Chapter Text
Kore woke up, dizzy and disoriented. Her whole body hurt, like she had been shoved into a small, cramped area for hours and was just now let free. She really couldn’t remember what happened.
She had been at home, making dinner when things had gone… fuzzy. She hadn’t been unconscious, but she was hardly aware of her surroundings. Things had gone in and out of focus. One moment someone had picked her up off the floor, the next she was in the back seat of a car driving down a dark road that was occasionally broken by streetlights, and then she was on the floor again, but this time somewhere cold with concrete floors. There had been a man there, a woman too by the faint, feminine murmurs she could discern.
In and out, lights and loud voices, followed by the sharp scent of something burning and the pain of a knife on her throat. She didn’t even have the energy to move or scream, only lay there as the gurgle of blood slowly filled her lungs until she knew no more.
So it had been a shock when she had woken up, in pain and alone on a random dirt lot in the middle of nowhere.
Kore tried to push herself upright, but her arms didn’t work the way they should. Her palms slid uselessly against the dirt--except they didn’t feel like palms at all. Something sharp dug into the earth. She blinked, tried again, and nearly toppled over onto her side.
Her chest heaved. Everything smelled wrong. Too sharp, too strong--dirt, old rain, and an old scent of rabbit, the ghost of its scent painted in the air like bright streaks. The world was loud, too, filled with the scritch of insects under the grass and the thrum of her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.
She froze. Her ears weren’t just hearing; they were moving. Twitching. Tilting toward the sound of rustling brush she hadn’t even meant to notice.
A whine slipped from her throat. The sound startled her--it was high, breathy, and nothing like her voice.
She tried to stand again, pushing her tired muscles to the edge to get her hands and feet under her. Except her balance was wrong. Her arms wouldn’t straighten the way they should, elbows folding tighter than human joints ever could. Her fingers scrabbled at the dirt and came up short, stunted, clawed. When she finally managed to rise, it wasn’t upright at all. Her spine curved forward, weight pulling her onto all fours.
Her breath caught. She looked down--and froze.
Where her hands should have been, dark paws pressed into the soil.
Kore padded down the road, her tail and ears low. Walking had been a learning experience, dealing with her heightened senses another. Everything was so much. Loud, smelly, bright. Oh and she was color blind on top of it. Yellow, blue and grey made up her world, and she found herself missing the reds, purples, and greens. The grass wasn't the same.
She had no idea where she was, only that she was in the US, probably the midwest. She had been dropped off in the middle of some deep backroads, with only the very occasional car passing by. She hadn’t been confident enough to approach one, hiding in the treeline when she heard one coming.
Her paws sank into the loose gravel, claws clicking softly against the occasional chunk of asphalt.
Her stomach growled, the dull ache of hunger becoming more and more pressing as the day passed. Smells of different animals hiding in the trees caught her attention more than they should, with each small noise jerking her head around and perking up her ears.
She tried to ignore it. Tried to focus on the thought of bread, of stew simmering on her old stove, of anything but the hot, twitching scent of rabbit blood that lingered just beyond the ditch. Her jaws ached with the want to snap and tear. The part of her that still thought in human words recoiled, horrified--but the body she wore didn’t care.
Kore shook herself. No. Not yet.
She needed to find a town, or a house. Somewhere she could scavenge or beg for food. Somewhere human. Somewhere safe.
She raised her head, sniffing at the air before freezing.
There. Beneath the earth-and-grass and the hundred lesser smells, something bitter and electric curled against her senses. Burnt ozone, the copper sting of blood, and the acrid bite of gunpowder. Wrong. Unnatural.
Her ears swiveled forward despite herself.
Somewhere ahead, in the patchwork dark of the backroads, trouble waited.
And Kore?
Well… she's always been too curious for her own good.
Following the road, the scent became sharper and sharper until she came upon a car parked off to the side in a grove of trees, its black body almost invisible from the street.
It was sleek and powerful, with a strong scent of iron, salt, and blood almost covering the car’s metal and oil smell. She looped around the car, sniffing the handles of the door to pick up on the owners. Two scents, one smelled like leather and aftershave, with hints of something smoky like a campfire and coppery like blood. The other smelled electric and wild, like a storm passing through a forest, leaving behind overturned trees and disturbed earth.
