Orion

Prologue: The "Dream"

Orion was a lot of things, but what he was not was clairvoyant. This dream had no place in his mind, subconscious or not. They didn't send normal subordinates dreams like this unless it was dire.

The second he fell into a deep enough slumber, Orion could feel a powerful substance pulling at the edges of his consciousness before snatching it completely away like a mother would jerk the sheet off her son to wake him up for school.

Only thing was, Orion couldn't just wake up, and that was what revealed to him that something was off, very off.

The awareness that let him know he was functioning as himself in the dream was there. He was walking around the pack's main lands, he knew his territory like the back of his hand, and there was a clearing on the far southeastern corner, just by the lake. If he turned right, like he would have if he were doing his rounds, he would find himself back in the woods. If Orion were to turn left, then he would be walking the clear area of land set aside as the pack cemetery.

His mind was dragging him to the right, even though his reasoning was telling him to go left, because after another mile, he'd hit the lake, which was three acres wide. After the lake, there was about ten miles on foot back towards the main area of the territory.

Ignoring the nagging feeling, Orion turned left, and took three steps, and then he was being yanked back towards the wood. He was naked, so after landing on the ground on all the sticks and rocks and such, he decided maybe it was best to just follow his gut. The feeling increased when he looked to the left again, and dread filled his body like water does a dam, and the more he longed to go left, the sicker he felt.

What the hell was going on?

"What is it that you want from me?" Orion asked the heavens as he crunched through the frozen winter grass barefoot. The ice did nothing to him here, he knew it was cold, and when he spoke, his hot breath formed clouds in front of him, but it meant nothing to his body, and since he wasn't cold, it never entered his mind to shift, there was no urge.

Whatever was above him left him without an answer, and Orion scoffed, muttering a blasphemous, "Of course," as he stomped through the woods.

This is where the pack lands that Orion knew in the real world faded into an area he'd never neither seen not visited in his life.

Orion stepped past the tree line, and saw he was in a rectangular clearing that stretched out east and west past his line of view. A First Quarter, high in the sky, Orion watched the moon move through the day sky before his eyes. Closer and closer she came, until he found himself reaching out to see if he could actually touch her, but when he did so, she edged away, maybe inches at most. The essence was cold, made it feel like his fingers would freeze and snap off if he did touch the cratered surface.

This isn't what I'm here for.

He heard his own voice aloud, all around him, but his lips didn't move.

Pure bewilderment fell off him in waves.

He continued to walk.

The moon followed him like the pups of the pack did, but it didn't send a sense of pride, of duty through him. Just more, and more dread, increasing with each step.

Across the clearing, Orion padded, then entered the next part of this unknown forest. Branches, leaves, small animals moved out of his way like he had a staff in hand and they were the Red Sea.

Just a little further.

"Until what?" Orion snapped impatiently as he stomped on, "This is not my gift. I don't..."