Candela: Wolf

The Twenty-Fourth Day

Her body was running as fast as it could. The speed was beyond what a human could run, but the men were so close behind her.

"GET IT! SHOOT AT IT!" One man's voice boomed behind her. Candela's paws sprung her and bounced her back and forth darting the trees, the bushes, the thickets, everything.

In her head it constantly flashed images of the pup's paw dangling around the man's necklace. The others had teeth. 

She was aching inside...it wasn't just the running that made her burn. Shots could be heard hitting wood, dirt, and bushes. Each gun fire raised her anxiety inches from what she could handle. Candela's mind was racing intensely; making lap after lap of horrid fear while feeling sorrow.

'I know what to do.' A thought as she darted across the rushing stream. Her legs pounced her just right over the rigid rocks just peaking out above the harsh current. Streams like this is common for her to jump over. She does it almost every night.

The screaming, name calling, rambunctious echos of the chasers had dimmed at the sight of the stream once she got far enough. It was her chance to get out of sight. She darted over the hill and into a denser part of the forest. Slowing down a bit to make sure her face doesn't get scared from any branches or thorns, finally she shuffled under trees that had fallen over and made a hole just big enough she could back into. 'There better not be snakes.' A worried thought appeared.

Holding still and catching her breath, small distant mumbles rose slightly to where it was heard. 

'Don't go over the hill. Don't go over the hill. Don't go over the hill.' 

The short pants were coming out as the muscles burned with exhaustion around her lungs. Those too felt as if pins and needles had been forced inside them.

Just for good measure her paws dug forward to push her back as far as the burrow would let her. Sounds weren't being picked up from the men. It was best to stay and wait. There was no rush to leave any time soon. 

Her now wolfed face was settling on the ground. All the muscles burned but were at ease for the moment. 

'Where do I go? Did they see the camp?" These weren't even close to half the questions to which was striking in her head. 

Candela was getting weary something bad will happen soon. There was a whisper of a notation telling her to leave now, but of course this aching sore wolf wasn't ready.

Hours later the waxing moon has been placed into the sky along with the beams of white stars. Candela was just waking up. Exhausted from the past events, her body finally crashed into a sleep, however she woke up naked on the ground. This was usual for her, but this still impacted her to hurry into wolf transformation once again.

Walking back her eyes were on alert to make sure nobody was out here. Luckily, the men were smart enough to leave.

Approaching camp that little whisper was now screaming in her head. 

She was screaming in her head.

The whole world was screeching all around her.

In the middle of that little section of cabins that once were a safe homestead...Okami.

Laying there dead in his red pool wounded on his side. She shifted over hovering her head down at the animal on her knees gripping his fur as she rocked forward and backward. "This can't be happening...This can't be happening...This can't be happening." The words spat out of her shaking and quivering with force.

The cold pool oozed as her knees were buried deep into it, whereas her hands panicked over him but only touching clean fur. 

There sat Candela in the dark naked and cold witnessing the last family member she had along her side die leaving her officially alone.