The Virals

Chapter 17

A/N: This was probably one of my favorite chapters to write!

Black Talon did not manage to sleep. When the sun came up, he woke everyone up, and they entered the forest in front of them. The trees were enormous, bigger than any trees they had ever seen before. Only tiny strips of sunlight would shine through the canopy and illuminate the forest floor. Instead of walking in a scattered manner, they all walked together, side by side. Black Talon had insisted it, not because he was accepting them as his pack (that was something that would never happen), but because sticking together was smarter than splitting up. He had learned that the hard way.

'I wonder how everything started...' Fern Foot said to himself, in deep thought.

'What? You mean the virus?' Black Talon replied. Fern Foot nodded.

'I think I might know,' Black Talon added.

'How?'

'I wasn't there. But someone I know was,' He replied.

'Can you tell us what happened?' Sharp Claw asked.

Black Talon sighed. 'Sure.'

Sharp Claw's face lit up, though Black Talon felt pathetic for telling them all of this so readily, yet not even managing to tell his friends about everything before until it was too late.

'It was... it was a friend of mine. She and her hunting party came across this carcass, but something was wrong with it, so they didn't scavenge. When they came back with prey, one of the hunters, Moon Pelt, snuck away at night time. Apparently, she had been the only one to want to eat from the corpse, so my friend assumed that she went and consumed some of it. But, when she came back, she was a viral. She just began attacking everyone... I guess that was the moment it started...'

'What happened to your friend?' Sharp Claw asked, curiously.

Black Talon frowned at him. 'I don't want to talk about it.'

Sharp Claw stayed quiet, and looked away, realising he was starting to hit a bad nerve.

'Black Talon?' Fern Foot said.

'What?'

'... I'm sorry for whatever you've been through... you didn't deserve it...'

I deserved it. I deserved everything I got. Life hates me, and this is what I get.

'It's fine.'

You coward... always lying about your true feelings... always finding it hard to talk about your emotions... you're so pathetic...

Black Talon shuddered at his thoughts.

I just want it all to stop.

'Do you hear that?' Fern Foot spoke up.

'Hear what?' (Sharp Claw)

'Quiet!' (Black Talon)

There were loud, slow thumps, echoing through the forest. They could feel the ground shake with every booming thud. Fuzzy let out a nervous squeak, but Sharp Claw quickly silenced him.

They all suddenly realised what it was. Their hearts stopped, and they cast horrified looks at each other. They could smell that it was a lone viral, but that was not what filled them with terror.

It was a viral Tyrannosaurus.

A seven-tonne beast with bone-crushing jaws, terrifying power, and the undisputed apex predator in the land.

'We need to hide!' Fern Foot hissed at the others.

'We won't be able to stick together...' Black Talon looked around. 'If we go behind the trees, they'll only be able to safely hide one of us...'