Savanna
Your eyes scan the environment, blinking out the crusty sleep remaining from your transformation.
“How long have I been out?” You say to yourself, looking over your hair-covered limbs, as you run your thick finger pads along your bristling fur. The coarse hairs prickle your fingertips as you examine the pink skin between your tiny parting hair. The sun beat down on your hot body perched there, beneath the sweltering heat of the savannah, though your fur works as a type of air conditioning system, guiding the dry winds close to your skin as it gently blows around you.
Thin slits of pupils begin to focus farther off on the horizon, you behold a vast savannah, the heat causing the mirages in the distance to tremble as you futilely try to focus your eyes over kilometers. Your eyes become thin, trying to block out the extra sunlight hitting your iris, the feeling takes a while to get used to. Your nostrils open and close as you breathe, taking in the dusty dry air around you. The scent glands in your nose detect a medley of different smells, the aroma so strong you can almost taste it. Wild boar, Meerkats, Hyenas, Wild dogs, and other Lions, your senses able to differentiate each different smell as they mix in the air around you.
The bushes rustle around you in the wind, causing you to tense up. As you grow more used to your senses you struggle to decipher whether the rustling is caused by the winds around you, or if you’ve found yourself in the presence of something else. Your fur begins to stand on end, causing your slim figure to swell up to appear larger. The attempts to deter any enemies have worked, your lean frame creeping towards the bushes from which the rustling is coming from.
A small creature darts from the bush and into a hole in the ground. The fear washing over you melts into a more relaxed vibe, as you realize there’s nothing much to fear in this outfit. The apex predator of this environment might be of more benefit than you could have imagined.
The instincts begin to take over your body, the scent guiding your paws along the sandy dry ground underneath you. Rocks are kicked up behind you as you begin picking up speed in your stride, muscles bristling underneath the tight skin on your pelt. Your paw pads feel callused as they pound firmly on the hot earth, you barely know where you’re going, though the strong aroma in the air guides you across the vast savannah.
After a short while of running, you find yourself engulfed with the aroma of a fresh flesh, the metallic smell of blood taking over the air and enticing your senses. You lick your lips, realizing how much that transformation took out of you physically, your body almost doubling in size from the transformation. Your lean limbs carry you into a deep crevice in the earth, the scents slithering out into the open field you came from.
Your slit eyes widen as they adjust to the darkness casted from high up walls. The massive cracks lining the walls almost seem to hold the energy throughout thousands of years of their formation and relocation. Your paws tread around craggy rock faces and the remains of past prey. The scent, still filling your nostrils, guides you through the maze of a crevice, your heart beats as you inch your way closer to the scent.
Written by Driftingdragon on 28 November 2019