Space Between

1: The Unprecedented

The morning of the day was rough and windy, the kind of weather not unusual in the deep forest of Pinestring. The sun, high in the sky, emitted a ray of light that passed through the rustling branches and spread through the window of a small isolated cottage, flooding the interior with a soft, golden glow.

The fluffy dust particles float around aimlessly illuminated by the sunlight. The light then touched upon the brilliant orange fur of a fox, slowly arising him from his slumber. He awakens disappointingly, like a zombie rising from his coffin. He brings his upper body upwards, lowering his bare feet to the hard, wooden floor below.

Walking over to the kitchen, he fills a small ceramic bowl with water, takes a bag filled with brown mushrooms, crushes them, then mixes them into the bowl. He plops himself on a chair soon after. He takes a quill and a book on the edge of a table, then dips the quill in an inkpot. He writes,

I'm not exactly sure what to do today other than farming those stubborn cartots again. The dirt is always stiff and cold, but they manage somehow. I know I shouldn't complain, I mean I'm pretty fortunate, but it just gets boring sometimes. He then continues, Viridian, if only you could do something right. You're all alone now, with only yourself to speak to. If only the next change could be a change for the good...

The name Viridian sounded a bit weird to him, it even felt weird writing it. Now that was an odd name. His mother named him that for his rare blue-green eyes. "Like the soft sea blanketing the unknown depths of the Earth." she used to say. Maybe the name was a bit lame, but he wasn't one to complain much. After all, it was his only memory from back home.

Suddenly, his head perks up towards the front door window, absorbing a slight breeze from the outside. With a short, deep sigh, he stands up, lazily waddles to his clothes rack, and shuffles his feet into his leather shoes. He opens the front door and the weather greets him with a bitter chill as he halfway opens the creaky, stubborn wooden door.

The breeze blows against his fur to the left as he walks to the small garden, picking up a hoe leaning against a stool and reaches for the carrots, clinging on to dear life against the icy weather. Viridian was chilled to the bone, but he thinks quietly to himself. "Someday, perhaps." he thought. "Someday..."

The day goes by slowly. The sun descends from it's divine placement within the sky as it sinks into the earth, exploding in vibrant pinks and oranges flourishing across the horizon. Viridian, now exhausted and fatigued, sets his hoe back onto the stool and walks back to his darkened stone hut. With a satisfying closing of the outside door, he walked over to a stand and struck a match upon the wood to light a candle, preparing to head off to bed. But as he walked across the hallway into the bedroom, something odd struck him and twisted his nerves.

The feeling was unexplainable.
His two paws shook in disturbance uncontrollably, as if his arms were possessed. Sweat traveled down his face, and his eyes were open and alert. As he reached for the bedroom doorknob, a loud shriek was released from the distance.

Viridian was frighteningly confused from the noise. He knew it wasn't just an echo from the mountains or the breeze squeezing in through the small crevices in the windows. It was something otherworldly. The fox had his whole body shiver and vibrate in fear. But in the midst of his cowardice, curiosity tapped into his brain, like a small child tugging onto his trousers, pleading to go outside. He shuffled his feet up through the kitchen to the front door, and placed his trembling paw onto the doorknob. Without even thinking twice, he shoved the door open and glimpsed into the darkness.

Almost immediately he gasped and covered his mouth. His eyes were rounded and stiff at the terror before him. What stood in place was a large, beastly wolf on his porch.

He was limping; his left foot appeared to be twisted abnormally. He stared directly back at the horrified Viridian but struggled to stand still. Streams of blood trailed down from his upper forehead. Patches of his dark gray fur were blotched in a disgusting dark reddish hue scattered across his body. The wolf mouthed something indistinguishable at Viridian, but before he could continue, his eyelids covered the wolf's pearl eyes as he slowly lost his balance and collapsed into the hard dirt.