Rose ran straight into the bushes, the glistening silver tornado on her left shoulder blade the last thing they saw before she was gone. Only the light patter of her footsteps indicated where she was, although they quickly became harder to distinguish as other noises began to echo around the area they had been running towards.

The silence that had previously befallen the forest was no more.

‘Whatever she was running from sounds like it’s coming this way,’ Dorian said, straining to hear what it was.

‘What do we do?’ Kaira asked.

Leo did not immediately answer as he was also listening to the approaching sounds. It sounded like footsteps, except far heavier than any of theirs. But the most disturbing thing about them was the fact that they were travelling at speed.

‘We run, and we hide,’ Leo repeated Rose’s last words, choosing not to repeat the part about a hunt.

Leo swiftly led them up the path they had just come down, trying his best to manoeuvre the rocks and reaching branches that seemed to have doubled in size since they last passed them.

Having pushed his friends as far as he dared, Leo chose to move from the path and head into the overgrowth. As his heartbeat became louder, he tried not to think about the possibility that the footsteps gaining on him did not belong to his friends. Instead, Leo tried to focus on navigating a land he had never seen, filled with people he did not know.

With every turn, Leo almost instinctively raised his hands to brace for an impact that never came. Though some low-lying branches still did their best to block their way.

‘We’ve got to find shelter,’ Dorian exclaimed, scanning the surrounding area.

‘Keep your voice down, Dors. We don’t know what’s listening,’ Bailey hissed as they squeezed between two thick tree trunks.

‘I don’t like this. We need to find somewhere quickly,’ Kaira said, pulling up alongside Leo, their legs running with synchronised precision that lapped up each hurried step.

‘Thank you for pointing out the obvious. But I don’t recognise a thing, let alone somewhere to hide,’ Leo muttered, slowing slightly to give Dorian and Bailey a chance to catch up.

‘We’ve got to find a place where we can see whatever's coming. These trees are too thick. I can’t see more than ten feet away,’ said Dorian.

‘Fine. We will try and work our way up the hill. If we cannot find anything soon then we’ll need to start climbing trees,’ asserted Leo, as Kaira led the way up the trail.

Looking over his shoulder and half expecting to see something other than his friends, Leo spotted something that made his eyes widen and his heart drop. To his alarm, from behind Dorian and Bailey, he saw a perfect trail of their footprints.

‘Kai, get to those bushes over there. Now!’

Leo’s terror made Kaira give him a worried look before she leapt into the low-lying bushes. Roots that desperately tried to wrap around their ankles slowed them down as they kicked through their deep-rooted grip.

Shadows seemed to follow their every move as they ran through the forest, though Leo did not have the time to focus on whether there was something there, or if it was just the cruel trickery of the sunlight.

Bailey’s footsteps were slowing, and as Dorian and Leo dropped back to help guide her along, Kaira scouted ahead.

A sudden rustling came from a bush nearby, and they all skidded to a stop. Their muscles screamed for them to continue, but they held still, not daring to move.

The bush remained motionless, but with their improved hearing they managed to hear the faintest of footsteps that were masterfully manoeuvring the leaves and vines ahead. Leo looked at his friends, sweat dripping down their faces as they stood statuesque. Their ferociously beating hearts the only things moving.

‘You shouldn’t be out here.’ Came a deep, harrowing voice from within the bushes. ‘Why are you still in the open?’

None of them managed to muster a word.

‘You know not of what you seek, and yet you seek it anyway? The hunt is on, and you continue as the hunted?’

The voice continued to question them from out of sight, and Leo felt like its owner was searching them for weaknesses.

‘Make your intentions known wanderers or find yourself wandering forever more.’

‘We’re running from whatever’s out there,’ Leo whispered, finally finding his voice and throwing a finger back in the direction they had come from.

‘I see,’ the voice rumbled from the thick leaves, ‘in which case you’d better come with me.’

The voice enticed them to step forward. To go further into the unknown.

‘You show yourself first,’ Kaira ordered, putting on a brave front as she stood with her chest thrust forwards, going with the theory that acting brave is half the battle of being so.

‘It is you who is being hunted, child. You who seeks safety. Yet you order me, the provider of which, to do as you command?’ A laugh echoed around the forest, perhaps genuine, or perhaps alerting others to their whereabouts.

Something moved to their left that caused the four of them to jump having been solely focused on the bushes ahead.

Stepping out from between the leaves came what almost looked like a man. His footsteps were inaudible, even once they could see him. His face was dark and covered in circular markings, and with every step through the shadows, the stranger almost disappeared as he swept a long, dark black tail behind him that lightly touched the tops of the fallen leaves. He stared at them with murky yellow eyes.

‘What would you have me do now?’ The man sneered towards Kaira, baring a line of viciously sharp teeth, and removing any false impression of power they may have had.

Kaira simply stared back at him before she burst out, ‘Help us!’

Large circular ears, each coated with dark fur and resting towards the top of his head, twitched as he picked up on any movement elsewhere as he contemplated the four of them.

‘Very well. But bark orders at me again and finding yourself lost in this forest will be the least of your worries,’ he finally blinked, and instantly the four of them remembered how to breathe, ‘you will follow me, stepping where I step, moving where I move. You have wasted too much time and the pack will be upon us in moments. You may already be able to smell them.’

Leo sniffed the air, his sense of smell seemingly picking up everything, from the smell of oak, to the dirt they had kicked up as they ran. However, as this man said it, a new scent entered the air. The faint smell of sweat seeped into his nostrils, as did the smell of other types of fur, like wet dog but stronger. Leo saw that Kaira and Bailey were picking this up too, and for a split second, he could have sworn he smelt their fear.

