Creature's Sight

“Will this be all?” the tired elderly man asked as he finished punching in the barcodes of the last of the plants, herbs, and berries that the small store had carried, into the cash register

“Well, I didn’t see any of these.” I gave him the list and pointed to the plant that’s name I didn’t care to pronounce. “Do you have any in the back?”

He pulled a pair of reading glasses out of his apron pocket and put them on before taking a look at the small piece of paper I gave him. Once he had finished reading the list he raised an eyebrow.

“Hmm. You must be Kathrin’s granddaughter.” He scratched his balding head in thought, as he mumbled to himself. “No, I’m afraid I don’t have any of these left in stock.” He pulled out a small area map and started writing on it.

“How did you know about me being Kathrin’s granddaughter?” I asked out of curiosity. He smiled.

“Because she’s the only one in town, besides me, who knows the recipe that calls for these exact ingredients...and you have her eyes.” He set the red marker he was using, down and handed me the map. “I’m Richard, by the way.”

“I’m Leah” I smiled as I shook his hand at his random introduction after taking the map.

He returned the smile as he pointed to the circled area of the map.

“Well, Leah, if you hurry up, you may collect the Epilobium angustifolium in this area. They grow beautiful pinkish-purple flowers, so they’ll be easy to spot when you get there. Just make sure to do so right away; the area is wooded and you may just find a grizzly bear or two.” He said in what seemed like a teasing manner, but at the same time, seemed to be serious.

“Alright, thank you. So, how much do I owe you?”



Kathrin Hughes was lying awake on her bed, finishing up a book, when she looked over to the clock on her nightstand and noticed how late it was getting. Her granddaughter, Leah, had yet to return from retrieving the ingredients for her medicinal recipe, and she was beginning to worry. She decided to call up the owner of the small shop that she had sent Leah to.

“Richard’s Remedies, this is Richard, how may I—”

“Richard, its Kathrin—”

“Oh! Hi there, Kitty. Sending your granddaughter to do your errands for ya, now are we?” He joked and she ignored the nickname he’d called her.

“Actually, Richard, my granddaughter is why I’m calling. Is she still there, in the shop with you? She should be back by now and I’m beginning to get worried.” Kathrin began to twirl the phone-cord between her fingers; it had been a nervous habit of hers.

There was a short pause before he answered.

“Well, Kitty, I was all out of the Epilobium angustifolium, so I sent her to the meadow—” Kathrin gasped.

“Meadow? Richard, which meadow?!” she demanded. There was another pause.

“You know which meadow, Kathrin.” He replied in a serious yet cautious manner.

“Richard, do you know what you have done? She doesn’t know yet!”

“What do you mean, she doesn’t know yet? Why would you wait to tell her? You know there isn’t much time!”

“Because, I wanted my only granddaughter to have at least one more normal day with her only surviving family. I was going to tell her tomorrow, Richard. You had no right to send her there, and now she’s going in there completely unprepared!”

“We don’t know if she will be able to pass over, tonight. I’m sorry, Kathrin, for assuming that you had already explained everything to her. You’re right, it was wrong of me to send her with out asking you, first.”

“For your sake, Richard, she have better return home safely.”



Dark clouds were filling up the sky, threatening rain and making it harder to see without artificial lights. Alaska’s famous for having sunlight most hours of the day, but this weather gave me a better since of reality of the time. It was a bit past 9pm, when I arrived to the wooded area where the plant I need, grows.

I stepped out of Gran’s old blue truck and made sure that I had my cell, flashlight, my pocket knife, and the map with, before I began the hike. The temperature had dropped into the mid 30’s with a cold wind-chill scraping my bare face as the clouds began to produce a light drizzle. I re-wrapped my scarf tighter around my neck, and raised the hood of my jacket over my head, tightening the strings on it. I was beginning to miss the Texas heat; it barely got this cold during our winter lows, much less in the late summer!

‘Maybe I should’ve waited until morning.’ I thought, but I was already out and I wanted to get the ingredients for Gran as soon as possible. ‘The sooner I have these ingredients for her, the better.’

The deeper I walked into the woods, the more a creepy feeling crawled its way up my spine. I quickly came to a stop and aimed my flashlight towards the sound of rustling of bushes and snapping twigs that came from just ahead of me. My heart began racing as I tried to figure out was causing the disturbance.

‘Please don’t be a bear!’ I silently pleaded.

The rustling came to a sudden stop causing my heart to skip a beat as I held my breath, hoping whatever it was, wasn’t planning on jumping out and attacking me.

‘Please be a rabbit or squirrel. Yeah, maybe that’s all it is, a member of the rodent family, and harmless.’ I was just freaking out at a harmless creature that just thought it was hilarious to scare the idiot human who was all alone in the woods at night.

After I reassured myself—and restored a bit of my confidence—I let out the breath I was holding, stood up straight, and took one step forward. I took another, longer, step forward when out in the distance I heard a creature cry out in a roar, causing the previous rustling in front of me to continue. The mysterious creature’s cry spooked whatever it was in front of me, causing it to forcefully run into and knock me down on my back, knocking the air out of my lungs with a big ‘oof’. I picked my flashlight up beside me and pointed it at the animal in front of me.

‘Caribou. It was just a caribou. I sighed in relief as I let my head rest back on the dirt ground. But what had spooked it?

