The Dreamer

Prologue

"Eira, do we really have to go to the zoo? Can't we just go get ice cream or something?" my sister Mia whines. "No, it's farther away from home." I glance at her from the corner of my eye to see her rolling her eyes at me. She's only two years younger than me and we're polar opposites. Sometimes I wonder how we're even related. She likes to go out and party while I like to stay locked in my room to read and draw. She's known to be popular and a flirt while I'm known as quiet and reclusive. Though she seems like the stereotypical popular type, she likes to stick close to her small group of friends and she's not at all a bad person. Annoying? Yes, but aren't we all at some point?

"What's so fun about the zoo anyway?" she whines again already getting on my nerves. "Inspiration," I replied blankly. She groans, dragging her feet closely behind me. "But you can get inspiration from ice cream and boys. You know, like normal girls our age?" I roll my eyes and stop to turn to her. "Fine, we can get ice cream, but it'll be from here. Besides, it's been a while since we've been here." She nods with a slight smile and a sudden twinkle of excitement in her eyes.

We walk side by side, Mia not dragging her feet and whining anymore with our ice creams in hand. As we continue wandering and looking around at the animals, Mia starts to feel more excited about being here. I feel proud that she's finally being excited doing something I had suggested. "What's that?" she asks pointing to a sign.

I look in curiosity and shrug. In front of us sits a poster of a black wolf with bold white letters on it. I've never seen an animal so beautiful. I stare at the mysterious creature while Mia reads the caption out loud. "It's a new attraction," she states with wonder and curiousity. She turns to me with eager eyes and starts pulling my arm. I follow her without a word of objection to it. I was interested in finding out more about the beautiful creature.

Mia pushes and shoves people aside, dragging me behind her as I apologize to them for her eager attitude. We pass the elephants, camels, monkeys, and big cats on our way there. The number of people surrounding us doubles. Soon, I realize that we got there. People are pushing and shoving each other aside to get a better look at it. I see small kids sitting on their parent's shoulders to get a better view. Small chatters of awe travel to my ears. When Mia got us to the rail, I feel my breath catch.

The purely black wolf stood there, pretending not to notice the crowd of people surrounding his cage. I blink and smile at how the sun reflects off its pitch dark coat. As if now noticing everyone around, it looks up, but instead of just looking around and going back to doing what it was doing, it looks straight at me. I notice that its eyes are extremely weird. I've never seen anything like it before. They're bright red. I can see them even at a far distance away.

We stare at each other for who knows how long. I smile and wave at it as if it would do the same, but it looks away and lies down. "Huh, they don't have any information about it." I look down and see that there's a place that information about the animals would usually be placed, but there's only a name and gender. A name that feels wrong. I can't explain what it is, but looking and reading the name, Nico feels like it doesn't belong. I look back at the wolf and said the name in my head.

It just feels wrong. "I don't think that's its name." Mia looks at me with confusion written on her face and I knew she was going to start mocking me. I knew the moment the words slipped past my lips. "You don't think Nico is his name? What are you talking about? Do wolf mothers give their babies names like us?" she laughs. "How would you know? Did you happen upon a new mother wolf and help name it?" I narrow my eyes, frown, and poke her with my elbow.

"Hey," she says. "It was a joke. Lighten up." I keep my eyes on the wolf and try to ignore her mocking words. "Where do you think they found it?" I shrug, watching the wolf closely. Its fur seems darker than normal wolves. Usually, there are hints of whites, browns, or greys mixed in, but he's purely black. I watch as he slowly breaths, his eyes closed as he sleeps. I can't imagine trying to sleep in a noisy place like this with the animals calling out to each other and the humans clattering about. It'd be nearly impossible for me. "We should go. It's getting late." Mia tugs on my arm again, pulling me away from the somehow mysterious creature.

********

When we got home, I immediately go into my room while Mia sits with our parents. "Antisocial freak!" she yells after me. In response, I hold up a thumb to her as I walk away. Closing the door behind me, I sit down on my bed and start playing music as I take out my sketchbook and pencils. All I can think about is that moment when the wolf stared straight at me. It was like he could see through me.

The memory plays through my head on repeat and my hand starts to move, dragging the lead across the paper to create lines, which slowly creates shapes, then a conplete image. I sat there for hours, staring at the paper, watching as the picture came together. When I'm done, I look at it. It's the same scene that's been playing in my head for what is probably hours now. I stare at it just as I had stared at the wolf earlier. There's something about it that fascinates me. Whatever it was, I knew I had to go back, and I will.

*********

Weeks went by and I went back to the wolf several times now. Each time I went, it seemed like there were fewer people there to stare at its beauty. I planned on going after school, but as usual, something happened that made me feel the need to lock myself in my room. At school, I try to stay in the shadows. I don't like a lot of attention on me and I don't talk to anyone. Not unless they talk to me first which hardly happens. Unfortunately, because of this, I actually bring more attention to myself than I want. My own peers think I'm mentally unstable or something.

It might have to do with how I always keep my head down or always wear a black sweater to try and blend in with the shadows. "Hey," I suddenly hear someone call out to me. I didn't want to turn around. I keep walking forward until I'm pulled back. I see a group of three girls, Clara, the leader, and JJ and Ava, the followers. Everyone knows them of course. I stay silent as they look me over. When Clara spots my sketchbook, she snatches it from my grasp and starts looking at it. I try to grab it back, but she pushes me away.

"Wow, these are good!" My eyes widen and my brows shot up in fear when she starts tearing out pages. "Hey!" She let each of them go to flutter in the wind, but I caught each of them before they could permanently disappear. "Just get rid of those and you should be good." She drops my book to the ground and walks away, talking with her followers.

I pick up my book, quickly stuffing my drawings back inside to leave as soon as I can. She tore each and every one of them out, ripping pieces of myself to flutter with them. Thankfully, I caught what I could. I checked to make sure that I have all of them just in case. A sense of relief washed over my mind when all of the drawings are accounted for. I feel like each piece of me that was torn was taped back to me. I feel my eyes sting with unshed tears and I quickly stuff my book into my bag and hurry off.

*******

I got to the zoo and immediately went to the black wolf's exhibit. It's just lying in there. There's no one else around and I just stare at the wolf. "Long day, huh?" I ask it, feeling crazy about it, but I didn't know what else to do. It feels comforting being able to talk to him without having to worry about the wolf spilling anything to anyone.

As soon as I spoke, the wolf's head snaps in my direction. It stares at me like the first time I saw it. I smile and drop my backpack to the ground. "Yeah, me too." I sigh and lean on the railing. "Must suck to be stuck alone in a cage." I sit down on a stone bench next to the cage. I can feel the animal's eyes follow me as I pull my sketchbook out, but a quick wind blows over me. The sketchbook flips open, releasing all of my stray drawings. I press down on them with my elbow, but some manage to slip through.

"Seriously?" I quickly close my book again and put it back so no more can escape. I was able to catch some of them but lost one in the wolf's cage. "Dang it." I see the wolf still looking at me and I sigh. "You know what?" I say, "Keep it. It won't do me any good anyway." Despite my cool tone and dismissive words, I'm still a little bummed about it though. It was the wolf drawing too.

I decide to keep my drawings hidden in my bag until I got home. I just sat there, spoke to the wolf like the crazy person I am and after a bit, I decided to go back home. I bid the wolf farewell and left. I would go back tomorrow of course. How could I not?