WILD WOLVERINE

Wolverine is a feral animal.

A manmade hunter. An experiment.

An Apex predator. A hunter. Though not natural, still a hunter.

But there is always something greater.

In this story...

The hunter becomes the hunted.

A storm of thoughts rushing through his head. Blood pumping through his veins. He smelled it, he rushed, he pounced. Claws tore through the skin beneath his knuckles, and sank themselves into the wildlife.

That's what was supposed to happened. Instead, his claws broke, and he fell to the side, into the foot-deep snow, face-first. He quickly rose up, growling, confused, wiping at the snow on his face, blood drenching his hands. He blinked, and pounced at the being again, half-blind. A being, much taller than him, merely swatted him down once more.

Before he could stand up again, the Wolverine felt a massive foot settle on his back, and it began to press. Hard. Wolverine struggled, but to no avail. The foot was not budging. It stopped pressing, and Wolverine soon felt hot, smelly breath on the back of his head. A roar came from the Being, and Wolverine's ears began to ring.

Something sharp dug into his neck, and he blacked out.

When he awoke again, he was in a cave. He was on the ground; stone, hard, cold. He felt water droplets on his forehead. He felt tingles all over his body. Usually he only feels tingles around an area that was wounded, but had healed. Something had managed to thoroughly damage his entire his body, and as he could tell, both inside and out.

Something big.

There was no light in the cave. Pure darkness, pure silence, were it not for the loud echoes of the falling water. Wolverine struggled to get up, but he got up, like a dog that was nearly roadkill. On all four, he began to crawl, wandering aimlessly. He hit the cavern's walls multiple times, and his blunders awoke something in the dark. The Being.

Wolverine, more curious than scared, froze, listening intently. He picked up the smell of a hibernating bear, and fish. The cavern vibrated as the Being walked, the water around Wolverine on the cavern floor made small ripples. It was cold. Very cold. Wolverine was naked. Very naked. He felt it acutely.

For the first time ever, Wolverine felt something strange, as the Being hunted for him: vulnerability.

The Being had presumed him dead. If the Being found him, Wolverine would try to kill it, and would likely die in the process. But there was nothing else to do. It was too dark to see anything. Wolverine may be very much like a feral animal, but he wasn't nocturnal.

A hand closed around Wolverine's ankle. An iron grip. Wolverine was held up. The Being seemed to inspect him in the dark. The Being roared, but did nothing to Wolverine. Wolverine struggled, his claws had fully healed, and he was desperately trying to cut the Being. To harm it in any way. But his efforts were in vain. He came into with the Being's furry coat, but it seemed not to notice in any way.

Wolverine saw, despite the mild headache that had formed as all the blood in his body was rushing to his head constantly, that they were approaching light. He hissed, and narrowed his eyes. The forest of pines was visible outside.

As they approached the cave entry, the Being raised Wolverine over his head, and Wolverine finally caught a look of the Being, lit up by the morning sun. He recognized it.

It was a wendigo.

The wendigo flung him into the trees, and Wolverine crashed through countless branches, horizontally, until he hit an unbreakable one, which broke his ribs and sent him crashing down to the forest floor below.