Chapter Text
Part I
The woods were quiet.
Jisung trotted along a well worn path through towering trees, his paws crunching on fallen leaves. The chill of late fall was in the air and he was thankful for the thick coat of his wolf form.
As a newly presented alpha he had been granted permission to hunt on his own without an older wolf tagging along to supervise. Tasked with hunting rabbits, the rest of the hunting party stayed together in search of deer and larger game, while he relished his new found independence.
He stopped, tail wagging, and stretched his neck towards the gray sky, sniffing the breeze. He could barely scent any trace of rabbits, and as he tilted his head, ears twitching, he couldn’t hear the noises that made up the underlying cacophony of the woods: the birds chirping, the squirrels rustling tree branches, and the small creatures that moved in the undergrowth.
The woods were too quiet.
Jisung scuffed his front paws on the ground, the sound of dry leaves loud in the eerie quiet. He sniffed again. He didn’t smell a storm on the horizon, and it was the middle of the day, hours from nightfall. He couldn’t smell or hear his pack.
He spun around and started briskly walking in the direction where he last left his pack. Hyunjin would make fun of him for returning without any rabbits on his first solo hunt, but he felt uneasy. As he increased his pace his fur stood on end, and he broke into a full run, his instincts screaming to get back to his pack.
Jisung wasn’t one to ignore his instincts.
Mid-run a sharp pain hit his neck and he stumbled as an ice-cold sensation shot through his veins, paralyzing his legs. Falling to the ground, he rolled over as the icy sensation intensified.
From the trees emerged several figures wearing masks and dressed in all black. He opened his mouth to howl a warning when one of the figures raised their arms and pointed what looked like a gun right at him. He began to howl but felt a sharp pain in his stomach. The world went dark and quiet.
One week later
Jisung couldn’t open his eyes, but his mind felt like it was teetering on the edge of consciousness. For some reason, his first fully formed thought was about Felix. He could almost hear his friend’s deep voice.
“Over here, holy fuck, it’s Jisung, over here!”
Felix sounded so close.
A loud howl echoed, joined by more howls, until a choir of pained howls almost had him fading back into comforting darkness.
“Jisung, can you hear me?” Felix’s voice was strained.
He struggled to form words, but his tongue wouldn’t cooperate. “Mmmph.”
“Oh my god, he’s covered in blood.” Hyunjin’s voice was high and frantic.
“Hurry, help me put him on Chan’s back.”
Jisung eyes stayed firmly shut as strong hands gripped him under his arms and his legs, while someone gently cradled his head.
“Make sure he’s secure.”
Soft fur rubbed against his face, but his head hurt so, so much, and the pain rushed in. He groaned, long and low.
”Hurry, we have to get him to the Healer.”
Jisung cried out again, the pain unbearable, and everything faded away.
Several Days Later
Jisung sat in bed as Felix tilted his head back and helped him sip water from a small cup.
He drank until Felix nodded, satisfied, and watched as he put the cup down. The freckles on Felix’s face stood out in stark relief. Light shone through the window of their shared bedroom, and he noted it was an unusually bright day.
”You still can’t remember anything Sung?” Felix asked, voice hushed.
Jisung shook his head, then winced, absently touching the bandage wrapped around his head. He was going to have quite the scar on his forehead when healed.
Several days had passed since the pack found him naked in his human form, with a deep gash on his forehead and blood running down his face and neck. He was lying prone beside a large rock at the bottom of a small hill in the woods, not far from where he had first run into the masked figures.
Bright swaths of blood were smeared down the side of the rock, and his pack assumed he had fallen or fainted and hit his head on the rock, but everything else remained a mystery.
When Jisung told them about the masked figures and the shooting pain and paralysis, Chan’s eyes had widened, and he made the Healer examine him all over again. But the Healer and the rest of his pack were stumped. Aside from the nasty gash on his forehead and mild dehydration, the Healer couldn’t find anything else wrong with him. His entire body had been closely examined, but there was no trace of anything that might have transpired during his missing week.
Chan told him when he didn’t return to the pack later that afternoon a search party was sent out. His scent trail was faint until it abruptly ended.
The pack searched for a week, combing the woods as far as they could, even spending the night and searching further than the pack had been in many years.
On the seventh day Felix smelled blood and they found him at the bottom of the small hill. The pack tried to trace back where he came from, but heavy rainfall earlier that day erased any scent trails.
“No, I can’t remember anything.” Jisung frowned. “It’s like that week doesn’t exist. Or I was asleep the entire time.” He shivered, thinking of the masked figures. “It’s so fucking creepy. I have no memory of what those guys wanted with me, or if they did anything to me. But there’s no proof anything was even done, I -”
Felix gently shoved him over, climbing into the small bed and snuggling up against him. He wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed reassuringly. “All that matters is you’re back, and you’re ok.”
“Yeah, but do you think the pack will ever let me hunt again?”
Felix leaned his head on his shoulder.. “Probably. But you’ll be assigned a buddy, I’m sure.”
“Well that’s just great.”
“Hey, look at it this way; enjoy being waited on like a prince while you can. Take advantage of it.”
“Hmmph.” Jisung hated feeling like he was useless and not contributing to the pack. The past several days had been a special kind of torture.
“Is Jisung awake?” Hyunjin, with Seungmin peeking behind him, stood in the doorway, smiling.
Jisung perked up at the sight of his other housemates. “Yes, awake and bored, come keep me company.”
“He’s whining so he must be feeling better,” Seungmin said, shoving Jisung’s legs over and squeezing into the overcrowded bed.
Hyunjin stood at the foot of the bed. “Sung, we missed you, and your whining, when we thought you were gone, we -” His voice broke and he looked down.
“Hey, you need to be comforting me, don’t make me comfort you. C’mere.”
Jisung waved him over, and Hyunjin sat on the edge of the bed and buried his face in Jisung’s neck, breathing deeply and lightly scenting him.
He smiled fondly, letting Hyunjin scent him while Felix continued with the cuddling and Seungmin patted his legs. He was close with his entire pack, but he was especially close with his cabin mates. They were the same age and had been roommates for years. He didn’t know what he would do without his pack, and he was so thankful they had found him.