The old deer's head was a mangled mess, its antlers reduced to splinters. Finally, the poor creature stopped moving. Panting and exhausted, Albert stepped back to inspect his handiwork. The deer was definitely dead.
"Dog paws are no substitute for human hands," Albert muttered, dropping the rock that had been digging into his pads. He glanced at his sore paws, instinctively wanting to lick them—but the stench of blood and dirt stopped him just in time.
"Ugh, instincts are terrifying." He groaned, stepping away from the gruesome scene. The sight was brutal, but hunger left no room for squeamishness. Still, there was one glaring problem: "Wait, how the hell am I supposed to eat this?!"
When modern humans—Albert included—thought of survival in the wild, they pictured Bear Grylls or Robinson Crusoe: a rugged man sitting by a roaring fire, roasting fresh meat over the flames. But Albert was a dog now. How was he supposed to start a fire, let alone cook the deer, with nothing but paws?
He stared at his bloodstained, filthy paws, then at the intact deer carcass. His mind went blank.
A few hundred meters away, a large buck from the herd pricked up its ears, alert. It turned its head toward the spot where its fallen comrade lay. The predator that had killed the old deer was now crouched over the body, mouth half-open, completely still.
The buck chewed its grass thoughtfully, watching the strange creature. Five minutes passed.
Then, suddenly, the predator let out a bizarre howl, flopped onto its back, and began rolling around in the grass, kicking its legs in the air.
"What the—?!" The buck stared, baffled. It had no idea what the predator was doing, but something about it felt unsettling. With a warning call to the herd, it turned and led them deeper into the grasslands, leaving the strange scene behind.
Silence fell over the area.
Half an hour later, Albert finally stopped rolling around. He got to his feet, took a deep breath, and approached the deer carcass. Closing his eyes, he steeled himself—then leaned down and took a bite.
"Ugh, gross!" Albert spat out a mouthful of fur, dirt, and who-knows-what-else. He had bitten into the very spot where he had been sitting earlier, and his filthy fur had thoroughly ruined the meat.
"Calm down, Albert. Even if you're starving, you need to think this through."
He forced himself to sit back, staring at the deer carcass with bloodshot eyes. "Okay, think. In nature documentaries, predators like leopards and hyenas start by peeling off the skin. Or wait—was it the stomach? They go for the organs first because they spoil faster. Ugh, no way I'm eating raw organs!"
He gagged and turned away, dry heaving for a few seconds. When he finally recovered, he sat back down, his resolve stronger than ever. "Forget the organs. I'll just treat the rest like sashimi. Raw meat can't be that bad, right? Wait—"
Lifting a paw, he examined it closely. His claws were longer and sharper than any dog's he'd ever seen. "Do dogs' claws just grow like this if you don't trim them? Wait, no—I've heard of wild dogs biting people, but never scratching them. What am I even thinking? I'm starving!"
The gnawing hunger snapped him back to reality. He lightly slapped himself with a paw and refocused. His claws weren't as dexterous as human fingers, but they were sharp—maybe sharp enough to work as knives.
Carefully, he extended a claw and pressed it against the deer's thick hide. To his surprise, it pierced the skin effortlessly. Dragging it downward, he made a clean cut. "Holy crap, this actually works! I don't need hands—I've got built-in knives!"
Excited, Albert used his left paw to steady the carcass while his right claw worked like a blade. He made a triangular incision, then peeled back the hide, tearing through the connective tissue beneath. Soon, a layer of red-and-white muscle lay exposed.
Eagerly, he sliced off a chunk of meat, about the thickness of a finger, and shoved it into his mouth.
The taste was... awful. Without seasoning, sauce, or even salt, the raw meat was bland and overwhelmingly gamey. That "wild, natural flavor" novels romanticized? Nowhere to be found. All Albert could think was: This is disgusting. I'd rather starve.
"I can't just starve to death. That would be the ultimate waste!"
Albert forced himself to swallow another bite of raw meat, tears welling up in his eyes. The taste was unbearable, but at least the gnawing hunger in his stomach eased—if only slightly. Gritting his teeth, he cut off another chunk and forced it down.
After choking down sixteen, maybe seventeen pieces, he couldn't take another bite. The overwhelming gamey flavor was too much unless he was on the verge of death. Stumbling away from the half-eaten deer, he muttered, "I'll never complain about takeout being too salty, canned food being bland, or barbecue having small portions ever again."
A few dozen meters away, he collapsed onto his back like a fish out of water, staring blankly at the darkening sky. His dog-like face was the very picture of despair.
"I used to sit in my room after work, playing games with a beer on one side and cigarettes on the other. Soda and snacks just a few steps away, food deliveries a tap on my phone... I was living the dream, and I didn't even know it..."
Tears slipped down his face as memories of modern convenience flooded his mind—the delivery drivers, the street food, the snacks and drinks he had always taken for granted. The cold, gray city suddenly felt like a paradise lost.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, darkness swallowed the land. Albert lay motionless, lost in thought, until a pungent smell pricked his nose. The rustling of grass snapped him back to reality.
His ears twitched. He turned his head toward the sound.
Even in the dim light, his canine eyes saw clearly—a large, muscular brown bear was creeping toward the deer carcass, now just a few meters away. Albert sat up, and the bear instantly bolted, sprinting a hundred meters before stopping to crouch in the grass, still eyeing the remains.
Albert blinked, rubbing his eyes with a paw—awkwardly, since he wasn't used to this body. He stared at the bear, his mind racing. Even though he wasn't a wildlife expert, he knew what a brown bear looked like. He had even joined online debates about whether lions, tigers, or bears were the strongest.
Brown bears were supposed to be massive —half a ton in weight, over two meters tall. Russians were famous for taming them, for crying out loud!
But this bear… was tiny . Smaller than the deer he had just killed.
"Since when are brown bears this small?!" Albert's jaw dropped. He looked at the bear. Then at the deer.
"Wait—if that deer was a real giant elk, with antlers over two meters wide... then how big am I?! "