As she ran and ran it seemed like hours, but it was only a matter of five minutes that had passed when Laura’s body began to feel heavy and her energy was being sapped from her very quickly. With dawning horror, she realized she had lost too much blood. The adrenaline began to fade from her body and the searing pain of her gushing wound forced her down. With a whimper of defeat, Laura the anthro doe collapsed onto the crumpled leaves of the autumn forest, blacking out and near death. The footsteps drew closer, and then stopped.
Some time later Laura woke up, cold and shaking violently. She felt numb and tired while it was a strain on her to keep functioning. It was deathly still but for the rustle of the leaves. She opened her heavy eyes to find herself wrapped in a warm blanket and sitting upright in the bed of a blue pickup truck. Next to her appeared to be an open box with various strips of white material laid inside. She noticed a strange red cross-shaped marking on the lid, but it was completely alien to her. She noticed splotches of blood on the blanket and floor of the truck’s cold metal floor, probably her own. Her head snapped to the other side and she found herself staring into the eyes of another creature.
The smell was instantly recognizable, and although Laura’s mind screamed at her to get up and flee she was too drained to do so. She was almost dead, she realized. What kind of sick torture was this? What was it doing with her? Hadn’t shredding her arm with it’s dreadful projectile weapon been enough? What a sad ending to what was promising to be a glorious new life for her.
“E-Easy, girl,” the creature’s voice said warily. “I’m going to get you some help.”
Laura had never actually heard human speech before, but like picking her name out of the air, she understood it and knew what it meant.
She could only nod in reply, not knowing what she should say back, if anything. She watched helplessly as the creature, no doubt the same one that had shot her - if anything added up, offered her a hand and helped her over the side of the truck’s bed and onto the ground. Her body ached all over and it was a chore to stand because her legs hurt so much. She threatened to faint, wobbling and starting to collapse, but her assailant held her upright and walked her towards the front of the truck.
The next thing Laura knew she was sitting on a hard seat with a backrest, and heard something slam beside her. She gulped and looked around to find herself in a confined space with many lights and strange metallic objects around her. She was utterly horrified, as a wounded deer should have been, but she understood the word “help” and the pink creature’s inflection, and it relaxed her only enough to keep from completely panicking.
Her eyes turned towards the other side of the cab as the hunter sat down next to her and turned one of the metal things. A loud rumbling and the smell of burning chemicals filled Laura’s senses. The hunter turned to look at her, and she cringed. “All right, just… be still.” It said to her. “We’re going to get you fixed up.” The next thing she knew, Laura was moving through the forest, on a large dirt path. But she wasn’t moving herself, something else was. She watched the trees whiz by, but was careful not to waver her gaze from the thing that had wounded her.
She glanced under the blanket covering her and saw strips of the white things she had seen in the back covering her wounded arm. Although they had been stained red with her blood, she realized it was keeping her from completely bleeding out. For that, at least, she was grateful for the moment. She wrapped the blanket around her furry body tighter and started to shiver uneasily, not knowing what was in store for her next.