࿔ ݁.↟ Xenofiction Collaborative Story ⚘.⋆˚

↟ Rules ↟

⚘ if you're going to be writing the next part, you can make a post commenting ‘claim’ initially, which you can then edit ( - this is to make sure no one starts writing a masterpiece and it ends up being that 2 next parts are submitted at the same time and we can only use one </3)

⚘ if you claim the next part, please edit your post with the finished piece within an hour or two, so that the next person can start participating! Try not to make your parts extremely short or extremely long (and no 2 parts in a row from the same person).

⚘ “yes, and” !! This means please work with and build on whatever the last person wrote - no ignoring or erasing things from the last addition! If you don't like how the last part went, just use your creativity to turn it round, don't skip past it - ‘collaborative’ is the key word here :-D

⚘ have fun!!

–

⚘ For each post you make in this thread, you can earn 10 wildflowers of our in-cabin currency! ⚘

(If you're participating honorarily in xeno-fi's activities, you may also contribute to this if you like - obviously you won't earn anything <3)


If you're seeing this and no other posts below, that means that you are in a very special position.. you get to write the opening to our story!! How will you start us off? What are you going to unleash?

↟ part i
tw ~ bl00d, animal hvnting another animal
(~ hope no one minds this is xenofiction, that's the genre I write in)
(~ edit: sorry this took so long, I was busy)

⚘ The air tasted wet, rain still hanging in the air as gray clouds blanketed the sky. Sable, a dark-furred silver fox emerged from her burrow, damp earth squishing beneath her paws.

⚘ A pile of dead, crumbly leaf litter sat nearby, slick with rain droplets, and when she sniffed the air, Sable caught a scent of something warm and musty within it - something alive. Prey. Her eyes narrowed into focus, trying to pinpoint the scent as she tilted her head. Suddenly, leaves fluttered everywhere, and she picked up sharp scrabbling noises, the rip of leaves against claws. Her ears and head roved around, and she instinctively crouched down, poised stealthily within the familiar, dark shadows of the trees. A breeze gently ruffled her winter coat, the prey's scent carried on it - she could nearly taste the sweet bl00d of it, the musty, warm, rich meat now, it was so strong. Tilting her head directly towards the noise, which quieted down eventually, her target was locked.

part ii
Sable stayed completely still, not a breath betraying her prescence.
The world shrank to only the single thread of living scent pulling her forward like an invisible line around her chest. Somewhere ahead, the leaf litter shook again.
Her pupils narrowed. She moved across the grass, everything else fading away except for the scent of her new prey. It was close, and getting closer. It didn’t seem to notice her. Good. The scent grew stronger as another breeze ruffled her fur, and she spotted it-a rabbit, unaware, crouched in a small clearing filled with rainlight.
She observed its every move. The rabbit leaned forward, munching on grass. Its ear flicked. She tracked every action, every twitch, with careful patience. One paw step forward. Another.
Sable lowered herself further, shoulders tightening like coiled springs, hind legs folding beneath her in a quiet, deliberate gathering of power. The world seemed to pause with her, rain suspended, breeze slowed. She adjusted her weight just enough to fit everything: sight, distance, timing. The rabbit twitched again, still unaware, still writing its last peaceful line into the air. Sable’s muscles tightened, every bit of her ready to spring.

↟ part iii
~ tw ~ animal hvnting another

⚘ She felt the invisible line of instinct pull her one final, careful step.

⚘ Crouching low to the earth, she tightened her muscles . . .
then sprang.

⚘ Perfectly aligned with her prey, she soared in a graceful arc, paws outstretched. Her eyes were focused on the rabbit, and as time seemed to slow down, she saw the rabbit look towards her, tensing its muscles. She knew it was about to run in that final moment, and almost as if in sync with the rabbit, she twisted her body as it tried to escape through the undergrowth. Ferns gently tickled and brushed her nose as she dove into the thicket of ferns and moss, paws coming into contact with the rabbit, the scent of fresh meat flooding through her hungry, rain-ridden bones.

part iv

The rabbit kicked out, but Sable's paws pinned it into the leaf litter. She lurched forward and sank her teeth into the warm, writhing prey.
It wasn't a rabbit.
Sable reeled back. The joyful elation of victory drained away as the limp creature dropped from her jaws.
It looked like a rabbit, had moved like a rabbit. But it didn't taste of warm flesh, fresh meat, as it should have. It tasted of rot and ash.
Bile rose in Sable's throat at the acrid, sticky residue left coating her tongue, her teeth. She choked on the wrongness of it, forcing down the warning roiling in her stomach.
She swallowed hard, peered into the grasses.
The thing that wasn't a rabbit lay still as death.
Then it blinked. Slowly. Once. Twice.
From somewhere beneath Sable's feet, a gulping, sucking sound. The ground sunk around the not-rabbit, its prone form disintegrating into the dirt as it was swallowed by the earth.
Sable backed away in horror, heart hammering against her ribs.
She knew—in her bones, in the crawling of her skin, the frantic thrumming of her pulse—that something was very wrong.

part v

Sable took another step back. Suppressing the involuntary shudder that passed through her, she sent a quick glance at her surroundings. All was silent—just the whispering of the tall, wispy trees towering over her, the soft drip-drip of water, and the distant scrabbling of claws.

