Chapter 14 Jay: Yes, I am afraid of cats. Ha-ha.

A Chapter by A.L.Exley

Chapter 14 Jay: Yes, I'm afraid of cats. Ha-ha.

I wake up, and find Ylvana missing. Pine is still there, and Ana's cloak is still around us. I have a brief moment of panic. Then, I realize Ylvana is drinking from the nearby stream, and I relax. I get up and join her. The air is starting to warm, but the cool night mist still clings to the mountains.

"If my mental map is correct, following this river will take us east to a lake. Then, a short walk from there will bring us out of the mountains," I tell her.

Ylvana yawns and stretches. "Lovely. Problem is, I don't trust your mental map."

I roll my eyes. "Ha-ha."

"You seem to know this place pretty well," Ana says. Her voice takes on a sudden serious tone.

I try to hide my nervousness by sounding causal.

"I . . . uh, am really good and scouting. I've been studying the lay-out of this place from all sorts of vantage points."

Ylvana stares at me, and I'm forced to look away from her icy gaze.

"Of course, I could always be wrong," I add in quickly. "Luckily we have each other. We may be lost but at least we're not alone."

Ana's lips curl into a faint smile, but I can tell she's still suspicious.

Of course she is suspicious; she is one of the smartness people I've met. I'm usually good at talking, but the way she looks at me throws me off. I've never felt this uneasy lying to anyone. To make things better, I don't have the slightest clue why she has this effect on me.

Perhaps I'm being too naive and take her friendliness as more meaningful than it really is. Or I am just confused by my own motives for helping Ylvana through the woods. This whole trip to the island has messed up my way of thinking. I guess this is what the woods does to you-- takes the most clever-thinking minds and flips them upside down.

When everyone wakes up, we decide to follow the river. Even if we get lost we'd have a water and food source. The further we go, the narrower the river gets and the faster it flows. The terrain becomes rocky and vertical. The only way to go forwards is to go up steep inclines. Meanwhile, the river suddenly dropped away from us, down at least a hundred feet into a large lake, nestled between the crests of the mountains.

"How are your climbing skills?" I ask Ana. I look up the rocky slope in front of us. It was extremely steep, but the rocks jutted out just far enough to make the climb moderately easy.

Ana shifts into human form and feels the rocks, then looks down at the waterfall.

"I don't do a lot of climbing," she mumbles.

I am about to shift into human form when I realize the problem with that. I silently curse--this slope would be a lot easier to climb with fingers. I have no choice but to scale this thing as a wolf.

"You're not afraid of heights, are you?" I ask, carefully leaping onto the first rock.

Ana shakes her head. "I'm not afraid of them, I'm afraid of falling from them."

"Fair enough," I say. "The climb will be easy for you as a human. The trail isn't too high up."

Ana grips a rock, plants her foot on another, and heave's her body up. She immediately steps back down.

"Oh man," she mumbles, wiping her already sweaty hands on her cloak. "It's a bit harder than I thought."

Pine comes up besides her and sniffs the rocks tentatively.

"I'm with Ana on this, we should go around," he says.

"Come on, guys," I plead. "If I can do it you can." I jump onto another rock--almost loose my balance--but stick the landing. "Just take one step at a time."

Ana still hesitates. She scans around for another possible way, but there is none. We are trapped between the river, the slopes, and thick brush.

"Come on, Wolf Girl," I say, encouragingly.

Finally, she grips the rocks again and pulls herself up. Instead of letting go, she hangs there for a few seconds. Pine jumps up on a rock next to her. I smile as Ana reaches up for another rock to grab. She takes her time finding places to put her hands and feet. I take my time as well; none of my four legs were equipped for climbing.

Somewhere in the middle of the slope, we come to a rock shelf just big enough for the three of us. We agree to rest. In the east, the sunlight brakes over the mountain peaks, and floods the sky with colors.

"If we keep up this pace, we should be out by nightfall," I say, cheerfully.

Luna swoops down and lands on Ana's knee. Ana reaches out and lightly strokes her feathers.

"Then you'll go find the pack, and I'll go home. I can't tell which one is more terrifying," Ana smiles.

"It's not your fault you got kidnapped. Don't let them make you think that," I tell her. I could sympathize with Ana's story. I know all about being around people who won't let you embrace who you really are.

"It's not them, it's my mother. I don't care if I upset the king. But my mother doesn't deserve to be hurt like this, after all she's been through," Ana says.

"At least you have someone waiting for you," I say, trying to cheer her up. "We'll make sure you get home."

What am I saying? Am I trying to make myself more guilty when I betray her? If I betray her. I was never extremely confident I was going to complete this mission, but now my confidence dwindled even more.

