It had been two months since the bear had attacked and a lot had changed. The snow was nearly gone and grass and other plants had started to pop out of the snow. I had gotten significantly bigger but the opposite seemed to be happening to my mother. Her coat had lost its shine and had become rough. I could also see her hip bones sticking out and she had become very weak. Whenever I laid next to her I could hear a rasping sound when she would breath and she no longer had milk.
Last week she had started teaching me to hunt and today she was going to let me try to catch small game. As I was thinking about all this my mother had stood up and walked to the entrance of the den. She looked back at me as I jumped up realizing that it was time to go. I couldn't help but wag my tail in excitement. "I wonder what my first prey is going to be," I thought to myself as we trotted through some brush.
After a little while we came to a stop and my mother looked at me. "Are you ready?" She whispered to me while looking ahead. I looked in the same direction as her and noticed something nibbling at the brush. I dropped into a crouch and started to crawl forward. Moving as quietly as possible I was careful not to step on any twigs. Once I was close enough I got into position and waited until I was in the rabbit's blind spot.
"NOW!" I thought as I pounced, latching my jaws around the rabbits neck. It squirmed in my grip but started to slowly get weaker as blood pooled on the ground. Once it had stopped moving I looked at my mother. She had walked over to me and was looking at me with a weak smile. "Let's go," she said as she turned back in the direction of the den. I picked up the rabbit and trotted behind her.
By the time we had made it back I was exhausted and starving. I was about to start eating when I paused and looked up at my mother who was lying at the back of our den. "Are you gonna eat with me?" I asked her. "I'm not hungry, so go ahead and eat without me," she replied, resting her head on her paws.
I hesitated for a minute before I started to dig into the carcass. After a short while all that was left were the bones and the skin. I stood up and walked over to my mother as drowsiness started to set in. I laid down next to my mother and drifted off to sleep.
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I woke up as the first bits of light started to shine through the entrance of the den. I stood up yawning and began to stretch when I noticed something was wrong. Suddenly alert, I dashed out of the den and started sniffing the ground. Once I had found her scent, I started to run. Making sure to not lose her scent I ran as fast as I could. Heart pounding, muscles burning, I kept running. I didn't know how long I had been running when I panicked and braced my legs under me, just barely managing to stop.
Panting, I looked over the bank of the river at the rapids below. This is where the scent trail ended. I started to walk up and down the bank of the river trying to find the trail again, but it was useless. My mother was gone.