The scents were strong, incredibly so, fresh in her nose and leading away from the car and into the forest. She shifted and looked into the woods, focusing on her hearing to tell if they were close, but could hear nothing but the crickets singing in the grass.
Kore had a strong urge to turn and run, her mind spinning with thousands of ideas of why these two would smell so strangely. The smell of blood hung heavy near the back of the car, which didn’t help.
Paws moved forward, crunching old leaves and dirt as she followed the scents into the forest. The smell of something other and unnatural continued as well, as if a separate scent that the two had been following. She was very deep into the forest when she heard yelling.
Her ears shot forward, swiveling toward the sound before she even thought to move. The words blurred together--harsh, angry, distinctly human. Then came the crash of something heavy hitting the ground, followed by a snarl that raised the fur on the back of her neck.
Kore froze. The storm-wild scent was close now, thick and sparking against her nose, tangled with the sharp bite of iron and the sweet-rotten reek of something very much not human. Her tail and ears tucked, but her paws carried her forward anyway, curiosity dragging her deeper.
Through the underbrush, she caught glimpses of motion--bodies moving fast, weapons flashing in the dark. Gunshots rang out like cannon blasts to her poor ears, sending sharp pain through her skull.
Yelling cut through the trees, urgent and ragged. The storm-smell man shouted something, answered by the one that carried campfire smoke in his skin. Both voices were strained, angry, and scared.
She crept closer until the trees thinned, giving her a view of the clearing.
Two men fought a thing that wasn’t right. Too tall, too thin, its limbs jerking in ways they shouldn’t, mouth full of teeth that belonged to no animal. Its eyes glowed faintly in the dark, catching the light when it turned its head. Kore’s hackles lifted, a low growl building in her chest without her meaning to.
The men fought hard, but the creature was stronger. One of them--the taller, storm-scented one--was slammed against a tree, bark splintering as his head snapped back. The other swung an ax, catching the monster across the shoulder, but it hardly slowed. The thing screeched and lashed out, sending him sprawling in the dirt.
For a heartbeat, everything in Kore screamed at her to run. Her body was small compared to theirs, her teeth and claws nothing next to guns and blades. But the scent of blood--their blood--hit her nose, hot and iron-heavy, and something inside her screamed to do something.
Her paws launched her forward before she even knew she’d chosen. She tore across the clearing, low to the ground, eyes locked on the monster’s back. With a snarl that startled even her own ears, she leapt.
Her jaws clamped down on its arm, teeth sinking deep into flesh that felt too cold, too wrong. The creature shrieked and whipped around, trying to shake her off, but Kore held on with every ounce of strength in her new body. She dug her claws into its side, twisting her head until the taste of foul, thick blood coated her tongue.
The men didn’t waste the chance. The storm-scented one pushed himself up, grabbing a long blade from the ground. The campfire-smoke man leveled his shotgun, eyes wide when they landed on her, but his aim never faltered.
“Now, Sam!” the older one barked.
The blade drove deep into the monster’s chest just as the shotgun roared. Kore felt the shudder pass through the creature’s body, then it collapsed beneath her, jerking once, twice, before going still.
Panting, Kore stumbled back, her muzzle wet with black blood. Her ears rang from the shot, her body trembling from the effort, but she stayed on her feet. The two men stood staring at her, weapons still half-raised, chests heaving.
Up close, she caught more of their faces through the darkness. The taller one--Sam--looked younger than his scent suggested, hair damp with sweat and dirt. The other had sharp eyes that narrowed when they met hers, suspicion and confusion warring on his face.
“Uh,” The shorter said slowly, shotgun lowering just a fraction. “Since when do we get backup dogs?”
Sam just shook his head, still staring at her like he couldn’t quite believe what he’d seen.
Kore licked the foul taste from her muzzle, ears twitching back. She hadn’t meant to reveal herself. But as the two men caught their breath over the corpse at their feet, one thought burned hot and clear in her mind:
She knew these men.
And Kore didn’t think Jensen and Jared traveled solo together…
She looked down at the corpse of the creature.
…Or hunted actual monsters.
…Fuck.