Silence.

The mountains are still this night. Their normal creak and groans as the world shifts underneath them going unheard. The landscape is bare, an empty void that needed filling. Even the winds has ceased their flight, leaving the air with a quiet, eerie calm. Darkness shrouded the area, the moon hidden behind the thickest of clouds, blinded from the chaos that would soon erupt down below. Within the depths of the mountains, locked away behind his own personal madness, he rest. The darkness covering him like a mother’s gentle touch. Black blanketing his multicolored form and as he slumbers, the world watches unable to pinpoint his location but weary of his presence nonetheless.

The shift happens too fast. The scent of an intruder ebbing slowly into his nostrils. He inhales, scarred face moving in the dark as he greedily takes it all in. tongue slides out from his smooth lips, tasting the air as if to get a taste of the other. Ears perk forward, listening to the soft pads of another’s steps and in the silence that the world has graciously given comes a low, guttural growl. It rumbles within his chest before sliding out through gritted teeth. The sound seems to awaken the sleeping world as birds fly from their hiding places and critters scatter.

The beast rises.

Eyelids peel back revealing the darkest of browns. Hackles rise upon muscled shoulders like spikes ready for war. He lifts himself from the ground, dust falling from his thick pelt and onto the rock floor. Muscles and tendons seeming to whine with the effort. Bones crack and pop and after a long slumber, he stands, head lowered, ears slicked back and lip curled to reveal those pearly daggers. A snarl rips from him, shattering what was left of the silence as he peers into the darkness.

“who.”

it is more a demand than a question.