wooden wolf

Hello, I'd like to introduce you to Uhun a mess of a world. This world before you, is not the one you know, but not unlike the one you know. This world is built on a similar social structure and has similar hypocrisies, but deep between the green trees and running lakes is a story that can never be told by our world. A fairy-tale we've over sold. The unwoven story of children in a world that colours them the same shade as monsters.

In this world, brown and yellow oak leaves littered the ground as a white-haired girl walked, crushing the innocent leaves beneath her feet. This girl, Brayleigh left soft crunching sounds that calmed her and made her feel less cold. Her thin hands curl around the strap of her rucksack with an absent-minded grip. It was almost as if she didn't want to know where she was. Running away with her mind.

"Cold-hearted bitch!"

By now, she had no clue where or whom these words were coming from, it could all be in her head, or her hearing had gotten better that she could hear Lake from this far. But whatever it was she did not care; her mind was numb. Brayleigh was enveloped in an icy embrace as the winter cold pushed her feet to move gingerly in search of a warm climate. She had been given warmth for a long time, but she did not deserve it.

Patience.

People had been patient with her. They would die for her. They loved her deeply. But she ran.

"I ran. Coward." Brayleigh whispered to herself, with her mouth barely moving.

"What makes the human world go round?" Brayleigh asks the air as she dragged her feet walking to a destination she fears, to do something that terrifies her. She only had this.

"Love?" She asks again eyes clouded over as she looks between the cracks of her fingers to catch the light from the sun sipping through the frosted forest branches, fingers to her eyes. Her skinny fingers broke her heart, but she continued speaking to herself. What does having constant decent meals and hot baths in winter feel like? No. what does having constant fell like? She remembers from memories. A thousand years ago when she thought she could have comfort.

"Money?"

Someone once told her she could fly with practice because of how she glides. But it was obvious mockery as he finished by shaming her physic saying the wind will do all the work.

Brayleigh had never heard of a flying wolf, and she was hairier than most wolves when transformed, she was sure she could not fly. Standing and looking at the expanse of land she had to travel, she wished she could fly.

She couldn't shift now as due to malnourishment she could die while shifting and if a hunter saw her, human or not they will have her head. Hunger threatened to kill her but the cold seem to welcome the competition of who could take her life first.

With the twigs snapping beneath her feet, she was reminded of several occasions when she ran into the hunters, they will share their food thinking she was one of them. Now as her stomach growled, she wished there was a hunter in sight.

The wind brought smells of the woods with a cutting cold that bit at her skin. How fascinating. In freezing climates like this, she craved the barbeques the hunters prepared. She could close her eyes and imagine dancing and jesting around the fire as big bulky men with barely anything to wear broke bread and meat, passing alcohol around with nothing but merriment. There was something about the cold that brought humans together. Perhaps it was the need to hurdle for warmth. As she closed her eyes and imagined, her legs pushed forth. The only thing she was missing was the smell of roasting meat and a good beer.

How ironic. People prayed for rain, she prayed for hunters.

The journey ahead slowly breaks away from the brown and golden celebration of the forest to the black, joyless scene in front of her. Most animals left a long time ago when the humans went berserk on this land. Only the stupid ones with no sense of survival remained. The war that lasted years had ended here and the Were kind of lost all hope.

Brayleigh was among the few wolves that could pass this area. Everyone else was too pained to see where they fell. But to Brayleigh, it was what happened. And that was it. There was no avoiding the hard cold facts. This is what humans are capable of, and this was what they did, pretending was a backward step, and she can only move forwards. She has grieved. And there is nothing left to cry for. These charred remains were a reminder of just that.

She had seen pictures of what this place once looked like. Almost romantic and certainly orderly and peaceful. It was euphoria turned dystopia. She could cry looking at it. But she held it in. It was over.

Clenching her fist and looking at what used to be a tall tower, now a pile of bricks barely hanging to a tall wall, roof mangled and charred. But she had been here many times. Enough to know the procedure.

Look away, turn around, breathe in, breath out, and walk away.

She aimed to do just that when she felt something under her feet. A little wooden wolf.

Bending down to pick it up. She wondered who it once made smile. Her eyes were dead as always, fingers circling the dirty grey wolf. She practiced a smile, pretending to have had this brought to herself as a child both parents smiling. But she did not have such a happy memory. She wondered if the charred bones next to the wolf belonged to a boy or a girl. What a lucky child she thought looking at the bone surrounded by bigger bones.

Standing up and looking ahead. She must make it to Lark before the sun sets, she had no time to dally. Putting the wooden wolf in her oversized cargo trousers she reorganized herself and set off not looking at the bones again.

"Guns and bombs?" She asked herself as she paused staring at nothing, with her eyes glazed over looking at nothing. "Fear? Fear." She affirms before walking again. "No wonder why the world is so screwed!" She said with a mirthless laugh. "It's everyone's nightmare. It runs on nightmares." She said as if she had just discovered the secrete of the universe.

"But what makes my world, the 'were' world, go round, isn't a controversy or a matter for questioning. What makes our world round is the pack. Not the pack, but THE pack. The one and only Dark moon. As the saying goes, 'the moon must go Dark for the sun to shine. And in dark moon, the moon is always dark.'" She recites to herself with shaky breaths as she travels with reluctant steps, making fogs with her breath.

"As brilliant and amazing as Dark moon sounds, not everyone goes there, people just find their mates and settle. Everyone wants to go, but not everyone can. Why would I want to settle with a mate? A stranger. The moon goddess is not doling those out. No! She is sleeping. Sleeping people can't give mates to people. This is child neglect!" She screams at no one. And I shall emphasise this, she is crazy.

"You see, Dark Moon people are understandably snobbish. They do not accept just anyone and to reduce the number of applicants they have a peculiar elimination process, where only five win. It is a death sentence." At this Brayleigh paused and took in a breath. For ones an emotion floated past her glazed eyes. Fear.

"No, suicide." She gasped. Sadness seemed to have replaced her fear and it wrapped snuggly around her like a comfortable Christmas jumper. "It is suicide."