The Cry of the Last Hoof
"Sometimes, what we long for most isn't survival… but to deserve life."
Breath escaped in frosty clouds. Blood, warm and silent, spread across the untouched snow — a white shroud, a tomb.
Rex wouldn't give up. He slammed the ground with his snout, clawed at the snow, and his hoarse whimpers tore through the air — a cry both animal and human, pure embodied anguish. But Rays lay still, unmoving.
His face rested in the cold, mouth slightly open, lips cracked, as if he were asleep in a red dream — a dream of pain, of exhaustion. On his lips, a peaceful smile, almost childlike.
But his body bore war. His arms, torn by invisible claws. His torso, slashed, marbled with bloody scars. His legs, broken like dead branches.
A cry rose from Rex's throat. Not a bark, not a howl — a primal roar. He pressed his forehead against Rays's cold chest. No heartbeat.
And then he felt them.
Behind them.
The shadows. Again. The Devourers.
They were coming back. Tireless. Inhuman. Shifting shapes, like dark memories that refuse to die. Not flesh, not bone — only starving absences, night itself made flesh to swallow the day.
They wanted Rays.
And then Rex understood.
This wasn't a battle anymore.
This was goodbye.
⸻
He screamed.
Not as a dog.
Not as a wolf.
As a beast unleashed.
And in a white explosion, his body broke.
Bones cracked. Fur stretched. Muscles tore.
His paws lengthened, claws became colossal hooves, his ribs flared open like a shield of iron.
He didn't become a horse.
He became a titan of ivory, of rage, of raw will.
A furious colossus, greater than legend.
On his back, Rays's bloodied body lay, a mute flag of flesh, a vow carved in pain.
The Devourers advanced.
Rex charged.
⸻
The impact was a storm.
The first monster flew, torn open beneath the weight of hooves.
The second crashed, crushed beneath the roaring chest.
The third tried to dodge, but Rex's tail sliced through the air — a whip of bone, tearing through its throat.
Black blood bloomed on the snow.
But they didn't stop.
One, two, five, ten. A hundred. More.
They clung to him, clawed, bit, howling their hunger for eternity.
Rex neighed in pain. One leg gave out. He collapsed, knee in the snow, and Rays almost fell.
But Rex rose again.
His jaws clamped down on a skull. Fang met bone.
A broken howl.
Then he turned.
A circle of death.
Every hoofstrike carved the earth, broke flesh, pulverized bone.
His chest blazed, fire and blood.
One eye gone.
An ear ripped off.
Still, he stood.
He fought like he was made for it.
As if his whole life had been nothing but a prelude to this fury.
And yet…
They kept coming.
Endless.
⸻
So he chose to flee.
Not out of fear.
But out of promise.
Toward the cliff.
Where death couldn't follow.
Where maybe the world would break.
But the horde blocked the path. Too many.
A miracle was needed.
Or a sacrifice.
Rex did what a being born to love does without hesitation: he threw himself into the lion's mouth.
He charged. Again.
Not to kill.
But to open the way.
He leapt, clawed, bit, roared.
A shattered leg, a dead eye, a neck torn down to bone.
He turned, leapt, trampled, stepped back.
In that bloody chaos, he carved a path.
A narrow breach between life and death.
Freedom.
He lunged into it.
⸻
Snow whipped at his flanks, wind howled through his mane.
Fangs grazed his haunches, the breath of death.
Rays, on his back, breathed faintly.
His hair stuck to fur, his blood steamed in the icy air.
Rex neighed.
A cry of silent rage.
A song of love and defiance.
And he ran.
Faster still.
Toward the cliff.
Toward the world's final edge.
⸻
In the distance, it rose.
The breach.
A chasm.
A gaping mouth in the silence of the sky.
Rex didn't hesitate.
He leapt.
⸻
Time held its breath.
The hooves left the snow.
The wind screamed into the void.
The blood finally stopped.
Rays, on his back, moved a finger.
In the silence, a voice returned.
Soft. Ancient. Obvious.
"It's no wonder dogs are man's best friend."