Once upon a time, there was a very boring, very confused girl. Her name was Sarah. She had gone to a plain little Catholic school her whole life, and had worn a plain little Catholic school uniform. And on every Sunday she went to a plain old Catholic Church, and questioned her whole life. Sarah was lost. She was lost in a sea of plain people and their Catholic uniforms, of white bread and picket fences. And she hated it. She hated it with every fiber of her being. And so, soon came the time for Sarah to go to a new school, a public school, down the street across the train tracks. And Sarah knew that she was done with her life. She wanted to put every aspect of the endless drowning behind her. The uniforms, the fake smiles, bleached teeth, dead inside drones, the nice, respectable people, she was done with it. She was done with it all. And so she went to the school and nothing happened. She was unnoticed by all. She slid through the door as silent as a ghost, and sat in her classes as detailed as a shadow. And she was ok with this. Nobody talking to her, no false friends, no worries. But it was empty. It was empty...
empty...
empty...
And so with this also, Sarah decided she was done. She turned to her art, scribbles and doodles, and spent all day with them. It was then she discovered the Wolf. The Wolf changed many internal things, but the exterior version of her life, the blank exoskeleton everyone saw, it remained the same. No differences, appearing as innocent as ever. And with this, Sarah decided she could live with. Nobody knew her, what she really was, what she was thinking. Sarah had been silent her whole life, her thoughts her own, her opinions, she rarely shared any details of her life with anyone. She had slipped through life unnoticed.
Until the Wolf lit the flame.
It burned and burned and she was no longer an empty shell. She was alive, she was breathing. And she was alright. She grew with the wolf, and the fire consumed her soul. It was her soul, it was a light. It was what she needed. And the Wolf, the Wolf who had been buried deep within her, deep within, howled. He howled at the moon, at the world. And a debt was owed to the Wolf, and if the Wolf was herself, how was she to repay it?
And as she lit the cigarette in her lips the flame sparked something within herself. It was how. She keep the fire alive in her, breathing in the smoke letting it fill her lungs, and she was content. She was content for the moment.
But she was unable to repay the debt, winter's claws had crept up on her and she felt the fire dimming. She didn't know what to do, she sunk deep, deep down and fell. And she laid there. She laid on the train tracks and let the snow gather around her face. And she thought, that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be so bad to be buried here. To let the snow pile up and just lay there. Or maybe there would be a train, and that wouldn't be so bad. She had always loved trains. Maybe it would be like when she was younger, and placed pennies on the tracks. After the train, after the roar, they were squished flat. Flat, flat, flat.
But the train didn't come. There never was a train. Instead there was a person.
There was a girl, tall with shoulder-length black hair and a kind look on her face. And she knew her. The girl said, “What's your name?” And Sarah said, “Rin.” And she didn't know why, and she didn't know how but that was her name. Very simply, she knew it was true. She looked up at the girl and colors danced before her eyes. She saw fires, flames, around a bull. It tossed it's head and snorted, the fire seemed to come from it. Around the girl, the falling snow seemed to melt. And the strange girl smiled and said, “Nicolette.” And she held out her hand, and in it there was a cigarette. And for the first time in months, Rin smiled. And she knew who she was.