Then she streaked back into her burrow, claws shuffling over the loose earth. Her home was just as cold and empty as she had left it; no mate, no kits. She had woken up one morning to an empty burrow. No food either, and her stomach was rumbling. Sable raised a nose to take in the scents outside—the dusty smell of petrichor, and a lingering smell of ash from the last piece of prey she had caught. Not as fresh or close as before, although. She could still hear the sounds of an animal outside, and began to stalk in its direction, her ears pricked up and all her senses alert for a new threat.

↟ part vi

⚘ Hunger churned in her stomach as she cautiously peeked around the corner, her dark fur fading out of the shadows of her burrow. There was a cat sitting on its haunches, tailtip flicking back and forth in an anxious manner. Tail poised over the ground and pawsteps light, she stalked closer, trying to see what the cat was gazing at. The breeze howled through the forest, carrying a scent that made bile rise higher in her throat. It was a pungent, unnatural scent that carried a hazy, musty tint and the charred, metallic taste of ash and metal. The leaves rustled in the wind, hissing and howling.

⚘ Her ears flicked back, the scent overpowering the familiar, wet, earthy scent of the woods, the second sign that something was very, very, very wrong. One word echoed in her mind, her lips peeling back to reveal her fangs, a deep warning snarl. Humans, humans, humans. It HAD to be humans, poisoning the earth, letting it run through roots, through streams, till all was ash, crumbling down. She whimpered softly, retreating back to the shadows of her burrow, legs trembling with hunger. Her eyes flicked to the sky, straining to spot what the cat had seen against the rainy, soft gray sky.

⚘ Then she saw it, light and hazy and drifting into the sky. Smoke. The horizon wasn't red-orange with flames, there was no fire-source to the smoke.
How…and…why…?

part vii

Sable slunk slowly out of the burrow, ears pinned back against her head, teeth bared in a silent snarl.
She was beginning to understand, now. The strange lack of prey, the consequential hunger gnawing at her belly. The rabbit that tasted of ash. The dark stain billowing across the sky. It was all connected, and it was connected to the humans, with their deafening machinery and their rivers of tarmac slicing like lacerations across the forest.
The cat gave her a sideways glance. Sable nodded in response, wordlessly communicating that she saw it too. And she, too, knew it wasn’t right.
With a flick of their tail, the cat set off into the undergrowth, in the direction of the sourceless smoke.
Sable let out a deep breath, flexing her limbs, steeling herself.
She followed.

They walked in companionable silence. The cat forged ahead, Sable a couple of paces behind, dragging her weary legs.
Eventually, the cat halted. Paused a moment, before ducking beneath a thornbush into a patch of light on the other side.
Gritting her teeth against the prickles tearing at her fur, Sable inched herself through the bush and out of the undergrowth. The two animals found themselves on a rocky outcropping at the edge of a hill, overlooking a deep valley.
And there it was. Below them. A hulking mass of glinting metal and dense concrete. It stood immoble and unnatural—a gaping, swollen wound against the breathing, pulsing forest. Smokestacks rose in cruel imitations of tree trunks, sputtering and choking out great clouds of darkness that marred the horizon.
Sable gazed in horror. What had the humans done?

↟ part viii
tw ~ caps

⚘ Sable's breath caught in her throat, feeling the ground tremble beneath her paws.

⚘ The change in front of her was so drastic, she felt bile rising in her throat. Her companion backed away in terror, white fur raising into frightened, shocked spikes. From the familiar green, brown and gray forest she lived in, thick with damp earth, shrubs, creeks and boulders to…

⚘ This…this…wasteland. Skin-crawlingly smooth, dark trees rose out of the ground. The ground was dry and barren, unnaturally flat, covered in dark, towering machines driving its poison deep into the earth, and worst of all…Thick, black, bubbling mud (to my confuzzled fellow humans, it's oil) rose out of the ground. With all the ear-piercing beeps, rumbles, and panicked cries of animals deep within the vomiting ground combined with…with…whatever it was, panic surged in her chest, and she froze up, eyes glazed. She let out a trembling whimper, breath horrified, harsh, and quick. No…WHAT WAS THIS?!

part ix

A nervous ache in her chest, Sable slowly put one blackened, mud stained paw in front of the other, creeping forward to investigate the scene before her. She scrunched her nose at the bitter fumes rising from the human's machines, throat burning with each new smell wafting in her direction. She wove between the tires of each machine, eyes wide and curious. Anger began to well up insider her, building with each toppled tree she saw laying on the barren ground. Sable felt like fighting, but there was no humans in sight, and she didn't stand a chance against the machines. She shook out her mud slicked fur, and decided to leave the area to go back to her burrow.

