He slung his rifle over his shoulder as he walked through the silent forest. The wind didn't whistle in the treetops, the leaves didn't rustle, the birds didn't sing... all he could hear was the crunch of twigs under the weight of his body, the pounding of his heart, his breath leaving his body in regular puffs of steam.

This was no mission, this was... just a check. He heard some strange rumors about this place and since he had nothing better to do, he decided to investigate. More to the point... it was pretty hard to resist betting when Soap kept teasing him so badly that he'd shit himself before he even knew what the hell was wrong with it.

He winced as he heard the ravens take off. Something was wrong, he loaded his rifle. The gun sat firmly in his hands.

And then something knocked him down. It was furry, it bared its sharp teeth at him, and some disgusting spittle fell from its mouth onto Simon. With a shotgun this long, it was quite impossible to aim at the furball above him, which had far too long limbs, so he decided on a different solution. He pulled a dagger from the sheath on his thigh and plunged it into the creature's thigh. The beast howled in pain and Simon quickly threw it off of him. What at first appeared to him to be a freaking werewolf was just a regular wolfdog. Just a dog. Just an ordinary dog that Simon had simply stabbed.

"Fuck," he gasped. The animal curled into a ball on the ground, licking its wounds. It whimpered, ears pulled back. Had Simon been so out of it, mistaking the simple playful roll for an attack? Either way, he couldn't leave the wounded animal here.

"C’mon, man." He dropped to his knees and began to remove his jacket so he had something to carry the dog in. "I didn't mean to... you can't scare me like that. Got ham at home, ya like that, wouldn't ya ?" he colossally fucked this up. Nobody can't know about this, he'll get kicked out of the army. He wrapped the dog in a jacket that didn't put up any resistance.

If only Simon knew what he was bringing home.