Wolf and her adopted family live in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by man-eating monsters called Wilds. One day the heir of the worlds last known safe haven is flushed into her neck of the woods and she and her family set out on the impossible tas...
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Wolf, 18
Chapter 1
Wolf's eyes fluttered open, adjusting slowly to the dark room. She took in a deep breath. Last night's rain had passed, leaving the air cleaner than yesterday's. She sat up and peered drowsily out the barred window she slept beneath. Over the sound of the monstrous snores that filled the room, she could hear the pattering of dewdrops as they slipped off the forest leaves and dripped onto the rooftop. However, that wasn't the only thing she could hear at that early hour of the morning.
The wolfish ears perched atop her head of diamond-blonde hair twitched as she focused more intently on the unfamiliar sound. Her fingers drummed anxiously along the hammock when she realised that it was the sweet chirping of a morning bird. Her gaze intensified out the open window. Her emerald eyes, which could see clearly in the darkest night and miles ahead of her during the day, searched desperately for the looming threat.
A long moment passed and she had almost given up, hoping to pass off the peculiar sound as a figment of her paranoid imagination, when she suddenly spotted it. A flicker of movement amongst the treetops on the horizon. Fixing her attention on that area, she distinguished that there was an entire flock of silhouettes moving erratically through the treetops, heading in her direction.
She stepped silently onto the wooden floor and crouched beside the girl asleep at her feet. Grub, who was the source of the deafening snores that filled the room, was five foot and had the temperament of a bumblebee... in a nest... if it had been shaken... then dropkicked... into a fire... and managed to escape.
Not once looking away from the approaching threat, Wolf placed a hand over Grub's mouth and pinched the bridge of her nose to silence her snores. She only looked down when the girl in her grasp started thrashing around for oxygen.
Grub brushed her attacker off angrily. 'What the hell?' she growled as she sat up, preparing for a fight.
'Ssh,' Wolf hissed.
Grub recognised the voice and quickly calmed down, though she was still angry at being woken up. 'Wolf?' she questioned huffily, 'what the hell?'
Wolf didn't answer immediately; instead, she looked up, searching the sky for the shadows she had seen only moments before. They were closer now. Wolf could hear claws scraping and tree branches snapping as they approached. Wolf looked back to Grub, who was waiting impatiently for an answer.
'Help me wake the others,' Wolf stated simply as she rose to her feet once more. Grub grumbled something that sounded like a death threat as she stood and followed Wolf silently to the far side of the room. Here four more hammocks hung. Two stacked on the right side of the room and two stacked on the left. 'I'll get the twins, you wake the boys,' Wolf whispered to Grub as she made her way to the hammocks on the left side of the room.
