Snowmelt

VII

Right as I finish with my various tasks, a hunting party returns, pulling a large buck besides them. Along with the rest of the pack, I move towards them, on the edge of the forest that surrounds our camp. But instead of getting close, I hang back, listening to my gut and earning an approving nod from Omega and Birch.

As soon as every wolf in the pack had gathered, Firetrail steps forward, slow but confident. The pack, rowdy only moments before, falls silent, almost reverent. I watch, grotesquely mesmerized, as he places a paw on the body of the deer, places his jaws tenderly around the deer's neck, then, in one smooth motion, digs his teeth deep into the neck of the creature and tears its head off, lapping up the blood that seeps out. As he turns to face the rest of the pack, they howl, up at the stars that pepper the sky, with me adding my own howl to the mix, though not nearly as enthusiastically as some of my packmates. I watch as his eyes bounce from pelt to pelt, face to face, until they land on me. The dark green that resides there is blank and emotionless, almost as though he had done it a million times before, as though he no longer had a reaction. Then, the howling coming from the wolves surrounding me slowly faded to silence. 

Firetrail turned to the buck and buried his muzzle into the flank, remaining that way until he had seemingly eaten his fill. Then, in one fluid motion, he turned his head skyward and let out a low, mournful howl, as though he was full of unimaginable grief. As I listen to the notes that now filled the night air, I wonder what could be causing him such grief, especially at what seemed to be a time of celebration. When he stopped howling and the notes evaporated, it still seemed as though their shadow, their ghost, remained, leaving a chill in the air and shivers in my spine. The eerie atmosphere is shattered by a single bark, emanating from the same throat that had created it. 

"Eat!" The single word hangs in the silence for a fraction of a second before the Beta, Dust, steps forward and digs into the deer, along with his mate, Brink. They are soon followed by the Gamma, Sand. After that, the eating order is less organized, but still there. The last wolf to go up to the deer before I do is Paleleaf. When I finally reach the deer, I realize just how little meat is left, and just how not-hungry I am, so I take a few bites and step back. Omega reaches the carcass, and what few morsels of meat were left disappear within moments. As she walks back to where she had previously been, before going to get the scraps, she gives me a small smile. 

Only then does it occur to me that I may have been what stood between her and a meal, however measly, and I let her have that. I didn't eat everything that was left even though I didn't want it like I suspected some wolves might have, but instead ate what little was my fill and gave the rest to her. Did I just gain an ally? I wonder, but stay silent and still, except for a single nod in response to Omega.

When we return to the camp, I head in the direction of my sleeping spot. I feel extremely tired all of a sudden. As though the blood has been drained from my body. A shiver races down my spine as I recall the headless, and slightly bloodless, deer body. Why do I feel like that was me?  Hunted, caught, killed, and bled dry in front of the howling hordes that wanted me dead from the beginning... I shake out my pelt slightly, as though the unnerved feeling creeping up my spine will be stopped by the simple movement. It isn't, but I choose to ignore it. 

When I reach my sleeping spot, I curl up on the bed of leaves I had placed there earlier in the day and look skyward, watching the stars as they inched their way up from behind the trees and into my line of sight, taking in what I can of the slice of sunset that I see at the same time. As I watch the few constellations that I know emerge from behind the trees, I start to smile, softly at first, then I burst into a grin. Even here, even with everything that has changed so quickly, the stars remain the same. Maybe it's the same with me... I guess I'll have to wait and find out if that's true in the end. I feel the grin fade from my face as questions swarm within my head. But shouldn't I expect that to happen? Isn't that the whole point of life, of trying new things? To change yourself, whether it ends up for better or for worse?  I rise to my paws, shaking out my pelt and turning in circles, trying to shake the uneasy feeling that is trying to make its way from the center of my spine to both the base of my neck and the base of my tail at the same time. 

As I settle back down, I notice something within the stars I had never seen before. A small cluster of stars, barely differentiated, but I could see six small ones and a single, slightly larger, one, swirling together. As I watched more closely, I could actually see the individual stars moving, swirling closer together and farther apart as time went on, in an endless cycle of near and far, never slowing, never speeding up, never getting any farther or closer than the last time. Instead, the stars around them dimmed, until they were the only lights left in the sky besides the moon. When I realize this, I look around to see if any of my packmates noticed the change in lighting, but they had disappeared. I look back up at the swirling stars, and they had stopped moving, stopped at seemingly random places, as though they were trying to hide the fact that they had been moving mere moments ago. When I glance at the surrounding sky, all of the other stars had returned to their full glow, though none shone quite as bright as the central star of the group had been, or still was, though it had ether been dimmed or simply muted by the surrounding stars.

I glance around, and my packmates are moving around as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The uneasy feeling I had been fighting since the deer returned, and I simply gave up on trying to get rid of it, allowing it to have free roam. I shiver and tuck my muzzle underneath my front paws, curling tightly in on myself.

Eventually, however, the bottomless abyss of sleep pulls me into its unrelenting grasp, and the world turns pitch black, and I become the only light source in a world of darkness. 

(Cryptic, huh? Hope you liked it! And I hope you enjoy what comes next... And also, I recently updated my bio... Might want to check it out!)