It is strange. The smell of blood is a natural thing; we smell it on ourselves, on our children on the day of their birth, on our prey and taste it on our tongues when we sate our hunger. It is natural. It is life, or a lack thereof, a thing we accept as inevitable. To me, it is no stranger. I have felt it, tasted it, created it and lost it time and time again. But this is different. This is blood that should not permeate the air. This is blood I do not want to smell, do not wish to taste nor envision. It feels like claws raking the pit of my stomach as it seeps into the wind; it burns the throat, causes my tongue to reflexively reject its very essence. It is a thing I cannot ignore. In it, there is a silent call for me. Urgency. Desperation.
The snow does little to hinder me; my steps are forced, stiff, my entire body rigged with uncertainty. I can feel my eyes wide and dry from the wind that bites at me, my skin prickling with a sensation I cannot name. In these moments, I can do little to care for the cold of my paws or the hunger in my gut: my mind fixates, a single word - Ehiyeh, Ehiyeh. In such a time, I swear the blood in the air smells like her mother. It reminds me too much of having found her in the darkness of that den, the white of her fur stained black and red as the children bathed in what remained of her life. If I think too much of such a thing, I can feel my lungs seize up, a cold bite to my chest that seeks to make me bite down on my teeth in frustration. It is how I feel now as I begin to become surrounded by the scent. She is near, I am close, but perhaps I am not ready.
When I see what little there is to her, my fur prickles, rising in threat to whoever might be watching. I feel my head swing low in defence, sure that it is but a rogue wolf with no mind or some cat of the woods that has found her. Her convulsions read to me plainly: she is alive. No blood seeps from her throat. As I approach, I am confused for some moments. I see no injuries and yet, I smell the blood above all else. I cannot even smell her beyond the sickening scent of it.
But then I see it as I come to stand over her: it blooms from her, subdued but there. It is a twisted thing, a foul thing, as my head falls into a tilt. It feels like aeons before things begin to piece together. One by one, the sounds of the world return; the birds still sing in the winter trees, unafraid of any predator nor threat. Then, the scent begins to speak to me: a male, Ehiyeh, blood and the foul scent of crime. I cannot subdue the rush of air that breaks my own silence, a hoarse sound caught between a growl and a gasp of surprise.
Strange, it is, to feel nothingness. In those moments, I do not feel the cold nor the very beat of my own heart. I do not feel my fur rise and prickle, the breeze seeking to bite at my skin. I do not smell anything but her, do not see anything but her. My breaths comes slow, reluctant, and for a moment, it feels as if great weights have sunk into my paws. I cannot move for if I do, I cannot be sure what it is I will do.