The slope gets easier to climb as we reach the top. Ylvana shifts back into wolf form, and we lope side by side down the trail. To our left, the slope rises up behind a thin group of pines. To our right is a cliff that could send you tumbling at least a hundred feet down into the sparkling waters of the lake. Aside from the threat of death, the view is spectacular.

"What's that smell?" Ana wonders, walking closer to the pine trees. She sniffs the ground as we walk. Suddenly, she stops. "Is that what I think it is?"

I walk over to her and freeze. Right in front of us is a paw-print just a bit bigger than ours. The pads are round and pushed together without any toenail indents above them--the obvious sign of a cat with retractable claws. The only cat that could make paw-prints bigger than a wolf was--

"Mountain lions," I shuffle away. My voice may have come out as more of a squeak. I frantically look for a way off this trail. Suddenly, the hundred foot drop into the lake doesn't seem so bad.

"There's something strange about the scent, though. Pine, can you--" Ana looks around for Pine. He is crouching behind her leg, shaking.

"Pine! Can you help me?" she says.

"Ana, we have to get out of here! I'm nothing but a bite-sized appetizer to a cougar!" Pine whimpers.

Ana rolls her eyes. "Cougar's only hunt at night. Sometimes in the morning or afternoon."

"But it is morning!" Pine and I say in unison.

Ana gives us a stern look. "They don't hunt wolves, or foxes! Especially a group of them. We'll be fine as long as we keep an eye out. Right Luna!" she shouts. Luna hoots in reply from somewhere high above us. I know owls have great eye sight, but cougars are extremely good at staying hidden while stalking.

Ylvana is incredibly knowledgeable about the native animals and their power. She walks up the trail without fear. She only pauses when she notices we aren't following.

"You two coming?"

Pine and I glance at each other, before hesitantly following her.

We walk in silence. All of us, even Ana, are tense. There is a feeling in the air that something isn't right.

We hadn't gotten too far before Ana freezes. Her ears stand straight forwards and her eyes are wide. Something in the brush moves to our left. All I can think is; We're all going to die.

For a long time, no one moves or speaks. We just stare into the trees, and the trees stare back.

Then, Luna hoots.

Ana looks up the trail, and squints. "Their's something coming towards us."

"Goodbye," Pine says before bolting.

I start to back up, but Ana stays put. She's trying to get a good look at the thing.

Dispite my fear, I stay with her. The shape was getting clearer.

A cougar, against all odds and reason, was out walking the trail in the mid-day sun.

It's fur is a mix of tawny brown and tan, so it could matched the color of the trail it walked. It's gait walk too sloppy for a normal cat. If the tracks we just found have come from this cat, that means it's going in circles. It's bad enough to have a giant cat walking towards you; it's even worse when that cat is not acting normally.

"Let's go," Ana says nervously. We turn back and run down the trail.

Before we get far, the sun seems to disappear as the cougar leaps over our heads. It stands in front of us, cutting off our escape.

Of course, the cougar immediately turns and locks it's fiery gaze on me, the one person here who has a phobia of big cats.

Time slows as I look into the cat's eyes. It is slightly bigger and stockier than a wolf. It's yellow eyes are framed with dark markings like warrior face-paint. It's thick tail twitches as it crouches down to pounce, rolling it's shoulder blades. I creep backwards as the cougar scrunches up it's face and roars.

The sound echoes off the mountains, strong enough to send shivers through rocks and bones.

But the thing that completes my terror is the white, foamy saliva that drips from it's fangs. This cat is rabid. The disease must have been the odd smell Ylvana picked up on. No wonder this cat was attacking us; rabies was a virus that slowly cooks an animal's brain, driving it to madness.

I brace myself as the cat pounces with it's claws unsheathed. Suddenly, a white blur rams into the cougar in mid-air, sending it skidding across the dirt.

The cougar slides towards the cliff's edge; just a few more feet and it would've fallen. Ana stands in front of it, baring her fangs and raising her hackles. The cougar shakes it's head and stumbles onto it's feet, then turns its focus on Ana.

Ana snaps and growls at the cat, slowly pushing it towards the edge. The cougar swipes at her with it's front paw, forcing Ana to dodge away. I watch in horror, feeling completely useless.

The cougar swipes again, this time ripping into the flesh on Ana's shoulder. She tries to back away, but the cougar hangs on, and goes in for the bite.

Rabies is transferred through saliva. If Ana gets infected, that's it. They have treatment for rabies in the village, but there is no way she could get back in time. She can not get bit.

Most fears are physiological. When you don't think, your fears can't reach you. When I stopped thinking, I forgot my fear of cats and rushed at the cougar. I ram into the cat's shoulder, and push it the rest of the way off the cliff. The good news is it works! The cat lets go of Ana.

The bad news is: I go down with it.

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