Beauty, Beasts and Balance

Part One

Caitlin roused from her nap in the bowl-like chairs of the University's library. The chair wasn't the most comfortable choice, but it was the quietest. She'd perfected the art of sleeping anywhere as her jam-packed schedule made it impossible to get a good night's sleep. She raised her arms in a large stretch and her yawn nearly split her small face in two. Her neck felt stiff as she stretched it from side to side. She'd injured it in a car accident years ago and it had never really fully healed. The permanently bulging disc often caused the nerves to pinch and send pins and needles down her left arm, just like it was doing now. She grimaced at the pain she had expected and stood up so she could straighten her back completely. Small popping sounds ran up her spine as the air bubbles released from the vertebra. When the feeling in her arm returned to normal, she bent to grab her fifteen-pound backpack off the floor.

Her next class would be starting soon. The summer semester had only just begun but she was already feeling overwhelmed as she had chosen to do a full course load of five classes. In addition to classes and homework, she had a part-time job at the pet shop near her home. But this was her own fault. When she'd been eighteen, she'd had no idea what she wanted from life and so she simply chose what made her happy at the time. And now she was paying extra tuition for having done so. She'd initially chosen to get a bachelor's in a major that didn't have employment opportunities. And so, after a couple years of dead-end jobs, she came back to school in search of something more useful. At twenty-five she wasn't the oldest person in her classes but the majority of people still in their teens made her conscious her age like a protruding nose hair you just can't get rid of. Her creaking bones didn't help.

Slinging the bag filled with four heavy tombs over her shoulders, she used the restroom to freshen up, and purchased a coffee and a muffin from the library's small convenience store. The metal detectors on either side of the library entrance remained silent as she brushed past them and, as her hands were full, turned to use the bag on her back to push open the heavy glass doors. She still had plenty of time to get across campus to the classroom but she always liked to show up early so she could have her seat of choice towards the back. But as she turned back around to stride outside, the image of the wide immaculate walkways and the perfectly pruned hedges was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a primordial forest, untouched by human hands, filled her vision. She stood in the center of a small clearing. Trees the size of skyscrapers blocked her view of both land and sky. The damp smell of earth on the cool breeze that snuck thorough the gaps in the branches filled her nostrils. The sounds of small animals rustling in their burrows and the songs of birds filled the plant filtered air. Light from the sun was cut and sprinkled over a cushy floor of leaves and needles like gold leaf. Small wildflowers opened their white petals, seeking the illuminated pools.

Instinctively, Caitlin whipped back around in search of the library's modern design of concrete, glass and steel. But there was nothing. Not nothing as in the absence of everything, but nothing as in more forest had taken up the library's real estate. She took a couple unbelieving steps towards where it should have been and the earth, fertilized by years of plant debris, crunched beneath her sneakers. But the library did not reappear. Despite the red hoodie she wore to stave off the air conditioner that blasted inside the campus buildings, she shivered.

Oh shit. It's finally happened. I have finally pushed myself too far and had a psychotic break.

Mental illness was not uncommon in her family but it was usually the males that struggled with it, and had to take meds to keep the hallucinations away. She had never experienced them before and stood in awe at how detailed her mind was. She wasn't sure what to do. If she moved around in her hallucination, she wondered if she would move in reality as well. That could lead to numerous problems. She theorized that maybe if she just stayed where she was long enough, someone in the real world would move her body to the hospital where the doctors could give her some antipsychotics. That would be her best-case scenario. Caitlin didn't like pain and though she loved to travel and see new things, she was also a coward who wouldn't go anywhere that wasn't safe enough to walk alone at night. With inaction being the more logical choice, she stayed where she was, rooting herself to the spot like the trees that surrounded her. Remembering the coffee and muffin still in her hands, she sipped and nibbled at them while her eyes feasted on the greenery around her and waited. She found it funny how everything around her had changed, but her belongings had all remained as they were. Her backpack didn't turn into a treasure chest, nor did her ponytail of long wavy brown hair into snakes. When the coffee cooled and her muffin was half eaten, Caitlin decided it was finally time to move. She rationalized that a person who stood in front of library doors and was unresponsive to verbal communication would definitely have been addressed by now. Since she couldn't tell what was happening in reality, what she did in her mind must not be affecting her real body.

She took a few tentative steps and approached the closest tree. Bending down and placing her coffee cup on the floor between its roots so she could have a free hand, she placed her palm against the deeply grooved, rough bark. It felt so real. Rubbing the pad of her thumb across it, she picked at the bark and a loose piece the size of breath mint fell away exposing the softer, reddish layer of fibers underneath.

*Crunch*

*Crack*

The sound of breaking twigs beneath approaching feet had her tearing her eyes away from the tree. She turned and scanned the clearing but didn't see anything at first. Then the leaves of a bush shivered ever so slightly. She focused on it. The wolf that knew it's hiding spot was discovered walked out without, unafraid but cautious. The grey beast, much larger than any dog Caitlin had ever seen, focused its yellow gaze on her. Every primal instinct told her to run but her learned mind kept her from doing so. The wolf's ears were back, tail low, and teeth hidden. Caitlin forced herself to stay still. After having worked with dogs for so long, she knew running would only confirm for the wolf that she was prey and no threat. This was no spirit animal come to lead her on some grand insightful journey; this beast was here for a meal and was biding its time until its prey began the game of chase. Instead, she stood tall and opened her arms wide to make herself look bigger.

"RAWR! GET! GO!" Caitlin yelled at the wolf in hopes that it would get nervous and leave. It didn't. Instead, another wolf revealed itself. And then another. And another. A pack of six surrounded Caitlin in a half circle forcing her to change her plan. A lone wolf can be scared away but a pack would kill a grizzly bear if it was wounded or small enough. And at five foot nothing, Caitlin was small enough.

She turned her back to the wolves, dropped her muffin and frantically scrambled up the tree to the nearest branch a few feet above her head. The rough bark bit into her hands and underneath her fingernails as she clung to the trunk and used the tred of her sneakers to climb. But the backpack she had forgotten to take off weighed her down. Desperation and adrenaline pushed her body past the challenges of it and her hands closed around the first branch. She hadn't climbed a tree since elementary school but the wolves weren't just going to wait patiently for their dinner to get better at it. They charged her. She was only a few feet off the ground and still within reach of the large predators. With monstrous force, one wolf clamped down on her calf. Pain, dulled by panic shot up her leg as blood pooled in the wolf's mouth and stained his muzzle. He had managed to get a good grip. With his dense neck muscles, he shook her leg in a deadly game of tug-of-war and Caitlin lost her grip.

"NO!" She screamed, more in fear than pain as she fell, landing hard on her side. The wolf, with his teeth still sunk deep into her flesh, dragged her body backwards. Dirt and dead leaves collected in her sweater that rode up with each inch. She tried to grab something, anything, that could keep the wolf from gaining more ground but it was far stronger than she and continued to drag her further from the tree and closer to the rest of the pack. As she her arms brushed against a tree root, she grasped for it for dear life but she knew it wouldn't be enough. She was going to die.