Age of Sagacity

Chapter 1: Awakening

I threw my legs over the side of the small twin bed and felt the cold wooden floor beneath my rather long feet. The moonlight bathed my skin in a soft blue-silver glow as I crept toward the window. The nightmare had left me staring into the somber darkness with a raging pulse-- my breath coming in short gasps then long sighs as the kick of adrenaline wore off. I had since calmed by staring at the flicker of moonlight shimmering off the back of the gold and black spider in my window who was hard at work threading a strand of web over and under and through the others. The nightmare had haunted me for years, yet even as the dream itself barely changed, the images were never any less real. I slid the black journal off the bedside table, the one with the moonlit forest scene and wolf head on the cover and opened it to the first unused page. I let my pencil dance along the page as I tried to capture all I could before consciousness stole it away. Date, time, and then line by broken line of descriptions and words. Wolf amber eyes shining back in the reflection of the spring-- rings of deep blackish brown circling the outer part of the iris with deep chocolate brown flecks of color keeping the amber from being pure and untouched. Pine trees-- I smelled pine trees and wet dew-covered grass. The taste of copper slid over my tongue. He was only a faint movement at the corner of my eye forcing me to turn. He was running in for the kill with a silver blade poised to strike my throat. I felt his anger and fear as I locked those deep wolf amber eyes on him. I felt my teeth sink into his throat and the taste of blood fill my mouth-- so hot and sweet and metallic.

I always woke then-- my jaw sore and teeth aching. Before I had been the one hunted by the amber eyes. I felt the fangs of the black beast who owned them pierce my own tender flesh in the beginning. One night, however, the eyes danced in front of my own and married with mine so that my own reflection cast back the haunted look of years of killing and hunting. I woke up screaming that night a year ago. Now as I closed the dream journal and set the pencil back among the sleeping pills and antipsychotics in my drawer I knew that whatever was haunting me was no longer out there searching for me. She had found me, and she lurked around every corner just waiting for me to drop my conscious barriers so she could roam free; she was hungry.

I'd been having the recurring nightmare since I hit puberty like a brick wall eight years ago and had one journal for each year since then. I set this one back in the drawer and pushed myself up to stand by the window. As I gazed up at the shadowy clouds I shivered-- not a cold shiver but one that appeared out if nowhere as if a ghostly hand had trailed it's pale fingertips along the back of my neck. My heart leapt in my chest as if it had hiccuped. I watched the front porch lights flicker as several moths and small summer bugs fluttered around the bulb which faded to broken pieces of memories long since but hardly forgotten.

Doctors and relatives all gathered around my bedside under flickering fluorescent lights as I woke from the drug-induced sleep. They whispered of damage and normalcy. I remembered them laying hands on me and tears glimmering in their eyes. I was only six. My arm was in a cast and sling, my ribs aching dully as I cried out for my mother. She came to me with wet cheeks and delicately kissed my face careful to avoid the jagged cut across my cheekbone. I still had the faint white line of a scar down my face. Claws, like human fingernails, leave scars like faint reminders of the sharp pain they once caused.

I traced over it now as I turned my back to the window. The doctors all had theories about what happened to me that day. Stray dog bite, angry neighbor kids, bike accident were just a few. No one knew the truth except me, but my mother fought tooth and nail to keep quiet the fact that I had been able to crawl off down the road and make it to the busy road on the other side of the woods by our house before anyone was the wiser. She still blames herself. My father was the one to find me after a shaggy-haired boy on his bike came knocking on the door asking if they were missing a little blonde girl. Cell phones were just a nice perk for the rich back then and it was pure chance he had seen me at all.

I picked up my stuffed toy bear with the matted fur from the floor. I brushed him off gently and hugged him close as I attempted to straighten the coiled up sheets and blankets.The worn fuzzy bear was my security. No matter what happened I could depend on him to give me a small amount of perfect unquestioning love without needing something in return. My family didn't understand that kind of love; there was always a take with their give even if it was latent in their asking of it. They weren't the worst family ever, I am sure there are much worse, but there were a lot of unspoken and mysterious black holes turning the hearts of the ones close to me to an infected slice of Swiss cheese. Sometimes I felt like I didn't belong with the family I was born with. I remember looking at the pictures tucked haphazardly into old latching trunks to see the little girl I used to be. She had soft blue eyes still untouched by evil and worldly chaos. Her smile always tugging at the corners of her mouth even if she was glaring with fierce determination at the bicycle she would never really conquer riding without injury. That wasn't me. I don't have any memories of that innocent girl. Since then it's been one disaster after another as if my loom was left unattended by the three Fates.

I stretched out on the top of the sheets and rolled myself into the middle of the piles of blankets taking up most of the bed. I always slept surrounded by warm blankets and pillows. I curled up on my side as I felt the weight of sleep wash over me again. I fought to keep my eyes open as my body relaxed in stages-- first my toes, then my legs and arms, then my chest found an even calm rhythm. Tomorrow was my 21st birthday. Surely, I thought, it would be a good day if only I could survive the night. My body agreed and my eyes slammed shut.