I wondered for a moment if I would die like this, snot nosed, hacking and sneezing, wasting away. It is not like I meant to get sick, but now I suffer with this illness, and we don't even know how I got it. My nose runs down my lips, and I try to shake it off, dark blue eyes landing on an even darker form headed straight for me. A foreleg lifts up and slides down my nose, trying to correct the shape I am in before I look directly at this figure. Hazy eyes focus in on those hate filled portals, though his neutral expression is enough to throw me off, it is when he is a bit closer that I feel the pit of my stomach drop and instinct demands that I run. The odd manner of his walk, his head down as he comes at me, it is intimidating, I don't know him. He could be a pack member cross with me for coming this far out, but doubt filters in my mind. I turn, white paws flying out to carry me away from him, to go and find a hiding spot.

He doesn't look like an adult, but I do not want to take chances - or rather, my self-preservation doesn't. I know I can't out run him, I am too small, but I will try. Yelping as a sudden sting reverberates down my side, my running frame knocked into a roll as he slashes me with his paws. I yelp and cry out in pain as I land, each collision with the ground enough to rattle my pain-ridden body into a fiery chasm of agony and heat. This was not the worst to come, despite the searing heat and bone-deep pain he caused, he still came for me. His fangs come for me and I am moving once more, trying to regain my footing before he can grab me, coughing and sputtering all the while. I couldn't breathe, my entire body throbbed already, but I had to move despite the deep and painful protests of my limbs. It is too late, and I find that I am within his jaws, with either one on my sides, pressing into my ribs and making what was already hard nearly impossible.

It was more pain on more pain, hurt upon hurt and I simply couldn't stand it any longer. Then, then came that dizzying lift off of my paws, the vicious shaking of his head that had me yelping and hollering out for Mother or Father, that had me calling the pack in high squeaky and terrified tones that were broken and weak - barely audible - due to the vertigo inducing, baby shaking, breath stealing monstrosity that was my assailant. While the pain was mind consuming, instinct had me whirling around and pointing sharp, needle-like teeth at his face. With his jaws half way down my spine, I hoped to gain at least a cheek, anything to latch onto to keep my pounding head from flopping around. The intensity of his jaws pressed down upon my ribs as he shook me, and the sudden release from a vice grip of nothing but agonizing pain and cracked ribs had me gasping for breath as I landed.

I could not move, the shaking had my head messed up and swimming as I tried to understand why, but instincts answer this too, and I know things have taken their natural course. I am weak, and he is strong. I look at him as I lay there, my broken and aching body simply trembling, waiting for what happens next. My head lolls to the ground, navy blue and speckled eyes on my attacker, and in these scant moments of peace from his teeth, I find my prayer answered. "Thank you." I manage to wheeze out, hoping he made his next strike swift and life ending.

I didn't want to struggle any more, didn't want to be sick. My family crosses my mind and I find that I will miss them, even the siblings I didn't get to know, and the father who would never know me. The thought of my mother, heartbroken and feeling as though it was her fault I died, this is what made me sad. I would miss her.

But, I am leaving now, my body unable to defend itself for the trembling the pain causes, the shock to my vertebrae enough to give me partial paralysis added to the neurological problems I already possessed. My ribs are fractured, making breathing harder than it was before, and I do not wheeze now but barely inhale, even though it is like raking glass through my lungs and pouring salt into the cuts.

End it quickly, I don't want to fight through this life...