I woke up, blinking. I lay on my mattress listening to the low buzz of the room fan, its steady breeze my only relief from the unrelenting summer night heat. The slats of the windows let in the limp orange glow of the streetlights, layering the room with shades of darkness. The sheets were damp under my sweating back. My cheek touched the wetness of my pillow, but it was not sweat. I cried silently, tears leaking from my eyes. Why was I crying? Why did I feel sad? Then my memory caught up. I had dreamt I was a wolf.
It was cold. Whiteness surrounded me, filling my field of vision. All around me was a plain of snow, interrupted on the horizon by scraggly pine trees, their evergreen strength slowly sapped away by the endless power of winter. The wind ruffled through my fur as I looked down at my paws. I took a step forward. The crunch of the snow beneath my right paw was drowned out by a piercing spike of pain. I watched a growing circle of red appear in the snow, an infection spreading from my paw. A jagged thorn colored by my blood stuck out from my paw; but it was only one of the many wounds on my body. A trail of paw prints interspersed by circles of red extended behind me, my life spread across a line stretching over the snow. I kept moving forward, leaking onto the pristine plain. I was dying.
Step. Pain. Step. Pain. My trudging was interrupted by a distant gray spot on the snow. It was moving towards me. I stopped and saw a female child running towards me, fearless and inquisitive. Where there was a child, there must be shelter and guardians. Relief swept over me, but it was soon replaced by a slow prickling of danger. What would the pack think of me, the lone wolf intruding into their territory and approaching a young one? She reached me and started nuzzling me with her snout, licking my wounds and whining in sympathy. I felt my legs weaken as the last of my strength left me. As I fell to the ground, my fading vision took in a flurry of movement around me as three more wolves rushed at the interloper and the child.
I lived for a year with the wolf pack, every season clear in my memory. The two brothers and two sisters nursed me to health and I spent my time with them. We roamed the vast plain together, hunting, playing and living, eventually returning after every adventure to their den where they had found me. The den was hidden under the roots of a towering, old tree surrounded by the vast plain. The tree told us of the passage of each season. We huddled deep in the den as clumps of snow fell from the branches onto the ground and icy drops of water fell from icicles. Soon, quiet green buds appeared, quickly exploding into riotously colored flowers. The flowers shed and rained down on us as we played in the sea of fiery petals, which gave way to a massive green canopy. The canopy sheltered us from the glowing summer sun on days where we would lay at the base of the tree. Eventually green turned into brown and we burrowed our way through the floor of fallen leaves, hunting each other in its layers.
Soon, winter returned and bare branches loomed above. I had lived for a year in the care of my rescuers, sharing their warmth and companionship. I had developed a bond with each one, but I shared a special connection with the youngest, the one who first found me. After the first snow had settled on the ground, I quietly set out across the white plain. It was time to leave. The scraggly pine trees still lined the white horizon, the year having failed to improve their condition. Before I had gone too far, I heard the sound of quick, light paws. Oh, if only she hadn’t come. The child caught up and looked at me sorrowfully. I knew she was asking me : Why do you have to go?
All around me was a plain of snow. I took another step forward. The rending of my heart was almost drowned out by a piercing spike of pain. An infection of red spread from my step. A jagged thorn colored by my blood stuck out from my paw. It was the only wound on my body. As I continued walking, I left circles of red, small upon the vast white plain fenced by scraggly pine trees. This time, the pain was not in the trail of blood behind me, but in the longing for a den under a tree.
