Chosen Wolf

I was running faster than I ever thought possible. Branches smacked and cut my arms, but it didn’t slow me down. Not this time. My pounding feet kept the same beat as my pounding heart. I didn’t feel afraid as I raced through the woods. I was excited, but I couldn’t remember why. My lungs began to burn in my chest. I didn’t care. I kept running. Soon, the sound of wolves howling filled the otherwise quiet forest. I smiled.

I wasn’t one hundred percent sure where I was, but it looked like the woods outside the hotel. Even though I wasn’t sure where I was going, I knew I had to keep going. I could never remember if I was running to something? Or away? I just knew I had to keep going, and my life depended on it. I made it through the deepest part of the forest, and the trees began to thin out. I was grateful for the lack of branches to cut my arms on. The sting of the cuts soon faded as I stepped further towards the small clearing. I wasn’t out of the forest yet, but I was able to see the light of the full moon breaking through the darkness of the forest. I slowed my pace as I took a deep breath. I knew what was coming, so I decided to take in the beauty of the full moon as I moved from the forest to the open area.

“Ah, finally, I made it through the woods,” I said out loud to no one in particular, because, well, I was alone. Until I wasn’t. An unnaturally large white wolf emerged from the forest next to me so that it could stand in front of me. I looked deep into the wolf’s eyes, the same emerald green as mine. Something in my bones filled me with a sense of familiarity, which used to unnerve me. I was used to seeing this strange wolf after years of this dream. Now I stood in front of it unafraid. Something in my head screamed a single word, mine. That was new, and it confused me before I could fully wrap my head around what was said. The wolf pounced on me, but did not bite me like it usually did.

I woke up with a startle. Sitting upright, one hand on my fast-beating heart. My other hand ran through the tangles of my golden-brown hair. That dream again. I used to have that dream once in a while as a kid, but since my dad passed away six months ago, it has only gotten worse. A lot about it has changed since I was a kid, but not everything. Before I would trip and fall before I made it out to the clearing. Now, there was the white wolf. It was so massive that it used to scare me, but now it doesn’t. It was just a dream. When I was afraid of it in the dream, it would just straight out attack me. Now that I wasn’t scared, it just jumped at me. Not in an aggressive ‘I am going to kill you’ way, but in the way an excited dog would jump on you when it was happy and excited to see you. The jump always woke me up. I am kind of curious about what it did when it jumped at me. What a weird thought. I shook my head. What was I thinking? It was just a recurring dream that slightly changed from time to time.

I brushed thoughts of the large white wolf away in my dream. I washed my face and proceeded to get ready for the day. Now that my heart was no longer beating a million miles a minute from the dream, it began to sink heavily with grief.