Chapter 5: Shady Nightmare

I had relinquished all control. As though possessed, I was in the passenger seat of my own body.

In my life, there had been only three times that I had shifted into this form. One, being right now, another, being the day I was born, greeted with the horror of my parents, and the third being when I was 5 years old, where I was informed quite bluntly and gruesomely, what would happen to me if I was caught in that form.

The threat of definite death weighed heavily on my 5-year-old mind and that day, I said goodbye to my wolf, agreeing that she would remain confined inside me and never come to the surface, to save both of us.

And so it has been, for 12 years, I had not once heard a word from her...

Until now.

It was no exaggeration to say that my wolf and I were like two strangers living in the same body. It was understandable that after 12 years of quarantine, she'd want to exercise a bit.

My wolf took control, hopping out of my bedroom window, two stories up, down onto our brick fence, and into the dark of the looming woods that I had never set foot in.

I was an arctic white wolf running in dark woods, potentially creeping with Nightmares wolves- this was basically suicide.

I was internally screaming while my wolf took no notice of me and enjoyed her run.

After a few hours of running without anyone appearing out of nowhere and tearing me to shreds, I started to relax a little, trying to make up reasonable excuses to reassure myself, 'maybe there was a pack meeting so all black wolves were there instead'.

My wolf finally stopped at a clearing, where I saw a lake of water that reflected the sky like a sea of stars.

My wolf stopped at the edge and took on a stance as though ready to pounce. I realized that she intended to catch fish for food since the Nightmares had savagely eaten almost all the deer in the forest, that I couldn't see a single one throughout my hours of running.

The Nightmares were, stronger and faster, physically superiors, but Arctics were more skilled and had much greater senses, natural survivals, the definition 'die-hard' and unlike us Arctics, the winter always brought bitter hardship and scarce food for Nightmares.

The thing with werewolves was that in human form, they could eat to keep themselves alive, but they'd need to consume real animals to keep their wolves from starving. After all, a wolf's stomach was five times that of a human so: roughly speaking, they'd have to consume 6 times a normal person to keep both their human and wolf forms alive.

If not, though the human form may not die, they could lose their wolf form, the real Nightmare, forever into the abyss; as good as dead.

Arctics were the only kind of werewolves that didn't have that problem, an ancient blessing from the Moon Goddess.

I smirked, winter is coming soon and if it all goes badly, almost a quarter of the Nightmares would die. That's 25% fewer threats to worry about, I just need to survive another winter. Not that I have any doubts.

My eyes catch flickering forms in the water and my wolf pounces, successfully catching 4 fish at once, causing ripples in the water.

But when the water became smooth again, I saw the worst thing imaginable.

I wish it was a fragment of my imagination but I knew it wasn't my imagination. No. It was a reflection.

A reflection of a Nightmare looming behind me.

I turned around and there he was...

A wolf of thick black fur and piercing platinum eyes towering over me.

And for the first time, at that moment, my wolf and I were in sync, as we shared the only three letters word that could form in our mind;

RUN

I shrieked internally and took off in a run as fast as I could. But I knew I couldn't outrun a Nightmare so I settled for changing direction every five seconds as I ran, having the words 'left, right, left, right, left, right, left,' on replay in my head.

After some frantic minutes, I could no longer hear the paws and claws of my pursuer gripping dirt as he chased after me but I didn't dare stop running.

Immediately when I thought I had gotten far enough, the wolf appeared in front of me, as though leaping out of the shadows itself, his platinum eyes glinting, causing me to come to an abrupt halt.

His breath was steady as though he could play cat and mouse for days but I was panting and knew I could no longer run.

'So much for fight or flight, in the face of danger, even adrenaline runs out on me'

In an attempt to stay calm and sane, I laugh hysterically at my own joke, but my wolf ignores me as she continues watching the wolf cautiously.

We were goners. My 17 years of invisibility, for nothing. I laughed harder.

We waited for his attack...

But it never came. Instead, the Nightmare took some steps back and sat in a position that resembled the sphinx.

My wolf froze, confused for a second before realizing that he was showing me that he meant no harm -Not yet anyway.

A wave of relief came over me and my wolf copied his position. But nobody could trust a Nightmare.

After a while, the Nightmare got up and walked slowly towards me; his head hung low, eyes on my neck, and nose twitching.

I got up instantly in alarm as I realized what he was trying to do.

Out of Nightmare wolves three weaknesses, the second was:

'Nightmares were unable to identify, recognize or commit the scent of another shifter to memory once they'd shifted back to human form unless their wolf had already been able to get close enough to memorize the shifter's scent'

Basically like how you had to put your hand out so dogs could memorize your scent.

-essentially, he was trying to catch my scent so even if I was in human form, even if I'd suppressed my scent, he would still be able to recognize it and know that I was the Arctic wolf.

And of course, I was not going to let that happen.

It was bad enough that a wolf now knows that there is an Arctic living amongst them but at least they didn't know who, so I was still safe and I was not going to compromise that by putting trust in a Nightmare with un-established intentions.

I leaped backward, putting space between us. He stepped back at my sudden alarmed reaction, not wanting to aggravate me even more. But I watched his nose continue to persistently twitch, he was insisting that I let him memorize my scent. I shook my head slowly and backed away again.

I watched as his chest swelled slightly as he took a deep breath and then let it all out in a way that resembled a sigh, he'd given up - Nightmares don't just give up.

Now he was stalking towards me, before I could get away, he lightly nudged my side, indicating for me to run...

From him? Or with him?

I didn't know but the sight of his thick black fur, outlining his strong features and strong jaw set with equally strong rows of teeth, did make me want to run

-home

So I did. I began to run through the forest towards my house, with his claws and paws close behind me. That was until I realized that letting him know where I lived was basically telling him who I was.

I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks and so did he. I jerked my head to a random street corner, implying that it was my street, then nudged him in the side, indicating that he should get going now.

Miraculously, he nodded in understanding and started heading back into the woods. I took a step in the direction of the random street of my choosing then back at the silhouette of the wolf as he faded into the shadows of the deep forest.

It may have been paranoia, but I thought the wolf would at least try to attempt to stalk me home.

Finally, when I had decided that he was no longer in sight, I walked into the street only to be faced with another set of problems that had only just dawned on me.

I may have dodged a bullet by not running into any danger, and another by not letting that shady Nightmare catch my scent, but an Arctic openly prancing around the streets was crazy – that would be just calling for death.

But the only thing crazier than that was, if I shifted, then I would be a naked teenage girl prancing around the streets –that would be just calling for attention.

So both were off the list.

And that's when, after several minutes of weighing the value of my life against the value of my dignity, life won, barely.

I reduced myself to rolling around in the mud to cover up my white fur with dirt and earth so I could pass off as a brown or grey or any other colour–fur wolf that wasn't white.

Doubting the infallibility of my disguise, I hurried home, hopping through my room window and heading straight to the bathroom.

I had a shower and went back to bed as though it was all a dream, and I hadn't just been caught in my Arctic wolf form by a shady Nightmare wolf.

Such dreams didn't come. It was all too weird, too unbelievable.

I had no idea what that Nightmare was planning to do about me.