Try Again
Again you stand in front of the hole, shaking your body as water droplets fill the air around you. Your long, wet, white hair sticks to your body as a kind of hood and your fur as a whole seems to have gained a few pounds of weight. You are not amused. But after getting a few breaths of the cool air you decide to try again. So for the second time you brace yourself and dive into the water. This time it isn't even as hard as the last, because you now expect how it would be to dive into the river. Again you bend down to reach under the frozen depths, looking for fish and trying to grab a few. And this time you even succeed! Your nimble, clawed fingers grab one of the slippery fishes and with a push of your hind legs you burst out of the water and onto the ice. Your claws dig deep into the flesh of your prey, so you don't lose it again.
With quick steps you run to the riverside to get off the slippery ice. As you reach it, you finally look down onto the twitching being in your claws. Only now you realize, that it is indeed alive and that you're probably supposed to eat it raw, as it is. A bit of hesitation fills your mind, maybe you could try to built a fireplace to cook it, but then your raw instincts take over as you feel a wave of hunger surge through your body. You bare your teeth, open your big maw and with a quick bite the fish vanishes into your throat. It still feels slippery as the now dead animal glides down to your stomach. And without hesitation, you turn back to the hole in the ice to hunt for more...
A few days go by. You finally get a good grip at all the basics of being...well a predator. As you make your way through the thick jungle, with each passing hour you get more trained in the ways of getting around from tree to tree, and hunting, though you still mostly return to the river and follow its flow to hunt for fish, becomes easier with every meal you get for yourself.
You still don't know where the jungle ends or where the exit to this area lies, but with each passing day and night you find yourself caring less and less for it.
Until this evening.
Written by Lifeguard Arran on 16 June 2018