The Werewolf [COMPLETE]

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I was breathing in and out, in and out, in and out, listening to my heartbeat, its slow thudding, its regular drumming, and my chest was trembling, and the walls, the floor, the ceiling were throbbing, to a low rhythm, a low, low, low rhythm and the air was humming, a mother's melody to her belly, a father's lullaby to his infant, and the room was echoing the soft tune, and it was so soft to my ears, so soft to my heart and my mind. There was no dark and there was no light, I didn't shiver from the cold, I didn't sweat litres and litres under the heat, I wasn't hungry, I wasn't thirsty, I wasn't—

I was.

I simply was.

I was silent, no one shouted murder, no one shrieked or screamed, everything was hushed, muffled, muted. I was calm, I wasn't a tornado uprooting trees anymore, I wasn't a downpour inflaming a lake, crying nose and running eyes, I wasn't hurting, I wasn't feeling, I wasn't living—

A thunderbolt crashed over my head, tearing through my body, the walls, the door. Blasting a second time, against the roof and the ceiling, against the door. Bursting a third time, through the bricks and the cement, through the timber of the door, through the door.

The door.

It was coming from the door, the noise, the pounding and the hammering. I couldn't ignore it, it was persistent, insistent, incessant. I unwrapped my arms from my legs, I pushed my thighs away from my chest, and my knees away from my face, and I stood up. I stumbled but I didn't sway. I didn't know why I was following the noise, but I was. So I walked on, I tripped and fell. I walked on.

I reached the door and grazed its rough surface with my palm. It jolted and jerked underneath my hand. There was a violence to it, a raw violence that made me shiver and draw my hand back.

I was backing away when my ears caught something over the banging. It was a voice, and there were words, many words, too many words, I couldn't understand their message or their meaning, but I could understand the tone. The tone I knew. It was despair. And a word, a single word filtered through the door.

"Help!"

My body reacted. Fast. Faster than my brain trying to process the word, the simple, so simple word. My hand lurched for the door handle, twisted it up and down, up and down, up and down, pushed and pulled, and my feet kicked the door, repeatedly, and my mouth opened, the sounds and the words and the sentences rushed out.

"I'm coming to get you! Hang on! I'm going to help you! I'm going to help you!"

The voice on the other side grew more and more hysteric. It begged me to help it, it begged me to save it, it begged me to let it in. Just let it in.

"I'm there! I'm almost there! Just hang on!" But the door wasn't budging. Why wouldn't it budge? It just had to open. Just open. It had to open. It had to op—

And everything stopped. The door stopped shaking. The voice stopped screaming.

It was over.

"No!" I slammed my body against the frame. "NO!" I slammed against the door again, "NO!" and again, "NO!" and again.

The door lurched open and I smashed against cold nothingness, hurling out of the room and crashing onto the ground, the cold ground, the icy ground... the snow. There was snow everywhere, miles and miles of snow, and the wind was tearing into my skin, piercing into my flesh, cutting me on my arms, my shoulders, my neck, and the sun, the sun was blinding me, assaulting me with shards of light, and there was no one. No one asking or begging for help, just me. Me on a vast hill of emptiness and the door, hanging open in the air, with no house and no walls, just a door. I looked at the blank plain behind me, and just then, at my back, I heard a slamming.

The door was closed. And there was no handle on this side. I was locked out. I was locked in. It didn't matter. I was locked away.

I bolted to the door and bashed my fists against it. Help. Help. Help!

And on the other side, an answer. The door shook, not from my hands, not from my feet, from someone else's hands and feet, from someone else.

"Please! Please help me! Let me in! Just let me in!"

A voice spoke back to me, trying to talk to me, to reassure me, to tell me that she was there, that she was almost there, repeating that she was almost there, and that she wasn't leaving me alone here, she was coming, she was coming to get me. And the words, her words, I knew them all before she spoke them, I knew them all because I had spoken them before her.

My fists on the door faltered, my hands fell to my sides and I stared at the door. On the other side, she was bruising and hurting herself to come to my help. The door wouldn't hold long, she would hit it and she would burst it open.

She would come out.

I would come out. Again

I couldn't let her out, I couldn't let myself out. I had to tell her to stay inside. I had to find the words, she would understand, she would. It was better ins... It was bet... Was it better inside. Did I want her to stay inside. Did I want to stay inside. Did I want to be locked inside or outside?

It was my choice. No one would come and whisper the answer in my ear, no one would grab my hand and choose for me. I looked around and there was nothing but snow, a white ground, a white sky, and a black bird flying toward the horizon.

There was life.

It was cold, but there was life, somewhere, far away, far, far away, but somewhere.

And when the door was thrown open, my footprints on the snow had disappeared, my breath in the air had faded away, and I was long gone.