A beautiful female fox, with shining red fur, basks in the sun. A male is nearby, drinking from a stream. There is not the slightest hint of a breeze. Yet the heat is not stifling, it is pleasurable. The birds produce a melodic symphony. The sound of the male fox’s lazy lapping can be heard, along with the gentle trickle of the stream. The female fox is dozing off, her majestic golden eyes becoming hidden by her drooping eyelids.
The male fox raises his head from the stream and scans between the trees. The female arouses and her black tipped ears flick back and forth. The birds abruptly stop chirping and there is silence, only for a moment. The deafening crack of a gunshot rips through the air and the birds take flight. The male fox falls and blood trickles from his shoulder. The female nimbly jumps to her paws and rockets in-between the trees, kicking up soil behind her. Shots are being fired behind her and soon the howling of hounds fills the air.
She races deeper and deeper into the forest. The trees and shrubbery grow thicker the further her legs carry her. She bounds over fallen trees and ducks under low hanging branches. With her ears flat to her head and determination burning in her heart, she draws near to her destination. She jumps through a thick bush and hunkers down in a small clearing, hidden by its surrounding vegetation. She has reached the thicket.
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Marissa LaPorte is entering her senior year at Escanaba High School in Escanaba, MI. She won the annual “Edgar Allan Poe Writing Contest” held at Escanaba High School three consecutive years. She has also been selected as one of a few different winners for four contests held on the writing website Figment.com and was a runner up the “Letter’s About Literature Contest” and the NRYWI contest in 2013. She visited the NRYWI in 2014. Realistic fiction is her genre of choice but she also enjoys and writes horror occasionally.