Sable was almost out of the clearing when she slipped on a branch, flinging her straight onto her back. She knocked her head on a rock, and began sliding down a hill in a different direction from her burrow. She let out a high pitched howl as she slammed against a tree trunk and was sent barreling through just about every bush and clump of ferns in the forest, but her companion was too far to hear her, still up at the clearing.

↟ part x
tw ~ bl00d, panicking animal :[

⚘ Panicked instincts pounded hard like the blood pumping in her ears.

⚘ Run. Run. Run. Run.

⚘ Her head felt like clouds and smoke were swirling all around it as the black, slick, thick mud oozed down her back, and, legs trembling, she tried to get to her paws. The forest…she was in the forest…it was okay…

⚘ Like panicked prey being cornered, she scampered towards the shadows of the trees, leaping beneath the branches of a towering shrub, allowing herself to get tangled within them. And though the darkness, the protective branches and leaves surrounding her…Three terrified words still echoed in her mind. Where. Was. She? And what happened…? Her vision, her mind, her memories…they were blurring. She stumbled, and though her odd, panicked instincts told her to call out to her companion, her pounding heart told her a predator would find her.

⚘ Something red dripped in front of her eyes, a metallic, savory, rich sting in the back of her throat. Bl00d? It…it had to be. Who's…?

⚘ Questions swirled in her head, like river rapids crisscrossing, but in moments, she knew the answer.

⚘ Hers.

part xi

Sable took a slow, steadying breath. She would make it out of here. She would. Find food, find her missing mate and kits… but first things first—make her way back up to her burrow.

In the safety of the shrub, she tried to clean the blood off herself, heart still hammering in her chest and tongue and paw trembling. Her head was throbbing, but the injury didn't seem too severe because the flow stopped after some persistent licking.

She cast a gaze at the shadowy forest about her, preparing to leave her refuge again. There would be no chance of survival if she stayed here, her instincts told her. As Sable surveyed her surroundings, she caught a whiff of something—warm, musky, familiar. No, not something, someone. Coming from somewhere below, from the foot of the small hill she was on. Hope began to rise in her chest.

↟ part xii
(author's note - this is really interesting to write, as I guess the poison from the oil confused her - as stated earlier, she had no mate or kits! also, sorry, I know this writing is really lazy)
tw ~ bl00d, pa!n

A yellow male fox padded over the hill, and, heart fluttering excitedly, she stumbled towards him. “Y-you're here…weren't you missing? My memory's a little foggy…” she mumbled, her vision blurring. Yes, this was…Felix? Where was she…? Who was this…? It was…Felix…….she'd seen him before…

Within her blurred mind, these questions fluttered around, and as she dug through her mind for memories of what had happened…before…she got hvrt? How did she get hvrt-

Suddenly, she felt claws raking down her shoulder, a sudden, unexpected cut that slashed through her thoughts. Trying to center herself, she dug her claws into the damp earth of the ground, her legs trembling. “Felix!” she yelped in pa!n, letting out a sharp whine. “D-don't…I…I'm your mate…” She tried to bat him back, bl00d blurring her vision and her head spinning. She scrambled away feebly, the sharp sting of her new cuts too much to bear. It was too much…Where was she? Who? The thoughts thrashing in her head like a swirling river was too much, and she let out a gag stinging the back of her throat.
Through the rapids of her mind, she heard one, single, angry bark - “GET OUT OF MY TERRITORY!”

She tried to run, though she tripped, she couldn't see…The dull pa!n in her forehead still throbbed as she long to scramble into the shadows. The yellow fox snarled again, and he stalked closer. Closer now. She rolled onto her belly, ears flattened against her neck, a pose of submission. “Felix…?” she whimpered, confused, terrified. Felix tilted his head, lips drawn to show sharp, blindingly white teeth. “I've never seen you in my life!”

(sorry for the lateness! I hope I didn't hold anyone up </3)

Felix– no, not Felix. Someone else. Whoever it was snarled. “Was that not clear earlier?”

“I thought– I thought you were my mate,” she stuttered, shrinking slightly.

Not-Felix laughed, a terrible thing that Sable felt deep in her bones. She shuddered.

"You thought I was your mate? Oh, you poor thing,“ he said, inching closer.

Sable whimpered. ”What do you want?“

”I want you to get off of my territory,“ he told her. ”I don't care whether that's dead or alive.“

”I'm sorry, I'm really sorry,“ Sable responded feebly, trying to think of excuses. ”I–“

”I'm not looking for excuses,“ he said sharply. ”Just. Get. Out.“

”I can't– I can't go back there,“ Sable tried to tell him.

”And why not?“ he said, baring his teeth.

”They've set up these huge hunks of metal, and it's ruining the forest, and if I go back there, I'm as good as dead,“ she pleaded.

”Well, guess what?“ he asked her, tilting his head. ”I don't care. Get out."