Big Dog [ONC 2022]

9

"With casualties from the recent storm, the earthquakes and from increasing cases of the Omega variant of the virus, the nation's hospitals are working far beyond a workable capacity, with doctors and nurses reportedly collapsing from exhaustion.

Many patients are finding themselves turned away from A&E departments, doctors, nurses, paramedics and even midwives that have retired are all now returning to hospitals throughout the country in an attempt to help in what has become the NHS's greatest crisis."

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9

It was as though the entire world stopped. Raindrops hung in the air around her, waves had become frozen in the midst of crashing upon the shore. She could even see the effects of the gales, as some raindrops had become pushed aside by the force of the rushing air. All stopped. Nothing moving. Not even herself.

Before her, where once she had seen a darkened bevel upon the surface of the cliffs, she now saw a light so bright that it threatened to blind her and, at the edges of that light, she could see a cave. Not the slight, discoloured dip that she had seen before, but a true cave, massive, cathedral-like, with stalactites and stalagmites decorating the roof and the floor.

But all of this paled in comparison to what she saw rising above her. As tall as a mountain, with a coat so black, she could not think of a way to describe it that would do justice to the depth of blackness that she could behold. Far darker than coal, darker than jet or obsidian, even more dark and black than she imagined death could look like. A black that hurt the eyes as surely as the brightness of the light that lent the shadow that fell upon her from what loomed above her.

A wolf. Immense and massive. A wolf that, should it open its jaws, it could swallow the island. Then she looked again and the wolf had grown to even greater heights, had become even more massive and she thought it could devour the entire world and all the celestial bodies that circled the Sun. Greater still, and even the Sun itself could not compare to the beast before her eyes and she could not begin to imagine how she could comprehend the madness before her.

Her arm crossed her face. She could not bear to look at the wolf any longer. It felt like heresy to even think of the creature, let alone see it with eyes unworthy to bear witness to such magnificence. She felt like tearing out her eyes and throwing them aside, for they were not fit to gaze upon the wolf. She thought to bury herself in the sand, so that she would not trouble the wolf with her presence.

"Raise your eyes, daughter of the North, for you must see the god that walks among you frail mortals. Raise your eyes and see a god in fear."

She could do nothing but follow the command. Those deep, resonant words threatening to shake the very flesh from her bones. Words that did not pass through the air, but appeared, within her mind, as though they had always sat there, only awaiting her observance to let the words become heard and understood. Words that felt ancient and brutal and terrible, whispering tales of ages long past in the susurration of nothingness between each syllable.