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Deleted Scene

Congratulations!!! You found the deleted scene for Backyard Vermin! No idea how. I'm telling nobody, but no body this is here. So, For a bit of context: near the end of the story, when the unnamed werewolf protagonist is having their panic attack, I initially wrote it as a brief full on flashback. I liked it, but as I was transitioning back to the present, I felt like I lost the immediacy of the moment and diluted the thematic focus. It became less about the werewolf's rivalry with the groundhog and how that affected them, and more about the werewolf's trauma. Since the details of the werewolf's trauma are irrelevent to the story, it just made sense to cut it. I quite liked it though so I didn't want to just hit delete. So here it is preserved for posterity.

I stared down at my rival, and it, squeaking in fear, cast about helplessly for an exit before finally squaring up in a fighting stance. Were I capable I might have laughed. Instead, I huffed. After all this trash loving vandal had gone through did it seriously think it could take me in a straight up fight? Of course it couldn’t. It was prey, and it was mine. Words full of the same exhilaration I now felt floated up from my past: “This one’s mine!” I was no longer the predator, I was younger, only just no longer a pup, pursued by hunters. I was getting too exhausted to run; I had to fight. The same fight that my parents lost just moments ago. The men with guns emerged from the shadows of my memory. I arched my back to look as big as possible and growled as menacingly as I could. One of the men leveled his gun at me. I braced to leap at his throat. The other man put his hand on the first’s barrel; lowering his gun. I took my chance and sped off as quickly as I could manage.

“What the fuck Dale-”

“let ‘em go, Jim. That one’s a young’n…”

I didn’t hear the rest as I made my escape