Chapter 2: 6 lives left

Felix was sleeping up in the tree but the commotion below alarmed two burly figures that came running in the direction, the duo was made up of a male and female, they were humanoid but had bear ears instead of human ears, they also had fluffy brown bear tail near their butts.

While their physique was burly it was more of a combination of muscle and fat, it wasn't fully muscle, they both looked around warily then looked down at the two corpses on the ground, the male said with a sneer on his face:

"Trash from the cat tribe died on our grounds again Sheila."

The woman Sheila looked at the corpses and analyzed them a bit but they weren't recognizable because they sat too much time in the blood and the blood dried leading to this situation, their fur was wholly cacked in blood so they were both dark red, their intestines and organs were hanging out full for view and the bear-like humans were both extremely disgusted, they had the inherent trait of normal bears, they didn't eat corpses.

The male bear buried both of them in the ground while the female bear looked around and smelled the air to find any clues about who could have killed the two cat tribesmen.

She smelled something but it was out of her range, Felix was quite up in the tree, around 3 to 4 meters and there was also the fact his new body didn't have any injuries.

The female bear shook her head as she looked at the male bear and said:

"I'm not sure who did this, maybe they were younglings who failed their age trial?"

The male bear snorted as he said:

"Most likely, the trashy cat tribe who only knows how to use tricks and poison were the only ones who could die to the beings in this forest, it could also be one of our more radical tribesmen but it's most unlikely as they don't hide after the deed is done, they must be just two trashes who died to a horned rabbit."

The female bear nodded her head, her companion's thoughts made sense to her so there was no reason to question him.

The male bear's words were also an attempt to anger any hidden cat tribe members but it seemed he didn't have much luck as no one showed up even after a while passed.

The female bear shook her head as she told the male bear:

"Let's go Bugi, we should return to our patrol route, there's nothing here, the perpetrator should have escaped by now and there isn't any reason he would return here, anyways we will just report this to the chief, I don't think anything will happen, either way, the corpses are from the cat tribe, who cares about them?"

The two humanoids then fully transformed into two brown bears as they disappeared into the woods, while the conversation went on, Felix was just sleeping up in the tree enjoying the rays of sunlight that dropped at the crown of the tree he was currently sitting on.

After a few hours of resting Felix woke up and stretched himself for a short while before he looked around, he wasn't familiar with the environment but that didn't scare him much, he started to jump from tree to tree athletically even though his form indicated that he couldn't do such a thing.

The muscles and organs inside Felix's body changed after he ate the horned rabbit, they became stronger but not by very much, however already being a cat made him have an inherent grace regardless of his bodily proportions, the combination of strengthening from eating the horned rabbit just made him be in tip-top shape.

Felix's stomach alerted him that he was hungry again, his green eyes wandered around as he looked for another type of prey, he thought that he easily took care of the rabbit before as he didn't understand what happened, for the most part, his cat brain couldn't understand the concept of dying and reviving, he just felt that he easily ripped into the rabbit's neck and ate it quickly.

Felix wandered around the forest by jumping from tree to tree searching for food, and he didn't have to search for much time, the forest was full of different type of animals but Felix avoided the big ones that made him feel threatened and only stalked those small ones that he knew he had a chance to kill.

It was the innate hunter instinct that he had in his blood from being a cat, cats were very perceptive of their surroundings when they were in their 'hunting mode' so Felix immediately eyed another horned rabbit, it was bigger than the other one, that meant that the one that Felix ate must have been a young adult or even child among the horned rabbits.

But Felix didn't care, he felt his instincts tell him that he could catch this rabbit and eat him, on Earth Felix would have still been full if he ate one whole rabbit, but things were different in Felix's current location, it was unknown why but he became hungry quite fast since he was hungry he would eat, that's what his instincts told him and as an animal, he would always follow his instincts, even if they were wrong.

Felix slowly got down from the tree then he crouched on the ground and observed the horned rabbit, it was a bit bigger than Felix itself but not by much, there were no dried leaves on the ground as it was around summer at this time so there wasn't anything that could alert the rabbit of Felix's presence.

Felix made his way towards the rabbit slowly while being crouched down, his speed was a little bit faster compared to his first hunt and he was also a bit stronger, this was due to the energy that spread around his body after he ate the child rabbit.

Felix's body arched up as he ran at full speed towards the rabbit, his claws went directly for the rabbit's neck but the rabbit turned his back to him and hit him with hind legs!

The impact from the rabbit's hind legs wasn't strong, the horned rabbit's main attacking method was his antlers, however, the rabbit didn't want to kill him, he hit him with his hind legs first to stun him then he jumped towards Felix's stunned body with his head forward, his antlers ready to impale him in the stomach as the other horned rabbit did before.

Felix dodged by a thin hair, the antlers grazing his stomach and almost opening it up.

The rabbit wanted to dash again but Felix's paws went directly to his eyes slashing one eye out with his claws!

The rabbit cried out in pain as he thrust his antlers forward, however, due not having enough momentum the antlers didn't pierce through Felix's body by much, but they did draw blood and Felix started to become weakened.

Both of the former death's were instant kills but this was the first time Felix felt his life force slowly leaving him, it wasn't something that any living being would enjoy so in a last-ditch he directly used his mouth to snap the rabbit's neck, however, this action furtherly opened his injuries and made him slowly bleed out to death on the ground.

Out of the air another Felix popped out and he went towards the rabbit's body, he now knew that something was wrong but since he couldn't think much about it he just ate the rabbit's body and left, he still didn't have the intelligence to realize what happened.

Out of the woods, the same bears as before came, their eyes narrowed as they looked at the scene in front of them and they morphed back into their humanoid forms as they warily looked around, there wasn't enough time for the body to be cacked in blood so now they could see Felix's carcass fur color and both of them were skeptical as they asked:

"Stripped orange fur? From what tribe did this cat come from? I don't recall any of the tribes around the forest, or any of the known tribes to have cats with orange fur..."

The female bear Sheila nodded at his words and she didn't know what to say here, where did these cat corpses pop out from, and now there was an unknown cat corpse with an orange fur?

The male bear Bugi buried the cat and said:

"We must go and report to the chief right now, I know that we would be breaking some rules as there still time before we are out of the shift, but this cat shouldn't have died to a horned rabbit, there are more blood patterns around here that suggest that there was a tight fight, this cat tribesman died from blood loss, I wonder why we're all of the cat tribesmen in their weakened forms when they died, this is very strange..."

The duo left the place behind them as they returned to their village.

While the bear duo left Felix found another tree that he agreed with and went to sleep, as a cat he liked three things, eating sleeping, and getting pats, however, he didn't find any trustable human that could give him pats, he wondered what happened to the nice old lady that came to him and gave him dried squid, he would have liked her to be with him right now, he was missing her touch and her nice words to him, even though he couldn't understand them he liked them.

Felix closed his eyes as he went to sleep, when he would wake up again he would be a little bit stronger and also hungry again.