Willow of The Wolves

chapter one: the coma patient

Willow of The Wolves

Prologue

The Mother would tell her daughter about the wolves that would live on the moors when she was just a little girl. She said her father would try to kill them because they kept coming to steal the animals they kept in the farm.

"I could hear the cries of the dying wolves as father would shoot them down." the mother told her daughter one night and the daughter went to sleep fearing for the wolves and their sudden deaths. Her brother never cared for the wolves, for he had his own problems with depression and melancholy. "The wolves stopped coming to our farm, they were all gone, vanished out of thin air." The mother told her daughter and the daughter said she would find the pack of wolves and help them, becoming their leader.

Chapter one

The Coma Patient

The walls were white, the floors were white. Even the clothes were white in the small hospital room. Willow Martin was used to the screams that echoed from the hallways at night. She would simply cover her head with her pillow and try to sleep. After being attacked by her brother and getting a large nasty gash down her thigh, Willow had to stay in the hospital for the whole month.

Willow's brother would always stay in his room. It was rare to see the pale, angry boy. But, after a while he became sick. Not sick with a disease, but was sick in the head. Willow stayed away from him and so did her parents, but he came too close to Willow with a knife, sharp at the tip and a long blade. Having another panic attack, her brother screamed, driving the knife down her side and going into a mental breakdown, weeping with bloody hands.

It was almost two in the morning when the familiar sirens screamed past her propped open window. Willow wasn't allowed to stand up when a nurse wasn't there but lately, Willow would unhook the thin tubes that connected to her arms, slip out of bed, and sneak to the window, either watching the dark skies as they passed by, pushing the moon away and tugging the sun towards the sky, or stare at the doctors bustling around new patients.

This time was the same, a gun wound. The man laying on the stretcher was a sheriff; she could tell because of the badge on his blood soaked shirt and on his pants. The doctors were shouting orders, loud enough for anyone with an open window like her's to wake up. Minutes later, they had disappeared from view into the hospital to help the unconscious man.

"Can't get enough sleep, eh Willow?" The familiar voice shook all the thoughts in her brain. Willow turned around to see her mother standing in the dark doorway.

"Mom!" Willow gasped, running to her mother and hugging her. Helen Martin kissed Willow's head and asked,

"Why aren't you in bed? The nurse told you that you couldn't get up for another week."

"The doctor's yelling woke me up and I wanted to see what was happening." She said and Helen shook her head.

"Sweetie, go to sleep." Helen said, gently prodding Willow's back, pushing her lightly towards her bed.

"Alright, goodnight mom." Willow said and slipped back into a dreamless sleep.

Eggs, jello and bacon as always. Breakfast meals were not Willow's favorite, and wasn't anybody elses favorite either.

"Hey Willow." Someone said behind her. She looked back and noticed Christopher West, a boy with leukemia, slide over on his wheelchair, his bald head covered in a flat cap. He pushed his glasses further onto his nose and put his breakfast down onto the table.

"Hey Christopher. You doing alright?" Willow asked. That was a common thing people would say in the hospital.

"I guess i'm alright." Christopher said. The bruises on his arms looked worse today, purple and raised from his skin a bit.

They ate breakfast in silence and cleared away their trash, then headed up to the second floor where every morning Christopher and Willow would read to the young kids in the hospital.

"I'm sorry Willow, but there aren't any more books left here. You could stop by Jonathan's room and get some books." Mrs. Noleman said, her tight bun bobbing back and forth as she spoke.

"Alright Mrs. Noleman. I'll be back soon." Willow said, waving.

. . .

The hall was cold and dark, the lights on the ceiling seemed dim and dismal. Some of the wounded groaned in their sleep or weeped from their pain. Quickly out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tall man with a bouquet of pink and yellow and purple flowers. He disappeared through the door at the end of the hall. Minutes later he was out and was hurrying away, wiping his eyes. It was the man the other night who had been shot. The flowers were propped on the table, the glass vase sloshing with water. Willow crept around the bed and peered at the man. His thin face was covered in a light stubble, just shaved that morning she had guessed. His face had a blank expression on and his closed eyes flickered as if he was trying to open them. She felt bad for the man in the coma, the heart monitor was his only company besides the flowers and her.

"I know how you feel Mr..." Willow looked around, searching for some evidence of the mans name. A sheriff's coat was drying, washed from blood on the chair, a little tag saying "Rick Grimes". "Mr. Rick Grimes." She said and turned back to the man. After that, She decided to keep the man company, reading him stories before she would go to bed.