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Prompt 5: Though Destiny City is a busy metropolis, dense forests encircle the city. It's uncommon for wildlife to wander into the city--especially larger creatures--but something is making its mark on Destiny City. Large footprints, humanlike but far too large to belong to any ordinary human, are appearing around Destiny City. They always lead to the woods, and back again--and the strange part is that no one seems to be able to see what has caused them. Cameras distort, and anyone who thinks they've come into contact with the creature can only make out a thick, white fur and something easily nine feet tall. Oddly enough, any surface near the tracks are covered in a sheet of ice, as though whatever passed close to them was so cold it left a frosty trail.
That, Saiph thought as she set her foot beside an odd track, is one big footprint. It was easily larger than any adult’s footprint she’d ever seen. And under its thin skin of ice, it looked like the print itself was of a bare foot to boot. As she stared at the print and circled it, she noticed other, smaller prints around it. Various birds and little animals. But their prints weren’t iced over. She’d made sure to watch the news all week in order to listen in on the weather reports. And at no point had anything that could cause a freeze been reported. So why were these weird tracks icy, but none of the others were?
For a moment, Saiph wished that Cuan could have come with her, but the kitten had caught a cold and declared she was better off staying indoors. Besides not wanting her cat’s cold to worsen, Saiph suddenly was grateful for the reprieve provided from what surely would have been Cuan excitedly comparing this print to any number of really really bad movies. Not that she disliked listening to the little lykoi’s reviews, but sometimes the stories were just so bad and beyond Saiph’s understanding. Meandering attention returned to the matter at hand and she knelt to better inspect a track. It really did look like someone had walked around without any shoes in the snow. And that thought was enough to produce a full body shudder. How did whoever did this have any toes left?!? Saiph was young, but she still knew about frostbite!
Straightening up, she decided to follow the tracks to see where they went. She had plenty of time before she had to be back home and in her bed. As she walked, she realized that the tracks were heading for the forests just outside the city. That was a little further than she felt safe traveling but curiosity kept her going. And then paused. Another set of tracks, worn, but still visible, had intersected the ones she was following, but leading into the city. Who or what was making that trek, possibly multiple times with bare feet? Snow had been on the ground pretty consistently for the last few weeks. It just didn’t make any sense at all!
Sighing a little, she shivered and moved behind a large, white drift to get out of the faint breeze. So was this some animal no one had ever seen before or a really big person without any shoes? She just couldn’t figure it out. She was ready to turn around and head back whether eye caught something and she froze. The tracks she had originally been following led to the same drift she was behind, only there weren’t any tracks past it. Swallowing nervously, she glanced at the drift itself and realized that not only was it pretty big, it also looked really furry. Reaching out a hand, she gently poked at it and shrieked as the drift moved with a grunt. Then, it shrieked in response to hers and all she could get any kind of impression of was a big, furry, fast moving something.
Saiph bolted back in the direction she’d come from, vaguely aware that the thing she’d been tracking had gone back to the forests. And she didn’t stop running until she got home and safely inside.
(Word Count: 567)
