Crimson Fog (Part 1)

Mist swirls through my legs as I hunt. The moon, little more than half full casts creature like shadows through the woods as if the trees were alive.. That soft scent, so deep in my nostrils, I can smell nothing else, seems to grab my neck and pull me after it. The aroma is so thick I can almost feel it, and it is digging into the bestial side of my brain. I feel coarse hair pushing through my skin and I am wrenched onto hands and knees, Oh now the sweet pain begins, hands and fingers shrink to claws and paws, then as if my head was being reshaped by a blacksmith's hammer, nose and mouth elongate into snout, fangs ripping through my gums. The world becomes alive as my sight changes, shadows becoming shimmering gauze, revealing the true earth, the one only the beast can touch. In my new form I easily pick up the trail and my faithful soul pack falls in behind me as I track her. I stalk as if I've walked this path a hundred times under the leering trees. Not an animal (besides us) stirs, we can feel their quivering on the wind. When I spot my quarry she is in a monnlit glen. The trees are draped in mossy vines like curtains enclosing it from the rest of the world. A black glass like pond is off to the right enshrouded by a cliff shaped like an outstretched clawed hand, from which between two fingers a slender water fall drops into the backside of the pond. ........And puff it's gone, I taste rot oozing off my teeth, that's what you get for leaping before you look.