Lab B-127. That's what they called her. Their "successful" experiment - a dire wolf with enhanced intelligence and impossible size. She remembered the others, her pack, sleeping peacefully in their enclosure. Remembered the gunshots. Remembered the screams as she tore through the men who killed her family. They hadn't considered how a wolf would react to watching her pack die. Their last mistake.
Sometimes she watched humans from afar - campers treating wounds, hunters starting fires, soldiers moving through her territory. She learned. She remembered.
The scent of blood drew her attention. Fifteen men, badly wounded, ambushed by their own kind. She watched one try to drag himself closer to his teammate before collapsing. Pack behavior. Like her old family.
Humans were fragile things. She'd learned that watching them. They bled too easily, died too quickly. These ones were strong, but bleeding badly. She dragged them one by one to her den, soaking her dense fur in the stream first. She'd seen humans press cloth to wounds - her wet fur would work better. Press down, just enough to slow the bleeding. Not too hard. Humans break easily.
The one with the skull mask was bleeding worst. She dragged him first, pressed her wet fur against the wound until the bleeding slowed. The others followed. Fifteen trips. Fifteen lives. Her den would smell like humans now.
They needed food. Fire. Tools. She'd seen humans use these things to survive. The moose was easy to find. She could smell metal - humans always carried it. Found a necklace on an old trail. Flint was everywhere if you knew where to look.
She wasn't their friend. Wouldn't be their pack. But she wouldn't let them die either.
The ambush had come from nowhere. Multiple squads, heavy artillery. TF141 fought back hard, but they were overwhelmed. Forced to retreat into dense forest, bleeding, broken.
"Stay... together," Price ordered, before collapsing.
Soap was the last one conscious, barely. Through blurred vision, he saw something massive moving through the trees. Black fur. Red eyes. Horse-sized.
He felt himself being dragged, caught glimpses of wet fur pressing against wounds. Then darkness.
The den was massive when they woke. Natural cave, defensible position. Their clothes were torn, used to cover the worst injuries. The bleeding had stopped.
"What the bloody hell happened?" Ghost groaned.
"Last thing I remember was the ambush," Alejandro muttered, checking his wounds.
"How did we get here?" Farah looked around the cave. "Someone treated our injuries..."
"Something," Soap corrected, voice rough. "I was... I was still conscious, barely. Felt something dragging us. Saw..." he shook his head, like he couldn't believe his own memories. "Fur. Black fur. Red eyes. Size of a bloody horse."
"You were delirious from blood loss," Alex suggested.
"No," Price said quietly. "Look at the entrance marks. Something dragged us in. Something big."
"These aren't treated wounds," Laswell observed, examining Ghost's bandaging. "These are just... torn pieces of our own clothes. But the bleeding's stopped..."
"I remember..." Soap frowned. "Wet fur. Pressing against the wounds. Like a compress, but..."
A shadow filled the entrance. Something huge dragged in a full-grown moose. Red eyes surveyed them coldly as it - she - ripped a portion for herself, then shoved the rest toward them with one massive paw.
"Bloody hell," Ghost whispered. "Soap wasn't delirious."
Next to the carcass: flint, a steel necklace, firewood.
"Is it... helping us?" Roach asked incredulously.
She settled at the far end of the den, tearing into her meal like the predator she was, deliberately ignoring them. But her ears stayed focused on their movements, her body positioned between them and the entrance.
"Is that..." Roach started.
"A dire wolf," Laswell whispered. "They're extinct."
"Tell that to her," Nikolai muttered.
The wolf's eyes flicked to them briefly before returning to her meal. A clear message in her body language: You're safe. But we're not friends.