The camp was relatively quiet, once the boy and the wolf had made it back to their makeshift campsite, putting away all the cooking equipment and Tyler's clothing into the tent whilst Athena stood nearby, keeping alert and ready for anything. The human was becoming more nervous, but he thought to himself that with the wolf with him, maybe that creature wouldn't dare to come near.
Once he was done with putting away his uniform, he went over to the fire and chucked in a couple more logs, counting the number of good ones there were, there wasn't many left, they probably wouldn't last all night, and the last thing he needed was to be snuck up on in the dark, even with his new ally.
"There isn't enough wood, with this stockpile we have, we might just be in a blackout soon" Tyler said turning to Athena, who was standing next to him on watch, ears twitching and her arms were crossed with a not so happy expression on her muzzle.
"We will have to make do till either those beasts appear, or I get the signal" said Athena, looking into the clearing in the direction of the lake.
Tyler was confused, so he asked "What signal?".
"The signal from my pack, I'm not exactly sure where they are, but you will know when you hear howling" she said, smirking to the human before continuing,
"We are going to need their help, with the scent I've picked up, there is a pack of those beasts nearby, and more than likely, they're hungry"
At hearing the word pack, Tyler shot up, stuttering with his response back to the wolf:
"Wait hold on, are you telling me there's more than one of those....whatever you call them, out there?"
Athena replied simply with: "Yes".
Tyler lifted his hands to his head and ran them through his hair, trying to process the information in his head.
"So, what you're saying, is that a group of those freaks could be near us and might just ambush us and eat us and because your friends are nowhere to be found, we literally have no way of defending ourselves?"
Athena sighed, "You underestimate us human, you shouldn't be so quick to judge us simply by small nit picks, even when we are on our own we can hold our own against those mutants pretty well. I will say this, I can fend for myself quite nicely thank you very much" she said with a smile now on her muzzle and nose high, like she had come out on top.
"That's very big talk coming from a primitive" said Tyler.
"And yet your weapon has proven ineffective against the beasts, has it not?" Athena replied.
"Yeah well I bet you that if I had a bigger rifle, I definitely could put one of them down for good in one shot, it's just unfortunate that there isn't any such weapons to be found, just ones like this one" said Tyler, holding up the M4 Carbine.
"I will say this, I have seen humans, on rare occasions, managing to kill the beasts with the same kind of weapons as yours, they just take a lot of sharp stones from your bang stick to bring them down" said Athena.
Tyler replied, "Uh, I think when you say sharp stones you mean bullets and by bang stick you mean gun right?"
"Yes of course, thanks for the correction" said Athena.
As the two chatted for a while, a distant howl was heard, whistling through the trees, turning both their heads to where the sound came from.
"Is that the signal you were talking about?" Tyler said, lifting his hand pointing towards the woods.
Athena stayed quiet, listening intently as more howls rang out, eventually the big wolf replied:
"Yes it is, my pack is calling for me" said Athena, who walked off the a large tree stump and climbed on top of it, she cleared her throat before letting out her own loud howl. It was so loud in the Claustrophic area they were in, it rattled Tyler's ear drums in his skull, who covered his ears from the loud noise.
Athena's stopped her howling after a what seemed like a full minute, climbing down from her position and walking back to the boy.
"They should have heard that, they will be here as soon as they can" She said.
"How can you be sure, what if they can't be here quickly?" said Tyler.
"Like I said, they will be here as soon as they can, whilst they are doing that, we must wait here for them" Athena moved over to sit in front of the fire, Tyler doing the same. clutching his rifle close to his chest, they both sat their in silence, the only sound being the wind and the snow hitting the ground, waiting for Athena's buddies to come, or the "freaks" to appear and give them trouble.
several hours later...
A long time had passed since the howling was heard, the pair were still sitting in front of the fire, Athena chucking whatever she could grab into it, her ears were probing like radars for any sound. Tyler was close by, poking the fire in boredom, the rifle having been placed next to him on the tree stump, the previously thin snow now deeper.
Tyler sighed, wanting to say something to the wolf, then remembering an important question he hadn't asked her.
"What's your name?"
the she-wolf looked up at him.
"My name?" Athena replied.
"Yeah, I noticed that all this time we hadn't actually shared our names with each other, despite being together all day" Tyler said, chuckling.
Athena chuckled too, coming to the realisation as well, "Yes, you're right, we can share our names, now that you trust me more than you did when I first met you, my name is Athena".
"Athena, nice name, I'm Tyler".