After I caught my breath, I stood up and wiped the dirt off of myself as best as I could. I decided that I might as well—very quickly—finish what I came here to do. I grabbed the map out of my pocket and looked at it using my flashlight; the plants were just a half-mile ahead of my position.

After a few minutes of cautious walking, I reached an opening that led me into a stunning meadow. I slowly stepped into the opening, gasping at the breathtaking scene in front of me. The storm clouds had not infected the night sky, instead, the Northern Lights—a winding ribbon of greens, yellows, blues, and pinks—seemed to painting itself around the countless scattered stars. The large full moon shone brightly down upon the open-grassy field that contained a great patch of the plants that I had came here for. As Richard had described, these plants bloomed beautiful magenta flowers that seemed to glow in the moon-light. Bordering the great patch of magenta flowers, lye a steady-calm lake that held a perfect reflection of the dazzling splendor of the above night sky. Finally, beyond the sleeping lake, rose the sight of a surplus amount of snow-capped mountains.

‘I must be dreaming.’ I thought as I stared in awe of the unique sight. A place with this magnitude of beauty and perfection could not exist in this world; it was just…impossible.

I was instantly snapped out of the hypnotizing moment when a cry-like roar—similar to the one I had heard earlier—came from the right of where I now stood. It had startled me, causing my heart to once again quicken, but the roar had sounded desperate and pleading. My instincts were telling me to follow the sound and find its source, and I decided to listen.

Before I knew it, my feet began to drag me closer to the animal that seemed to be drawing me in. It was as if something—or one was leading me to do something about the distressed animal.

‘This way!’
‘Just a little bit further!’
‘You must help!’

As I reached the edge of the woods, I heard a loud, distressed groan coming from directly in front of me. What ever it was, it was struggling to move itself. I slowly lifted my flashlight up, pointing it towards a large fury beast. At first I thought it was a bear, its back paw caught in one of those old and inhumane traps with the clamped teeth. I was wrong.

When I lifted the flashlight to get a full view of the injured animal in front of me, I gasped in shock at the mere size of the beast and backed up, dropping my flashlight, tripping backwards over an exposed tree root, and finally landing hard on my butt. Unfortunately, my clumsiness alerted it of my presence causing it to snap its head to face me. It seemed to stare at me as it sniffed the air in my direction, learning my scent, and judging weather I was a threat or not.

‘Help…’ a gruff animal-like voice whispered in my mind.

When the initial shock of the unknown creature before me wore off, I took another look at it. The creature had thick fur, as black as coal, covering most of its muscular body that stood almost 7ft on its two hunched legs. On top of its broad shoulders and thick neck, rested a head; similar to that of a human, only with a slight snout and the pointed ears of a wolf. The beast’s chest was well built and strong, and as I lowered my eyes, I noticed a certain part of its anatomy that was very male. His long muscular arms were tied behind his back with a thick rope and his left foot-like paw was bleeding profusely as he was caught in a bear trap. I looked back up to his face to find dark pleading eyes.

‘Help…Please!’

The fact that I was hearing voices did not occur to me, as I cautiously stood back up and hurried to open up the trap that was clamped tightly on the creature’s paw.

“Alright, this might hurt a bit. I’m going to need you to move your paw when I say; I won’t be able to hold it open for long” He grunted in reply as I used all of my strength to open the trap. “Now!”

His breathing was coarse as he quickly lifted his paw out of the way just in time before the trap overpowered me and snapped back shut, now stained with blood. I grabbed my pocket knife out of my jean pocket after I stood up to free him from the ropes. I noticed that he was favoring his injured extremity. I knew that he was loosing lots of blood and that I needed to do something to slow it down, so I took off my jacket, took off one of my two shirts and quickly wrapped it tightly around his paw.

As I walked behind him, getting ready to cut the rope, a gasp slipped past my lips in surprise to find a long, bushy tale. I then noticed his odd looking fur-covered hands that had elongated fingers that were tipped with long pointed claws; I pitied anything that got in the way of those. I brought the sharp end of the blade against the rope when he lifted his head in the air, sniffing for something. He must have smelled something that bothered him, because his muscles tensed and he became very anxious.

“Hold on, I’m going to cut you free, now, and then I’ll help you bind your paw.” I said as I started nervously cutting the rope from behind him. It took some time, but I did it. “There you go!”

I quickly stepped back from the creature to wait for his reaction to being set free when all of a sudden he lifted back his head and roared loud enough for it to echo across the woods, spooking any animals nearby, and causing them to scurry off. A low growl slipped through his mouth as he began to bare his sharp-white teeth. I squealed when he picked me up with great force, throwing me over his back as he ran with a limp, heading back into the meadow.

“Let me down!” I pounded his back with my fists. “What are you doing? I saved your life, remember?”

He just ignored me as he continued limping us over towards the lake without any sign of slowing down, and I began to panic by pounding my fist on his back, desperately this time.

“Stop! What are you—”

Before I could finish, the creature threw me off of his back and into the freezing water of the deep lake. I tried frantically to swim above the surface, but I couldn’t. Something, current-like was tugging me, pulling me down further and further, plunging into the darkness. I could no longer hold my breath.

‘Why?’ I thought as everything went black.