Leo looked back to the man they hoped could bring them safety, only to find his hunched back silently slipping into the forest. He held his tail slightly in the air as he maintained a deliberate balance, twitching it from side to side. Without any further hesitation, they ran after him, trying to match the way he almost floated over the forest floor.

‘Keep low and focus on every step. You are no longer just human. Use whatever instinct is developing within you. Each movement should be precise. This is what your body was made to do. After a while it will be nothing more than an afterthought, but in this moment, you will need to concentrate. Especially you two,’ he nodded at Leo and Kaira, ‘you move in the shadows. You are now what people thought they saw out the corner of their eye. You are the feeling of something watching you from out of sight.’

Leo smiled as he spoke, every word reverberating inside of him. Feeling such strength, strength he had never known possible until waking up in Libero. Amongst all the danger and unknown, life seemed to be finding a purpose with every step he took.

‘Quickly. This way.’

He darted between two crossing bushes that scratched Leo as he followed. A scarlet red bubble began to form on Leo’s cheek, but before anyone saw, he smeared it away with the back of his hand.

Rock coated most of the floor, with the trees growing only in the gaps they had managed to force themselves through. The stranger’s head bobbed under branches that reached into the air at eye level, all of which were coated in rougher leaves native to this land.

Finally, they broke free from the forest and found themselves in front of an endless cliff face, stretching up into the skies and disappearing into the distance.

Leo was not afforded the time to look around as the man continued moving, running up the side of the rock face and causing pebbles to fall. Leo leant into his run as he and his friends clamoured a seldom travelled path.

‘Do you think we’re stopping up here?’ Bailey panted, just as they turned a corner to find another stretch of steep rock.

‘I hope so,’ responded Leo.

After a short but intense journey up the cliff, they finally reached a small ledge that led back towards a cave. Sunlight was doing its utmost to light up the darkness, but for all its might, only the cave’s outer reaches saw the light of day.

‘Is this it?’ Dorian asked, kneeling besides Bailey.

‘This is my it,’ he answered, ‘we will lie low until it's safe for you to go back out there.’

‘What are we hiding from?’ Leo asked, looking out over the forest, hearing twigs snapping and branches breaking as something ran through it.

‘That sound you hear, that’s the pack. If you listen closely, you can hear their breathing as they relentlessly chase their prey. You can almost taste their sweat as they scour the forest. They are unforgiving. They won’t show any form of mercy, not even to unsuspecting fresh meat,’ he growled, ‘tell me, how much do you know about the land you find yourself in?’

A single bead of sweat dropped past the man’s prying eye, rolling over the top of a dark rosette marking like those that covered his body. His dark fur shimmered in the golden light as the sun began its descent. Leo also noticed how he had the same padding on his hands, except his looked fully grown, providing his feet with the padding to withstand every terrain they had found so far.

‘We know this part of Libero is called Penna, and that you found us in the Tempera forest or something.’

‘The forests of Tempera.’

‘Yeah, that’s the one. We were being taken by someone called Rose to meet Isla. But just after we heard the roar, she told us to run and we lost her. Then we found you.’ Or you found us, Leo thought. ‘My brother was taken here, and we’ve come to bring him home. All we know so far is that this place was created by four people. No one warned us of a hunt.’

‘I see,’ his deep voice rumbled.

With his legs bent and his arms placed on the floor before him, the man remained perfectly still as he crouched, alert and ready as he watched over the land.

‘Libero was created as a place for people to be free. But as instincts took control, some people started to fight. Some even began hunting those weaker than themselves.’

Leo exchanged a quick, what the hell, type glance with Kaira.

‘As things got worse, Devolo proposed the hunt. His idea was for the four creators to bring livestock back from earth and let them loose in their lands, allowing those who wanted to hunt the chance to do so.’

‘Then why's there a hunt going on in Penna?’ Bailey asked, causing the man to raise an eyebrow inquisitively at her.

‘Devolo hasn’t been in Libero for some time, and with Isla confined to the water, there's been no one to stop Arctier and Komado. The rule when the hunt was created was that no instinctive was to be harmed. But more and more are being killed as the thirst for blood outgrows what a simple deer can fulfil. So Arctier decided that a roar will let anyone within the land know that the hunt had begun, and if you are found out in the open ... let’s just say there’s a reason the forest was quiet a long time before the roar came.’

As the man spoke, Leo tried to see as far as he could from their spot at the top of the rock, managing to see the lake he thought Rose had been taking them to on his right. Stretching out either side of them were the never-ending layers of rock forming the cliffs, some of which dropped vertically down and buried straight into the ground, while others sloped into the forest before going out of sight.

‘Why were you out there during the hunt?’ Dorian asked, causing the man to break into unexpected laughter, his fang-like teeth shining in the fading sunlight.

‘If I had wanted you dead, you would not have seen nor heard me coming. Matter of fact, you didn’t,’ he smiled ominously, ‘I was there because I enjoy the chase. I have lived here too long now for them to catch me, but it’s fun to let them try.’

‘Wait, going back to the hunt. Do you mean we might have to hunt for stuff?’ asked Bailey.

‘We won’t be here that long,’ Leo assured her.

‘What happens if we are?’

‘You’re free to choose how you live your life here. If you need meat to survive, then that is on you. Otherwise, you will be sourcing your food from that which grows in the soil and water.’

Leo noticed a slight Mexican accent as he spoke, and he found his mind wandering.

‘Ask him his name,’ Leo whispered to Kaira.

‘Tepey,’ he replied, keeping his eyes focused on the ground beneath their view as the noise of the pack continued to draw closer, ‘remember, those around you will have abilities unlike anyone you have met before. Increased hearing could be one of those skills.’

Shouts from the undergrowth were followed by muffled growls and whimpers, undoubtedly the sound of something having just been bitten. The four of them fell silent and shuffled closer together, eyes fixed in the direction Tepey was staring.