Chapter 1 Lost

• I remembered running.
• I remembered being covered in blood. Blood which wasn’t mine. It didn’t smell like me.
• Sticky dried blood which now matted my hair over my face. My clothes were thick with it making them nearly solid in the chilly morning air. I was cold and I’d been running nearly the whole first day.
• Trying to get away from those chasing me. I could remember that much.
• But that first evening, I’d tripped over a rock and hit my head so hard against a tree trunk that I’d felt my chin tuck into my neck.
• I didn’t wake until the following morning and that was to find the top of my forehead now bleeding down my face. I drug my wrist over my eyes trying to keep the fluid out of them so I could see.
• I couldn’t remember what I was running from anymore but the fear that’d driven me was alive and well.
• I was deep in the heart of War Territory. And I was certain something was still chasing me. It’d been days and I was so hungry my stomach was cramping and felt as though it intended to eat itself. But I was driven to frantically look behind me, terrified.
• My confusion was only worsened by something moving through the trees so fast I couldn’t tell what it was. It stopped in-front of me, hesitating only a moment and I realized it was a man.
• I think. He was covered in mud and ash.
• To disguise his scent, likely. That was easy to deduct. And his eyes were vibrant blue staring at me.
• But I knew instinctively looking at him that men were what I’d feared running into.
• The scream tore out of me even as he dropped something heavy around my shoulder.
• I nearly flung it off as I stumbled back. Rearing from his touch. Realizing it was a cloak I stared at it over my shoulder in shock.
• When I looked up he was gone. Scared off by me screaming my head off, no doubt.
• So he’s not the one chasing me.
• Who’s chasing me and who was that? I felt ashamed knowing someone had tried to be kind to me but I was so high strung and disgustingly matted with blood I probably scared him with my hysterics more than he’d scared me.
• I saw another flash through the trees and realized he was still out there. Running faster than anyone I’d ever seen.
• Or at least could currently recall.
• I woke the next morning from sleeping up in a tree. Woke before the sun had risen by the tantalizing smell of a dead squirrel.
• Food. I scrambled down the tree. Scratching my leg in the process, but too hungry to care.
• I picked up the squirrel and sunk my teeth into it desperately.
• The wolf inside me was ravenous but I was too weak from shock and my injuries and hunger to change.
• It might kill me if I tried. I knew.
• And what good would it do? I’d never been able to hunt. Though my sense of smell was good. I was not very fast and had no skill in running animals down. I didn’t understand how or why they veered the directions they did. I found them utterly unpredictable and impossible to catch.
• And I sensed that whatever I was before…I’d never had to hunt.
• Food was always brought to me.
• ***
• Something nearby shot through the trees and I realized it was probably that same muddy man that had given me the cloak. Cloth which had warmed me last night.
• He must’ve left me the food too.
• Thank God I had an ally out here.
• But now the question was, what did he want in return?
• Wolves give nothing for free. I remembered that bit also.
• “Who are you?” I called to where I’d last seen movement.
• But something shot through the trees a bit away in a different direction.
• I backed up uneasily. There were more.
• I knew of only one that was kind. Who was the other?
• A flash of movement to my left caught my eye and I yelped. They’re everywhere.
• Feeling chased again I ran. But something cutting across my path made me turn left and run straight that way. Hearing their feet crushing sticks and kicking rocks behind me.
• They’re on my heels.
• I ran faster. Which wasn’t saying much. Breathing raggedly I ran as hard as I could until coming to a wall. Stopping I stared up at the huge stone and mortar construction.
• Seeing only one door carved in it I edged that way but found it too ominous to knock on.
• Turning around I stared into the shadows of the afternoon but saw no movement now, heard nothing.
• Had I actually lost them? My heart was pounding in my ears so loud I wasn’t sure I could’ve heard someone anyway.