Homing in on the shuffling and clamoring sounds, Jack found the source easily enough. The blood all over made it hard to miss.
His heart sank taking in the scene. The damage was well beyond what he could even dream of fixing, and he hated seeing animals die. Especially healthy ones, like this one was. All he could do would be to ease its passing.
Cautiously, he approached until he could see more clearly in the dark midnight gloom of the shadowed forest floor, and then try to reach out for the poor beast.
Terror, pain, and light-headedness spun around him and threatened to crush him like an avalanche, as the dying creature's mind rushed into his consciousness. Bitter irony, fear, and a strong desire to not die were the dominant colors, tinged with regret, and confusion about Jack's intruding thoughts.
Jack comported himself as best he could, and extended well-rehearsed feelings of calm and benevolence, expressing sorrow at being unable to heal the injuries, and sympathy for the pain and terror. He begged the creature to stop struggling, and save its strength for a calm, and gentle rest.
Images of dark ripples on the surface of a moonlit lake swirled, mingled with impressions of looming danger. A sloshing splash as water sprayed up suddenly, revealing the sudden appearance of a giant, slimy and glistening mouth catching a nearby friend that had dared to drink at the water's edge, then more of the creature emerging, and flopping with thundering and shaking of the ground with alarming speed for something not really made for land.
The impetus to run, to flee from the 'hungry mouth that comes out at night' overrode all his pleas for calm as the deer tried once more to stand and run, before falling down again, the dizziness, fatigue, and feelings of deathly chill from the bleeding gaining renewed strength.
He gently placed the palm of his hand on the creature's shoulder, then hugged it close to warm it with his chest, why broadcasting the intent for the action as best he could. The incredulity and curiosity of the creature intensified; It wanted to know why he cared (and expressed its discomfort and anxiety with being held.)
Jack sighed. Explaining in full would take too long, and even then, most creatures simply could not understand anyway. His reasons for being and acting the way he did were too... Abstract. It was a form of thinking that they were not equipped to handle. He thought for a moment, then decided not to even try to explain, but rather, to share his desires, and make connections that way, in lieu of a true and proper explanation.
He stroked the deer's cheek, and pressed his forehead against hers, keeping eye contact, while retaining the gentle (but still restraining) embrace, before letting his mind bloom into a phantasia of brightly colored greenery, flowering plants and trees. The singing of birds, humming of bees, and the gentle rush of a light breeze mingled with the scent of flowers and fragrant grasses and herbs, as the sun shown warmly and bright.
It was the ideal image he had for how a healthy wild place should be bloomed in his mind: Bright and flowering shadowed canopy beckoning, and whispering in the blood to come run and play beneath its branches, with a weedy meadow choked with wild herbs, flowers and grasses; and a feeling that everything is right with the world. Food and safety in abundance.
He mingled with fantastic mirage with all his hopes, dreams, and desires-- It is what he wanted for all living things. He was a creature born with the power to change the world, even if only a little at a time, and this was what his heart desired; One does not need a reason to want something. One just does.
The image faded, replaced with sadness and somber regret; He could not give this to her-- There was nothing he could do to change that. Only comfort her passing.
Her response confused him terribly though. A notion of "How did you endure/survive/not-change? (like the others)" with "Thought you (those like you) were all gone now", mingled with a confusing image of an unfamiliar place filled with trees that had been bent and shaped by human hands into huts and religious totem imagery flashed suddenly, rapidly changing to a scene filled with sprawling roots, wicked thorn brambles, bones, shredded clothing in rotting heaps and an all-encompassing sense of throbbing head-pain, confusion, and a feeling of slow draining death--- before being replaced with the beast's real sensations once more, as death's icy fingers cloyed at its failing mind. She was tired, and death was near. She could not answer anything else.
Weakly, she acknowledged and thanked him for his closeness and warmth, then asked one more thing of him-- She wanted to be in "the good place" he had shown her, one more time.
He accepted, and focused his thoughts as intensely and vividly as he could, drenching the connection with the imaginary world of his deepest fantasies; His idea of what a perfect place should be, and wrapped her in it like a warm blanket.
And then the connection ended.
She was gone.
He closed his eye, and huffed a breath, then let the deer's limp body sag to the forest floor.
At least he had some inkling of what the stampede was from now, but the price for that knowledge was damnably high.
Rousing himself from where he had sat down near the now-dead deer, he surveyed the carnage, then tracked the trail of blood back across the camp. He was intent to find what had done such a grievous injury.