.”

The beast kept talking, but the young man ignored it as he began to turn pale from the pain radiating from his pinned arm, and consciousness began to slip away. For a second, he seemed to notice the burning that he had felt earlier in his hand, only this time it was spreading throughout his entire body. The pain spread slowly and evenly, which led the boy to wonder hazily why it was necessary for everything to hurt. Eventually he came to the conclusion that it was probably Rook ripping him to pieces.

Suddenly, as if in response to this thought, the weight lifted from above him and he was able to slowly roll off of his now thoroughly unattached arm. The effort to turn over and get a look at his surroundings was slow and strenuous, but he eventually made it far enough to glance back at the aggressor.

Looking up through half-open eyelids he saw Rook struggling with what appeared to be flames dancing all over his pitch-black fur. After hazily dismissing this strange occurrence and the accompanying snarls, he turned his head in disinterest to get a look at the small, wooden house that had come into view right before he had been taken out for the second time.
Standing just outside the doorway was a gigantic grey beast with features similar to Rook. In contrast, his previous acquaintance looked scrawny and unkempt, giving the young man the hopeful impression that the new contender might not be as hungry. This would have been a worthwhile discovery if he had been able to move, but as it were it was only a curious observation in the boy’s fading thoughts. Holding an outstretched paw toward the young man and his soot-colored attacker, and snarling menacing words through clenched teeth, the grey beast began moving slowly toward them.

“Great,” mumbled the boy. His eyes closed completely as his body drifted into painless unconsciousness.